I finished up listening to 7th Son this morning on my way to work, and it was a little like what I imagine it must feel like to come down off a high.  Three novels’ worth of hard-hitting, gut-wrenching action ends with a bittersweet goodbye to our heroes and a feeling of loss that says, Oh, great.  What am I supposed to listen to now_?_ I just wanted to keep on listening, to stay with these characters that I’ve come to love so well.  J.C. has certainly done a fabulous job of weaving his tale of science fiction, horror, and intrigue, and I hope that he is successful in getting the trilogy into print.  I know I’ll have a copy of the set on my bookshelf as soon as he does.

And the man is just sick in the way he doesn’t let up on you.  Even in the final chapter, he doesn’t let you find complete resolution.  It’s close, but not close enough.  And the epilogue, of course, just leaves the lid off of that can of worms ever so slightly.  Leaving your foot in the door for a possible follow-up are we, J.C.?  Hm?  Man, that would be a joyride of undoubtedly epic proportions.

If you haven’t checked out 7th Son, then you’re missing out.  Go click on the link above and start downloading and listening.  Or grab J.C.’s iTunes feed from his website and pull it directly into your iPod.  It’s good stuff – just like shooting up on heroin.  (I’m guessing…)

Here’s a poll for your Thursday:

If you could pick any technology of the future to adopt right now (assuming, of course, such a thing was possible), what would you choose?

For me, I’ve always loved the notion of neural implants, particularly the neural nanonics in Peter F. Hamilton’s Emberverse series.  The idea of having a computer embedded right into my brain so that I could do everything I love to do so much more quickly and easily just makes me giddy with delight.

What would you choose?

I’m currently working my way through Sara Douglass’ The Wayfarer Redemption series.  It’s a maddeningly enjoyable 6-volume fantasy series about a warrior’s magical quest to reunite the land Tencendor and defeat an evil monster bent on total destruction.

The series is maddening in two ways.  The first is in the style of storytelling that Douglass employs.  The series is built on a cryptic prophecy foretelling the rise of the evil Gorgrael and the powerful Starman, the latter of whom will find it his destiny to defeat the former (if he can) and reunite the three races – the Acharties, the Icarii, and the Avar – into one land once again.  As a result of the prophetic foundation of the series, there are numerous mysteries to be unwrapped and pieced together.  It’s almost frustrating to read through a passage and have it make almost no sense whatsoever – Douglass really likes to use foreshadowing without giving away too much of the actual story – only to have to wait while things occur to finally place that passage into context, but it’s also really fun to watch as those cryptic sections are made clear in subsequent chapters.  I have to admit to being captivated by her choice of technique, even if it does drive me nuts at points.  Almost every chapter has something new to add to the mysteries of the Prophecy, so the plot never seems to get bogged down.

I don’t know if The Wayfarer Redemption is Douglass’ debut novel or what, but it takes a little while to gain its momentum.  In my experience, it seems that authors have the most trouble getting the backstory set in place while also keeping it interesting.  The opening pages of the series are interesting enough in their own right – they certainly contain the promise of more exciting things to come – but they are a bit difficult to get through initially.  I also had a little trouble getting around some of Douglass’ syntactical structures and writing techniques in the first book.  A lot of the dialogue felt wooden and forced, very unlike the way anyone in real life would speak.  A number of behaviors seemed rather false, as well, and more than a little too convenient for the sake of plot development.  Some of these things can be attributed to Australian speech, I’m sure, but some can’t be quite so easily written off.  The story itself is solid, though, and highly enjoyable, despite the rough execution.

Enchanter is the second book in the series, and where Wayfarer slips up, Enchanter more than makes up for.  Where dialogue and storytelling in the first book fell short of sounding natural, they flow smoothly and elegantly in the second to make a much more enjoyable and fast-paced story.  More riddles, more questions, and more mysteries surface, while many others are resolved.  And all through it, Douglass still manages to leave the actual intentions and motives of the influence behind Gorgrael in question.  She also further develops her characters’ believability by demonstrating their flaws and weaknesses in addition to each of their great strengths.

I’ve only just begun Starman, the third installment of the series, and again I’m actually finding it somewhat hard to get into.  For starters, there are a lot of typos throughout the opening pages, and for this literature and English buff, they’re quite distracting.  The focus in the third book has shifted slightly, though – in Enchanter the hero Axis must face his human half-brother before he can think about facing Gorgrael.  That conflict resolves itself in the final pages of that book, and Starman must pick up from there and develop the setting and context for the battle with Gorgrael.  Characters have separated ways and new ones are introduced, and as a result the overall pace has slowed down.  I fully expect it to pick back up again soon, but for now Douglass must set the tone for the next segment of her series.  The storytelling is still enchanting, but it is still maddening in its teasing questions.

Douglass favors a shifting viewpoint approach to her storytelling.  In any given section, the viewpoint will move through an entire array of characters.  This can sometimes be a little difficult to follow.  I’ve surmised, though, that she seems to be following a third-person omniscient point-of-view with this.  Not only do we find out what most of the characters in the scene are thinking in a given moment, but she also takes many opportunities to tease the reader with foreshadowing by telling how one action, usually small and insignificant at the time, will prove to have a certain kind of effect on other characters in the future.  I’m not sure I’m overly thrilled with the technique, but as I said before I really like the story she tells so I can live with a certain level of distracting writing.  Douglass does tell a good story, despite the things I’ve pointed out, and I think that just about anyone who enjoys fantasy fiction will probably also like this series.

Just a quick thought as something of a longer-than-usual aside: In the beginning of Heroes, Mohinder Suresh did these contemplative voice-overs, both at the beginning and at the ending.  They were beautiful and rich, even if I didn’t necessarily agree with the some of the ideologies behind them.  They set a certain kind of tone to each chapter of the story as it unfolded.  Then I noticed that the voice-overs were only coming on one end of each chapter, usually at the beginning.  And now, they’re gone completely, and I miss them.  They’re a part of the Heroes atmosphere and environment that have been completely dropped – and for me, they’re absence is painfully noticeable.

Apparently, Kring ran out of philosophical ideas for his chapter bookends.  ‘Tis a pity.