Traveller's Tales

David Eddings died this week.

I first read him back in the early 80’s, when the only mass-market fiction was Tolkien, Brooks and Eddings, and when I was a very young and impressionable lad.  Oddly, I remember trying to get into the first series at book 3, not realizing it was a series, and had a wretched time of it, hiding the book under my bed in dismal failure (I got very upset in those days when I couldn’t get into a book).

A year later, I was (being forced to) clean under my bed, and I spied the book under a massive dust bunny.  Grimacing, I steeled myself, swearing I wouldn’t let this one escape again.

I didn’t.  It was glorious.  I picked up the other three in the series (the last one hadn’t come out yet) and devoured them all in a week.  His characters were awesome, their interactions so honest and believable that you had no problems believing you might one day run across Belgarath in the corner 7-11 picking up booze, or spy a uniformed Mandorallan pulling over a cursing Silk in a Corvette to give him a speeding ticket and a long, pointed lecture.  They resonated with each other, proved the strength of the ensemble performance in the fantasy genre, and it really didn’t matter what the book was about, because it was about them.

While I will not say that my writing style borrows from him in any particular way, he is most certainly a great influence in my work, in that he made me want to write.

I think it’s time to give the Belgariad another read.

Thanks again, David.  Well done.

Safe travels.

I blather on enough about what I’m writing, I should take some time out to blather on about how I’m entertaining myself, too.

I’m reading fantasy again! I haven’t in ages. I probably shouldn’t admit that, but there it is. It’s partially spurred by the marketing need of working out who my writing’s most like so I can be marketed properly, but it’s also nice to see it’s not quite the same field as it was the last time I read.

Right now I’m reading George R. R. Martin (no relation to J. R. R. Tolkien despite the pair of “R”s). I quite like his work and am definitely finding certain similarities between his style and mine; though the differences are at least as numerous as the similarities, the brutal honesty of his stories are something I’m fond of in my own writing, and that may perhaps be the strongest tie between the two. I’ve zoomed through A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings quickly enough before I realized much time had passed; that said, they are large books, and I’m finding the third book, A Storm of Swords, slightly slower going — not the author’s fault, I don’t think, it’s just been almost three thousand pages in a row of the same story and I think I’m feeling a little fatigued by it all. That’s not stopping me from putting it in my bag and devouring it eagerly as I wait for my trains in the morning, but it’s definitely worth taking a short break between this book and the next (good thing, too, as it’s not out until November). Any rate, I’m probably the only fantasy reader who hasn’t read him yet, but if you haven’t, do.

I’m also playing World of Warcraft. A lot. Probably too much. They should probably have an ‘Online Gamers Anonymous’ where people are forced to sit in a room together without any internet and stand up to say ‘Hello, my name is Chris Finch and I am a MMORPGaholic.’ Seriously.

I’ve also got Arx Fatalis loaded on my laptop. Great game, if a little older now, and it runs like a champ on my laptop so it’s a cool gaming fix when I’m on the train. Doesn’t even require the CD in the drive, bless ‘em.