I’m one of those people who likes to make lists to keep track of things I want to do, things I want to get, books I should read etc… (and sometimes I even just add things to lists so I can cross them off). So, I had this list of books that have really great action scenes, because my action scenes need a lot of work, and completely forgot about it, like I usually do. But I recently I found and reviewed it and a funny thing happened. Coincidence? Fate’s sarcastic ways? Who knows? The book I just finished reading, Joe Abercrombie’s THE BLADE ITSELF, was on there.

Here I was just about ready to write a mostly unsavory review for it, but then all of a sudden, I realized that yeah, I had some issues with the book, but the action scenes were not on that list. That’s what I can learn from Joe Abercrombie.

The book starts with an action scene, which are usually good hooks. I can see why Abercrombie would do this as it is one of his strengths and is known as an effective kick off. In the first lines of the book we have:

Logen plunged through the trees, bare feet slipping and sliding on the wet earth, the slush, the wet pine needles, breath rasping in his chest, blood thumping in his head. He stumbled and sprawled onto his side, nearly cut his chest open with his own axe, lay there panting, peering through the shadowy forest.

The Dogman had been with him until a moment before, he was sure, but there wasn’t any sign of him now. As for the others, there was no telling. Some leader, getting split up from his boys like that. He should’ve been trying to get back, but the Shanka were all around. He could feel them moving between the trees, his nose was full of the smell of them. Sounded as if there was some shouting somewhere on his left, fighting maybe. Logen crept slowly to his feet, trying to stay quiet. A twig snapped and he whipped round.

There was a spear coming at him. A cruel-looking spear, coming at him fast with a Shanka on the other end of it.

What a way to kick off a story. I got sucked right into this. What is going to happen to this dude?

Good action verbs: Plunged, slipped, stumbled
Imagery: wet pine needles
What’s going on in the body: blood thumping, air rasping
Risk/loss: stumbling almost kills himself,
Uncertainty: doesn’t know where his friends are, doesn’t know where his enemies are

Every step of the way is in very close POV. Things happen as a person would see them unfold.

I wonder if Abercrombie spent hours coming up with that one, had to revise it twenty times, or if it just fell out of his fingers into the keyboard.

Especially with Logen, all the action scenes painted him kind of a clumsy old washout who really wouldn’t survive without a lot of help or the similar ineptitude of his fellow men. This makes him feel more human by our standards, and helps us relate to him. But we also wonder how the hell he got his badass reputation. All the characters, too, when put in tight situations were very worried and not sure of what to do next. This is very human and relatable. No one knows the future or can be 100% sure of the result of their actions. Surprise is a frequent result of the action=reaction equation, at least for this girl.

So that was the beginning. Let’s quickly look at a fencing match in the middle.

“Begin!”

They closed quickly this time, and exchanged a cut or two.

Jezal could hardly believe how slowly his opponent was moving, it was as if his swords weighed a ton each. Broya fished around in the air with his long steel, trying to use his reach to pin Jezal down. He had barely used his short steel yet, let alone coordinated the two. Worse still, he was starting to look out of breath, and they’d barely been fencing two minutes.

Hmm ok, not too much action in this one at first glance…but it creates a sense of suspense, and we know that it is fencing, so that’s action right? I think that’s another of his tricks. He gets so down to the detail, using them to make readers see the concerns and holding off on the actual action, which is what makes the story move forward (ya know, people actually doing things). I also really like the description “fished around in the air with his long steel.” It’s a good action verb and imagery all in one.

And bear with me. One more action scene from the end. And this one really kicks ass! (spoiler haters be warned)

The talk was done. Stone-Splitter came at him with axe in one hand and mace in the other, great heavy weapons, though he used them quick enough. The mace swung across, smashed a great hole through the glass in one of the windows. The axe came down, split one timber of the table in half, made the plates jump in the air, the candlesticks topple. The Bloody-Nine twitched away, frog hopping, waiting for his time.

The mace missed his shoulder by an inch as he rolled across the table, cracked one of the big flat stones on the floor, split it down the middle, chips flying through the air. Stone-Splitter roared, swinging his weapons, smashing a chair in half, knocking a chunk of stone out of the fireplace, chopping a great gash in the wall. His axe stuck fast in the wood for a moment and the Bloody-Nine’s sword flashed over, broke the haft into splintered halves, leaving the Stone-Splitter with a broken stick in his paw. He flung it away and hefted the mace, came on even harder, swinging it round with furious bellows.

The biggest thing here? SHOWING. The strength of the enemy-risk. The effects of weapons on things other than people-risk and tension. Weapons breaking, building destruction-this is intense! “a broken stick in his paw,” the imagery again. Step by step unfolding of the mortal dance.

