The Princess Bride by William Goldman

The Princess Bride is a laugh-out-loud funny book.

But humor is not the only thing in this book. In the worlds of the author, this book has: Fencing, Fighting, Torture, Poison, True Love, Hate, Revenge, Giants, Hunters, Bad Men, Good Men, Beautifulest Women, Snakes, Spiders, Beasts of all nature and descriptions, Pain, Death, Brave Men, Coward Men, Strongest Men, Chases, Escapes, Lies, Truths, Passion, Miracles.

You tell me if this doesn't sound interesting.

I'll begin, as always, with a little background. I first heard about the Princess Bride through a series of quotes in Cornelia Funke's Inkheart Series (another great series that I mean to review someday), and they were mostly quotes on the love of reading, which I identify with greatly. Therefore, this year when I was ordering a set of books from america I decided that one of them should be the 'Princess Bride' by William Goldman. I didn't read a lot of reviews, and mainly bought the book just because it seemed really crazy and interesting, which is exactly how I like my books to be.

Crazy and Interesting: That's 'Princess Bride' for you.

The characters are a lot of fun to read about: from Buttercup (the heroine) who's the 'most beautiful girl in the world' and going to marry the Prince of the nation, but who still manages to be a selfish idiot and Westeley, her love, who can outfight a master swordsman, a huge giant and outwit a master tactician for his Buttercup, but who still is quite far from perfection. Their sweet, crazy relationship is a treat to read about, and the back bone of this book. But its the secondary characters who can really steal your heart: the spaniard Inigo, who is the best swordsman in the world and pretty damn cool, and Fezzik, a loveable, simple minded giant who loves rhymes, to even the main villian - Count Rugen, who has made a scientific study of torture.

The writing style can be a little bit difficult to follow (especially at first) for people who are used to reading books that have a linear narrative. The author skips around, first telling you his story about hearing the book from his father, and then cuts through S. Morgenstern's text to tell you stuff. However, this is also one of the best parts of the book, because the author's humorous interludes are really the cream of the cake when it comes to this book - the cake could be fine without the cream, but everyone knows its not a 'cake' if it doesn't have the cream.

A lot happens in the book. Good people die. Bad people die. There are heroic battles. There is a lot of bickering. There is a lot of love. But what you won't find here is a moment of stagnation, because after all this is a 'good parts version' of Morgenstern's original, and entire stages in the life of Buttercup are summed up by the author in a few words to ensure that readers (especially young ones) are always kept entertained by the narrative.

But this is also more than just a light-hearted book. If you dig deeper you can find that this book is also a book about life. It has, at best, a bittersweet ending - just like life. It has a lot of unfairness, just like life. Like in real life, bad things will happen in this book to people who are the 'good guys.' This book goes beyond being a fairytale in this respect. It doesn't give you great expectations that life will never fulfill. But despite all this, you will find that this book is hopeful. It ends on a note that gives you hope that somehow, somewhere, there is happiness in this world for these characters. A great lesson that kids all over the world should learn.

Last words: This is book I would definitely gift to my kid(s) on his/her tenth birthday. There can't be praise bigger than that.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud

I have written many reviews about the Bartimaeus Trilogy, maybe because I love it so much.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy consists of three books : The Amulet of Samarkand, The Golem's Eye, and Ptolemy's Gate.

A little background on how I was introduced to the story. Like a lot of the best books I've read, this wasn't a really famous book. However, having exhausted all the books in my libraries 'teen fiction' section, I was really anxious for something new to read, and I decided to pick up this book. I think this was mainly because I'd heard of it described as similar to the Harry Potter series. As it happens, this book is nothing like the Harry Potter series. That doesn't stop it from being absolutely brilliant.

The differences begin with Nathaniel, the (would-be) hero of this story. At the onset, he's a young, in-training magician. But that is where the similarities with Harry stop, because Nathaniel has never been marked out for something special (in fact, he's an apprentice to one of the most pathetic magicians there can be), he uses magic by enslaving demons (something Harry, and of course Hermione, are sure to find highly abhorrent) and his first quest in the book, for the Amulet of Samarkand, is not at all to save the world but rather to take revenge on Simon Lovelace, a magician who humiliated him. Through the three books, Nathaniel acts like a pompous brat, going from bad to worse in the second and third books. His arrogance, his selfishness and his treatment towards Bartimaeus has caused many readers to hate him. This was not the case with me, and even the harshest of readers, I am sure, will be unable to hate Nathaniel after the third book of the series.

A direct foil to Nathaniel is Kitty, a member of anti-magician's group. The way it happens in Stroud's world, the magicians are selfish, cruel, and demeaning towards the 'commoners' or the people who do not have magic. Kitty is an introduction in the second book, and slowly becomes a heroine. She is much more likeable than Nathaniel (which appears to be the reason I don't like her) and even for people like me it is very difficult to hate her, simply because the cause that she is fighting for is so right. Also, her relationship with Nathaniel, which slowly progresses from hate, to dislike, to love, is so poignantly portrayed that it really provides an emotional background for this trilogy.

I have called Nathaniel the would-be hero, and Kitty the heroine. But none of them is the real show-stopper of this series. If someone were to ask me the one and only reason to read this story it would only be - Bartimaeus.

