I
have been clearing out some room by reading my husband’s books—even those that
involve battles and political intrigue, which aren’t my usual cup of tea, but
which my DH adores. If I don’t do this periodically, my house would be covered
in books…literally. I only keep those books that I plan to read over and over
again. But all books are treasures, of course, so I don’t throw any of them
away: they go into a box to donate to my local library. And regardless of the
genre, a book won’t leave my home until I have a chance to read it.
So
in the last few months I have read over a dozen fantasy and science fiction
books, most of them with just a little romance tossed in as a minor subplot
(which is one reason why I started writing fantasy romance). Often, there’s
lots of agony, blood, guts and the political intrigue, and I focus on the
romance more in my head than what’s written on the page. Regardless, I find
most of the books fantastic, and many just darn good. I have yet to find a book
that I haven’t learned something from, or isn’t praise-worthy in some way.
And
so I came across a book of the type of fantasy I love. (Her Majesty’s Wizard by
Christopher Stasheff) A hero from our modern world travels back in time and can
do magic. He rescues a princess, and is attracted to her. He meets a dragon who
doesn’t fit in with his own kind, and they become friends. They meet a dark
enchantress, who lures men into her castle for pleasures of the flesh, and our
hero defeats her magic, and she loses her powers…and is taken to a priest to be
shriven. And said priest turns out to be a werewolf, and has passions of the
human flesh, so he has evil in his soul.
And
then it starts to get all about religion, as our hero has a long dream about
hell and the devil and the evil in his own heart. He must overcome this evil,
overcome his ‘lust’ for the princess. Now, my books are all about lust, and how
it leads to love. So this black and white thinking now has me puzzled. So I
read the bio in the back of the book.
The
author realized that many fantasies are medieval, and in medieval times, people
saw God in everything—and the devil waiting to pounce at the first hint of sin.
And so he set about writing a ‘realistic’ fantasy. Hence, writing a story that
delved into the author’s own questions about faith.
This
was the author’s own quest, in a way. No one else could have written this book
quite the way he did. And although the hero does ask the princess to marry him
in the end, it’s in a rather (unique) way. Sort of like an argument between the
two of them.
My
point is, no matter how many thousands of books are printed each year, no
matter that they carry similar concepts (for fantasy, we usually have dragons,
trolls, and the ultimate evil are demons), every author tells their story in a
different way, from their own perspective. With perhaps similar themes, but
never exactly the same.
It
doesn’t matter whether critics, awards, or bestselling status lauds a book.
Each is a work of art, unique in the hand of the author who writes his story
with broad strokes of a brush. And in my humble opinion, there is no book that
is published that doesn’t deserve the honor of that praise.
My
Magical Best,
Kathryne
http://www.KathryneKennedy.com
