Tuesday 26 December 2006

Pic of the day: "Dragon on a Pedestal" by Piers Anthony. I'm not going to write about this old book, though, except to note that at least it was intentionally ironic.

Dragon books (or not)

"Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body." (Ecclesiastes 12, the Bible, New International Version.)

For a change, it is not my own making of books I write about. But I seem to get them once a week now, if not more, the e-mails from my primary book dealer. Fictionwise.com sell e-books in a number of formats, some of them with digital rights management ("secure e-books") and other without ("multiformat e-books"). I still think the prices are a bit on the up side, considering the zero material cost and zero storage cost. But overall they are cheaper than paperbacks already, even without postage cost, and the waiting time is seconds instead of days, always a good selling argument these days. "I want it and I want it now, I want it and I just can't wait" as Chris de Burgh sings in his highly amusing song.

But the thing is, there is no end to the writing of books. They just keep coming. I guess more and more of them are coming as e-books too, whereas in the past this was more of an exception. So even the very few genres and subgenres I actually might read, are getting crowded. In years gone by, I would read both science fiction and fantasy. Eventually I cut out pretty near all science fiction (though I sometimes happen upon a David Brin book with his delightfully alien aliens, and I just can't resist a good eyestalk). I would still buy the most common types of fantasy books: Epic fantasy, light fantasy and some Sword & Sorcery. But there are just too many of them, and they are just too similar. The weird names are made with the same Fantasy Name Generator, it sometimes seems. I have one built-in myself, and whenever I write fantasy I will Google for the names I've come up with. Usually the first ones are already used. Not all writers have access to Google, I guess. Perhaps they live in a wooden cabin without electricity in order to get the genuine writing experience. So it gets pretty hard to tell them apart sometimes.

***

"And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven." (Revelation 12, the Bible, New International Version.)

I recently bought one book called Eragon. (I had to look it up, though I remembered that it was something like "Aragorn". Though it probably started as a mistyping of Dragon.) I know this books must be a tad above average because there is already a movie based on it, and because I bought the paper version for a friend, evidently. (Or so Amazon.com claims, I have lost track, but I know I wouldn't order a paper book for myself unless it was really essential, as in nonfiction.) It's about a boy and a dragon in a place and time where there are a lot more boys than dragons.

What's with the plethora of good dragons anyway? They used to be evil or at least greedy. If they were not hoarding riches they were eating virgins, and Light knows if eating was all they did to them. Dragons were like a major archetype of evil, to the point where even the Bible used the term that way. Now they are like paragons of virtue. What? Is this the work of the Dragon in Revelation, or just Anne McCaffrey? Perhaps there is a secret accord between them? Or perhaps not specifically: All kinds of previously evil creatures have come over to the good side: Trolls, werewolves, vampires, djinns, even outright demons. I have mentioned before how I see this as an example of withdrawing our projections: We used to project our shadow, our dark side, outside ourselves in the form of these beasts. Now that we are accepting the fact that humans can be as evil as anything, the projections are drawn back and the beasties are allowed to become good.

Anyway, dragons. I won't give away the book, mostly because I have only read the beginning. It isn't really all that fascinating. But there is something eerily standardized about the good dragons already. The telepathy and the whole attitude. I think it is a safe bet that the author had read some dragon books already. At least this one doesn't seem to teleport (yet). I can't wait to see what weird mating rituals they have. OK, that was irony. I can wait. I am in no hurry to finish it, although I probably will. It is easier on the hands than writing my own, but slightly less interesting.

Oh, and I have His Majesty's Dragon and Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik. I doubt I'll read even the first of them through. It is well-written and original ... but if it hasn't come to the point by now, it probably won't, or at least I'm not going to wait it out. Or perhaps it was the intense manly noble affection between the man and his dragon that creeped me out. If I find out, I shall endeavor to inform you.

Oh, and Amazon is trying to sell me yet another book in the Wheel of Time series. These are not coming as e-books, like, ever. By now, unfortunately, it doesn't matter. At some point either I or Robert Jordan is going to die. I fully expect this to happen without the series being finished. But if it is, please inform me, and I shall reconsider. I already have one and three quarter of a book unread, though. And I do notice and savor the irony that the tentative main character in the series is called The Dragon Reborn. This was probably considered very original, to have a hero called Dragon, back when he first started it...