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"There will always be another adventure waiting."
Ryk E. Spoor
I won Phoenix Rising last summer in a Book Smugglers giveaway and have only just got around to reading it, which should give you some idea of how my TBR pile works. (I'm getting there, though!) It's not the kind of book I'd usually pick up in a bookshop: for a start, look at that cover. Also, high fantasy tends to put me off, because high fantasy writers tend to think they can do exactly what Tolkien did with a commensurate amount of success. (They can't.)
The point is, the deck was already quite stacked against Phoenix Rising when I started reading it. I was very sure I would hate it as much as I hated Raymond E. Feist's Magician (i.e., a lot). But…well, my opinion changed a little as I read it.
Phoenix Rising is a story of a world at war. Zarathan, world of magic, populated by every kind of fantasy race from the Artan elves to intelligent Toads, is attacked in every single population centre by mysterious dark forces led, it seems, from behind, by a dark god. Against this background of magical turmoil, Kyri Vantage of Evanwyl takes up the armour of a Justiciar, guardian of Justice and Vengeance; Prince Tobimar Silverun goes on a quest to discover his family's lost homeland; and Poplock Duckweed of Pondsparkle generally gets in the bad guys' way. Their various journeys intersect and interact and, in the best tradition of fantasy quests, become something greater, something that may help to defeat the evil forces spreading through Zarathan.
As I said, I was quite sure I would hate Phoenix Rising before I even opened it, and this was an opinion reinforced by the first few pages, which featured many of my least favourite fantasy novel features: the phonetic dialect that's always horrifically hard to read, the stilted, infodumpy dialogue, the cringeworthy characterisation, the mass of confusing names and conflicting scenes, the feeling of lost-ness ("what the heck is going on here?!").
But about the halfway mark it all starts to coalesce, to settle down and to get a lot more…well, fun. I'm not saying it's great literature; it isn't. But the world is a properly fantastical one, all magical races, mystical runes, haunted jungles. There's actually something one of the characters says that, in my view, perfectly describes all magical jungles, ever:
"But your people…lived in the jungle. So did the Artan, right?"
"Special people, special places, but it's never safe or civilized. People like us – adventurers – go in, but it's always a mystery."
And, sure, there's nothing really new in this world – the whole thing reminded me a little of those choose-your-own-adventure fantasy books I used to get out of the public library (I lost spectacularly every time) – but it's quite satisfying to live in for a while. Even the battle scenes, so often the bane of any fantasy novel (*cough*Helm's Deep*cough*) were well managed and exciting. Also, I was impressed by Kyri's role, which was, unusually for high fantasy, completely un-misogynistic: there was a point at which she might have been rescued by Tobimar, in a damsel-in-distress type scenario, but Spoor managed to avoid this particular trap with panache.
Finally – on a quite geeky note – I'm pretty sure some old friends rock up in disguise here. Firstly, there's a mysterious figure called the Wanderer who's described by one of the characters as a "trickster of a thousand faces". It occurs to me that this is eerily similar to Christopher Paolini's enigmatic description of the Doctor (yes, that Doctor) in Brisingr:
The trickster, the riddler, he of the many faces who finds life in death…
And there's a Sherlock fan among the cast of world-hopping Earthlings (yep, there's some of them here too):
…he's on the side of the angels, I think.
Not, of course, that these things had any bearing on how much I enjoyed Phoenix Rising. (They totally did.)


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|Up a level
Nagavallemma, K P and Wani, S P and Lacroix, S and Padmaja, V V and Vineela, C and Rao, M B and Sahrawat, K L (2004) Vermicomposting: Recycling Wastes into Valuable Organic Fertilizer.Global Theme on Agroecosystems Report no. 8. Monograph. International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics , Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Sahrawat, K L and Rego, T J and Wani, S P and Pardhasaradhi, G (2008) Stretching Soil Sampling to Watershed: Evaluation of Soil‐Test Parameters in a Semi‐arid Tropical Watershed. Communications in Soil Science and Plant Analysis, 39 (19-20). pp. 2950-2960. ISSN 0010-3624
Wani, S P and Shiferaw, B and Sreedevi, T K and Pathak, P and Singh, P and Sahrawat, K L and Mula, R P (2009) Poverty Pathways and Desertification: Strategy to Break the Unholy Nexus. In: Converting Deserts into Oasis. National Academy of Agricultural Sciences, New Delhi, India, pp. 28-45. ISBN 1933699418

subset: commoncrawl


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Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Nostalgia Bowie, Texas
If, for some ungodly reason, you ever end up having to visit the small town of Bowie, Texas, you should stop in at Nostalgia for a bite to eat. Their food is pretty good, they have a nice little daily special and the ambiance of the place is so ...well....nostalgic.
From wall to wall, ceiling to floor, antiques are everywhere. Hanging from the ceiling, stacked on the floor, in display cabinets and on shelves, they fill every square inch of the old building. Every time I go there seems like the first time because there is always some new cool "old" stuff to see. My favorite part is keeping an eye out for things I might have owned as a child or seen at my grandparent's house. When I find something it brings back those sweet memories of times gone by.
Oh...and just for the record...I would always go with the bread pudding for dessert. You just can't go wrong with it. :-)
This is an image from the My Town series I am working on. Hope you enjoy. :-)
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Jenny is stuck serving as Tuck's entry for the hit robot combat competition "Robot Wars". It may be barbaric to her, but how can she say no to such a cute face like Tuck's?
- The referee bears a resemblance to Ed Wynn, the voice of the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland.
- The Cluster returns in this episode.


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Saturday, March 13, 2010
"Sea of Troubles", by Donna Leon
Book 10 in the Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery series
Donna Leon's novels are based around corruption, public distrust and fear of government and police. This story opens when a fishing boat catches fire and sinks after a violent explosion. A subsequent investigation into the cause of the incident and the discovery of the owner and his son's bodies points to foul play.
The murder of the two fishermen of Pellestrina draws Commissario Brunetti to a tight knit community where villagers have grown suspicious to outsiders and are extremely loyal to each other. The Questore's secretary, Signorina Elettra offers to visit the island where she has relatives to covertly find out what the locals think and are not openly discussing with the police.
Brunetti finds himself not only having to confront the issues of her safety but also of his feelings for her….Guido knows he has a dangerous task ahead and anxiously waits to see what Elettra will uncover……
The plotting is excellent, highlighting family ties and personal friendships. Great character development exposes another side to the illusive Signorina Elettra, a person we known up to now as a machine like secretary. Yes she really has a personal side, a life off the job….This is a refreshing change of focus….As usual Brunetti's family life is part of the story. Woman's intuition leads his wife to be concerned about his working involvement with Elettra…The story ends with a violent storm that catches Brunetti completely off guard….
The novel is an asset to the series, another one I enjoyed.
Posted by Toni Osborne at 11:20 AM
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