However, here, as it is the end of the book, it is less holding back and examining the details and more the full tilt ahead desperation of the time to win or die. It is just as rough and intense if not more so than at the beginning. Abercrombie’s energy does not flag. I think he wrote this entire book just so he could write this fight scene (I did not include all of it, and it does get better).

Aside from the action, I did learn a couple more things from this book. The way he handled his six main POVs (heh, you think this is an epic fantasy?) is rather interesting. All but one of them were usually in the same place at the same time. They were all overlapping witnesses to the same events, sometimes simultaneously, or from different times with different insights. It allows build up of tension and suspense as well as a sense of intrigue and gives the story a feel of space in a small setting. I like this, but haven’t seen it a lot in my reading and wish I could see it more than the usual display of all the different POV characters in a different part of the world as the story goes.

And then, there was always that POV thread out in the world letting us know what was on the horizon for the main clutch of characters.

This book is representative of a new voice who doesn’t follow all the rules, but at the same time you can tell this was his first work, or an early work, as it has an “unpolished” feel along with, or maybe because of, the newness. (But who am I to say anything about this?) It also works for the book’s noir, gritty feel.

I noticed a problem with hissing speakers. This word showed up numerous times as a speech tag, and not when any words ended in “s.”

There were a lot of exclamation points, but for some reason they didn’t bother me. Point for Abercrombie there.

The enemy-out-of-sight, the Shanka, are never really described very well, other than having the nickname “flatheads.” And as Abercrombie obviously has good imagery skills, I don’t know why he didn’t do this.

There was also a major reveal about a main character in the last twenty-or-so pages (totally done on purpose and I’m not sure I like it-maybe it just needed to be done more artfully) and the whole book was a set up for…the next one. Usually in epic fantasy, the first book in a trilogy resolves at least one semi-major plot arc. Nope, not here…“sorry, go buy the next book…” Good thing Borders is in its last weeks. Organization like this may be what makes me feel that this book is unpolished, or written by an inexperienced writer.

But in the end, the story is there and I cared about the characters, and of course, the action is full tilt all the way through.

Now how about you go and see if what I discovered above helps you improve your action scenes. I know it’s going to help mine.

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The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard

It’s been a long time since I’ve read a book this old. And this book has been on my to-read list for a long time. A mentor in my MA program suggested I read some Robert E. Howard and so I got this book but I never quite got to it.

The Hour of the Dragon is Howard’s only novel-length story–the mass market paperback wasn’t even 300 pages. It was featured in installments in Weird Tales starting in 1935. Magic and betrayal, wizards, death and quests what’s not to love about this original sword and sorcery story?

While Howard had great stories to tell, I found myself cringing at the usage and style. Exclamation points everywhere, ill-placed Middle English, impossible names (yet not as impossible as his contemporary and friend H. P. Lovecraft). Every time I cringed, I had to remind myself how long ago this was written. Have tastes in prose changed so much? Or was that just the result of the cheaply produced pulps of the era?

Despite all that, delicious vocabulary crept among the purple prose on which 90’s Sword and Sorcery was built. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to look up a word while reading, and I think it’s a shame that I don’t have to do so more often. Maybe I’m just not reading the right stuff?

What about Conan himself? The character that people could not get enough of in his heyday? I can certainly see the draw to him. He was the strapping giant that no one could beat, he fought on the side of good and didn’t back down from confrontation. Despite being a little sexist by my own 21st century standards, he had respectable morals and philosophies. He also was intelligent. He had a mind for politics, even though he obviously hated them, and could strategize a battle–and Howard could write it well enough to draw out the suspense (this is probably the key to his success).

As I mentioned before, Howard created the original Conan character during the Great Depression. And now, the new movie for Conan the Barbarian is coming out, during this new depression we’re living through. Coincidence? What do you think?

Review cross posted at Greater Portland Scribists

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I’ve just finished reading all of Maria V. Snyder’s Glass series. This includes, Storm Glass, Sea Glass and Spy Glass. Simply put, they are wonderful. I couldn’t put them down. That is part of the reason I’m reviewing the series and not each book. The other part of that reason is that each book picks right up where the previous left off, so it’s almost like one really long book.

In Storm Glass, we follow Opal, who we met toward the end of the Study books, through her last year at the Keep, that is at magic school. Except she’s an odd student with odd abilities and her education didn’t go smoothly, especially her last year. We hardly see her at school though. There is tons of action, tons of on-the-spot decision making, and characters that are easy to relate to. Opal is not the super hero that waltzes in and just saves everyone. She suffers, she sacrifices and she gets very upset by the things that happen to her. She also has to deal with the consequences of being a young person in an adult society.

