Category Archives: good things

I was brows­ing at the shrine to the “Twi­light” vam­pire series at one the down­town chain book­store that has a decent sci-fi/fantasy and poetry sec­tion and observed the after­math of the Harry Pot­ter books.  I’ve never read these books, but I see peo­ple of all dif­fer­ent ages and social groups read­ing them on the train (much like Harry Pot­ter) that I wanted to flip through them.  So I’m read­ing through parts of the four? one mil­lion? in the series when I hear two younger male voices to my left.

“Nah, man, that movie adap­ta­tion was lousy, and the way I pic­tured them, they just didn’t look like that in the movie.”

“Yeah.  And they really left out major plot points.  I kind of hope they don’t do any more movies because it kinda ruins my enjoy­ment of the books.”

I look up, and there are two boys, 17–19-ish in local col­lege sweat­shirts, jock builds and hair­cuts, and by all accounts just your nor­mal teenage boys.  So I ask–

“Are they any good?  I’ve never read them, I’m more of a swords & sor­cery type, but I see every­one read­ing them…”

They both became quite eager to tell me that while “her writing’s kinda spotty, the char­ac­ter inter­ac­tions are amaz­ing and the story’s com­pelling.”

The taller, scruffier, more jock-like one then says “Yeah.  The Edward/Bella thing is awe­some.  I love all that girly stuff.”

The other one nods.  “I’ve got all the High School Musi­cals on DVD.”

So then I repeat I’m not fond of vampires.

Says the tall scruffy one who loves girly stuff– “Well, they’re not as vio­lent as the Anne Rice ones or as kinky and weird as the Lau­rell Hamil­ton ones.  They’re good.  It’s mostly romance and teen angst with vam­pires thrown in for adventure.”

I ask where these books rate com­pared with Harry Pot­ter or Phillip Pull­man, and they both go “Pull­man,” with­out miss­ing a beat.  Then the girly stuff one says, “Of course Pullman’s way bet­ter.  But these ones are good.”

Then the qui­eter one says “What kind of sword & sor­cery stuff?”

I ask him who else he’s read, and he tells me the usual sus­pects (Robert Jor­dan, et. al.), so I say “Eliz­a­beth Moon and Lois McMas­ter Bujold both have action-packed but character-driven sci fi and fan­tasy books with strong nar­ra­tives,” and the he tells me he’s heard that Moon wrote some “Deed of Paks-se-something” (Pak­sen­nar­ion) series that he’s sup­posed to read.

I tell him that yes, he should read it, and that it’s Tolkein­ish with­out being quite so dry.

“Is it epic?  I love epic shit.”

I laugh and con­firm that it’s epic.

The other one says “Man, I tried Tolkien but all that poetry and stuff, it breaks up the story and it’s kind of stilted and disjointed.”

I tell them both to read more fan­tasy, then go back later and they’ll enjoy see­ing where ALL the basic themes for fan­tasy books come from.

The quiet one then says “Oh– so it’s like meta-fantasy, hunh?”

I nod.  He looks at me again.  “Eliz­a­beth Moon?”  I nod again.  “Thanks.”

“Come on, dude,” he says to his com­pan­ion, and off they saunter, directly to the sci-fi/fantasy section.

Any­one who thought Harry Pot­ter was a one-off sen­sa­tion is nuts.  These two teen boys got all con-crit in a down­town Bor­ders.  I was so charmed and delighted I wanted to invite them home, make them tomato soup and grilled cheese, and say “Have at them, Boys,” while point­ing at my bookshelves.

Although now that I think of it, I should have rec­om­mended the Patrick O’Brien series.