Bruce Holland Rogers

I always hesitate to re-read a book I loved as a kid, out of fear that it won't stand up to an adult's consumption and retroactively diminish my childhood enjoyment. But I remembered a few odd things about the book and wanted to re-visit it.

I still love it. This is, hands down, the best Magic novel. It isn't as blatantly Magic as, say, Arena is. (Not that Arena is bad, it is also the best Magic novel in its own way.) There's maybe one paragraph that references specific cards explicitly (aside from Hurloon minotaur).

A bit of the plot: Ayesh is the last survivor of a country/culture that was destroyed by goblin hordes. Upon realizing that despite her best efforts, time will distort the knowledge of her people, she goes from depressed to suicidal, and goes off into the countryside to die fighting goblins. Instead, she is captured by minotaurs to be used in a scientific and political battle. Conservative minotaurs wish to follow a strict literal interpretation of their scripture and continue warring with the goblins. Liberal minotaurs wish to try to essentially Uplift the goblins to the point where war is no longer inevitable (and thus, violate scripture that pronounces goblins as vermin and infidels). Ayesh's part in this is to help the uplift process by training the goblins in the ways of her people, a mix of meditation and martial arts.

The characterization is solid. There's very few characters I'd peg as having little depth - of the 10 goblins, only 2-4 are really fleshed out, and one minotaur, Betalem is decidedly one-note. Ayesh is fantastic, beginning the novel as a self-hating, nationalistic, obsessed individual with a (at least understandable) hatred of goblins. Her arc is realistic and satisfying, without being some cheesy and unbelievable 180 change in all things. The goblins that are developed have satisfying arcs as well, though not all are necessarily happy. There's a special type of horror to some of them, like Kler's execution, which takes place when she is rational, for a crime that she committed while irrational and essentially a different person.

The action in the novel is well-written, easy to follow, with emotional impact. The temptation with fantasy action, especially fantasy action with martial arts, is to name every single move as if giving it a name like Break Lion or Thousand Leaves makes it understandable, cool, or believable. Instead, we are given actual movements. Its refreshing.

The minotaur culture is well-done, though I would have liked to see it a bit more fleshed out. There's plenty of thoughtful details that emphasize the author actually thought about the physiology of the creatures in a way few fantasy writers seem to do- no, they wouldn't use traditional human-style chairs with that sort of knee articulation. The cast/country does seem a bit sparse - we are given that this is an entire country living in the mountains, but rarely see more than a dozen named characters. This is explained away as the labyrinth is dark (minotaurs require much less light to see than humans) and minotaurs are largely secretive, tucking themselves away in the tunnel equivalent of alleys and backways and peering through secret peepholes.

I can't review the book without noting the mindfulness theme within it. Ayesh could have been a great ACT therapist. The lessons she gives the goblins could have been ripped right from the ACT textbook I'm reading. Goblin mind, diamond mind? Sounds like self-as-content and self-as-context, and the mind labeling exercises. She alludes to the leaves on the stream exercise for clearing thoughts, of the exercise in which a pain or other aversive experience is imagined as a separate physical object, at mindfulness of one's present moment, starting with the sensations from sitting in the chair, at breathing, at acting appropriately towards one's values despite feeling 'negative' emotions. It was so neat to discover this new connection from a childhood love to an adult love.

If you are only going to read one Magic novel, let this be the one.… (mer)

A man begins describing what he sees in paintings at the art museum on his lunch break… and is soon being asked to provide interpretations of other things he sees – which makes mirrors a dangerous prospect. I feel like I knew where this story was going from very early on, and then it went there, and then it went meta about going there, and then I sighed, because of COURSE it did, but how can I critique a story about critiquing things for being too meta without being meta myself? It’s a conundrum.… (mer)