The only unsatisfying thing for me about Storm Glass is the ending. (Mild Spoiler Alert) While the build up and action were great, it died for me after. Opal goes in, does her thing and just passes out. The others deal with the clean up, and I feel like I missed out on something, like she missed out on it. Sure it’s not important to her story, but by not seeing the payoff I almost feel like it didn’t happen.

Sea Glass sees Opal returning to school, only to have her story turned against her. Everything that happens to Opal always gets turned around on her. Her decisions are always questioned. But she is resolute to set things right. She gets closer to that in this book as she gets older and more experienced with the “joys” of the real world. Old enemies turn up, with more at stake and different agendas. Conflict twists around Opal and her abilities and reputation, constantly getting her into trouble. But she’s able to put smarts to use and depend on her trusted friends. This book did not let me down at all.

Spy Glass gives us a new Opal. She’s had so much happen to her in the first two books. This one shows how she recovers from the events up to now. She has a more hardened exterior, more smarts and knows a lot more about her enemies. But this still doesn’t make it easy for her. Her personal life is in a shambles and she’s working through the last few issues from all her previous exploits. But the way she tackles them now is the good result of all her previous trouble. I almost feel like a proud parent watching the ways she’s grown. (But I’m not a parent, and any parent in their right mind would never put their children through these things.)

Another thing I can laud about the book is introduction of “really cool stuff.” She shows us the processes of glassmaking as only someone who’s done it can, and not too many people have. She talks about diamonds and other gemstones (my other passion) with authority. This book is not the first time people have blackmarketed diamonds to fund a war. So bonus points for working in modern issues. Snyder has done her homework. And some things, like all the spy work, I really wonder how she describes it so well? Has she done some of that, or is that just the skill of her writing at hand?

This entry is cross posted at Greater Portland Scribists.

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Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

After I read the Lies of Locke Lamora, I knew I wanted to read its sequal… and I just got around to it now 2.5 years later. I’ll share that this is one of those books you don’t need to go back and read the first one so you know what is going on. Why the delay? Because I am a bad supporter of literature and don’t buy a lot of books. But I lent a friend Lies and then he went out and bought Red Seas and lent it to me in turn. Everything works out in the end.

But I’m blathering… I’m struggling to write a review of this book and I know why. I loved reading this book, and SPOILER it did not have a happy ending. It had a “reality sucks” ending. I hate that. To top it off, the third volume of the Gentlemen Bastards Sequence is still forthcoming-November 2011, just in time for my Birthday! So I can’t just go and find out what happens. Damned cliff hanger endings.

But anyway, Lynch did not disappoint in the middle volume of the Gentlemen Bastards. Jean and Locke ran amok and caused trouble, witty and clever as ever, though quite a bit darker in tone than before. I see it as their recovery from the ending of Lies. And in recovery, one must grieve and heal one’s ugly scars.

Through alternating between the present and the recent past, Lynch slowly exposes the Gentlemen in their preparation of their plans leading up to the present. But in his standard form, Lynch doesn’t reveal too much. He leaves out just enough, so we don’t suspect anything (unless we know better), but when the plan comes to fruition it came out of left field. Lynch is adept at this. I envy his tricksy plotting mind. This structure not only added to the suspense and impact of the end, but it also served to keep most of the story in the present, and not have to recap a long period of time–only the bits and pieces needed to lead us by the nose to the end.

Plotwise, Red Seas only has one tie to Lies, and that very tie didn’t get resolved here and will undoubtedly show up in the third volume. That being said, this feels like the kind of story that they will reference in the future, “Hey remember that time in Tal Verrar…” But to say that this 600 some odd page book was just filler content for a 7 volume series doesn’t seem right either, especially knowing Lynch’s plotting style.

As I said before, Jean and Locke were licking their wounds as they faced the tribulations brought to them this time around. We watched them try to distract themselves, and do a fine job of it, yet as they walked though this madness, I could only watch the desire for reprisal set more deeply in the brilliantly strategic mind of Locke. His gears are turning and the longer they turn the scarier the outcome will be down the road.

I admire Lynch’s work for more reasons than just his plotting. The voice, for one, is hilarious and gripping. No matter how dark the situation gets, the characters are sarcastic as ever. Beyond that, Lynch skillfully employs many craft techniques. He describes new places in ways that appeal to the senses via the characters. He uses the “swoop” when introducing something important to set it apart from the characters own experiences. His pacing is break-neck and he never slows it down, though sometimes I wish he would for some moments. Somehow, somehow he can make the plot and characters complex yet keep the story easy to read.

So I will be eagerly awaiting the release of book number three in the Gentlemen Bastards Sequence and the four following it as well.

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Storm Glass – Maria V. Snyder

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