Bartimaeus is a 5000-year-old-djinn. He's irascible, hates Nathaniel, and will do anything to just get away from earth and back to his own world. He's also the primary narrator of this story. Most authors don't have non-human narrators because they feel that humans may be unable to connect to them. This story puts all these people to shame. Bartimaeus, even when he's describing wonderful things, like being able to see in seven planes, or changing into different shapes or building (in a classic twist) the many wonders of our modern world, is altogether enjoyable. His saucy wit (especially in his wonderful footnotes) and his loyalty to a young boy called Ptolemy (the entire implications of which are revealed in the book) make him my favorite character of this series.

But the characters (wonderful as they are) are not the only reasons to read this book. The superb writing, the great plots, and the wonderful climax are all really good reasons to read this book. This book is full of humor, action, drama, romance, murder, fantasy and a hell lot of craziness, which makes it perfect for readers of all types. Stroud breaks nearly all common fantasy stereotypes (starting with "magicians are good and demons are bad") and with quotes like the falling which will make you laugh, cry and re-read the book:

One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror.

Final words: Recommended for children of all-ages, be it five or fifty. Read for a fun experience with unexpected layers packaged with brilliant writing and a great perspective on the world.

And Thereby Hangs a Tale by Jeffrey Archer

And Thereby Hangs a Tale, by Jeffrey Archer, was exactly as I had expected it to be: Fabulous.


A little background. I have read almost every Archer novel or short story collection. And naturally, when my mother mentioned that he had a new short-story collection that had come out, I was very excited. But I did forget about it at the time, until I went to the bookstore recently and saw the book. And then there was suddenly a light-bulb on my head, and I bought it almost immediately. But then I got to reading Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman, and my mom and dad started reading this book, so I left it alone for a while. Until yesterday, when I read the whole book in one day straight.

What can I say? The master has not lost his touch.

I love Archer first off all for his ingenious plots. He always has a unique story to tell (or at least a crazily unique twist on a seemingly normal story idea). He is able to right on a large variety of topics: from, to give you an example from this set of short stories, the story of a boy who falls in love with a girl as a light changes from red to green, to a story of how a golf ball can change a man's life, to a story of an amazing jewel theft with a stick of chewing gum as an accomplice. No matter what he's writing about, Archer never fails to astound. In this collection, there are a set of stories that seem, on the surface, pretty straight-forward, but really get you thinking at the end - not only about the plot but about the well developed, interesting characters whose story we are reading.

The writing, as always, is of amazing quality. Succinct, simple, and moving, his language is beguiling in its plainness. He writes tersely, keeping the plot moving (which is even more important in short-stories than in a full-length novel) and there is never a moment in the books where you feel like you're bored and want to skip ahead a few paragraphs - in fact, the book will often make you feel like you want to slow down and think a little bit about what's going on - only you will not want to stop till the final page is turned. While I was reading the book (and my mother has expressed a similar reaction) I would often stop for nearly ten minutes after each story just to process what all had happened, which is of course one of the characteristics of a good Archer story.

His characterization, as I mentioned above, is pretty spectacular. As an author who writes mainly about characters who are doing crimes, and that too in the relatively constrained format of a short-story, he is able to bring his characters out of cliches and make them unique, and (in the case of most of them) even like-able. Even though his characters often do bad things for bad reasons (love and money are the two top reasons - they are not in any way justified by stuff like "he needed the money for his little sister's heart operation) you can still empathize with them because of the way Archer writes - by making us go deep into the mind and the life of the character.

In this collection you will find love, crime, money, fraud, law and golf - all packaged very neatly in Archer's spectacular writing. Definitely worth buying for hours of entertainment, followed by more hours of entertainment after some time when you re-read the books and discover that you missed something crucial in your first reading. Read for a fun roller-coaster ride type experience, for page-turning suspense, and to be blown away.

Last words: Archer is one of the best fiction writers ever, and this collection proves that he hasn't lost his touch. Read only if you're prepared to look up at 1 am and realize, "I meant to sleep hours ago but time just flew away when I was reading the book."

And Thereby Hangs a Tale.

Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman

Fragile Things is an odd book.

I knew it was going to be an odd book the moment I picked it up. The point was whether it was going to be a good kind of odd or bad kind of odd.

It turned out to be a good kind of odd.

A little background. I had heard of Neil Gaiman, mostly in connection with George R. R. Martin. I was planning to read a book by him sometime, especially because he's one of the few fantasy authors whose books come in the book store here. Of course, my buying this book would have involved days of research, days of reading reviews, and days of deciding whether this was the best book to start with. However, what ended up happening was this: I saw the book, with its shiny white cover, lying on the bookshelf. It called to me. I picked it up, read the back. I was intrigued. I sat down to read to read the introduction.

I was hooked.

The book called to me, and I'm so glad I replied.

Fragile Things is a book about, well, Fragile Things. Like Neil Gaiman puts it in the book - "It seemed like a fine title for a book of short stories. There are so many fragile things, after. People break so easily, after all, and so do dreams and hearts."

But for a book that is about transitory things, Fragile Things is still a very hopeful book. As a book, Fragile Things seems to be celebrating the beauty of all the soap water bubbles in the world that are so beautiful and so easy to break. At its heart, Fragile Things is a book about hope, and fairy tales, and about writing that lives longer than the person who wrote it.

There are many strange stories and poems in this collection, from a story about a boy who makes friends with a ghost that is told by the months of the year, to a poem about what to do when you're in a fairytale, to a story about Susan, from C.S. Lewis' Narnia novels, the dismissal of which Gaiman (and I, incidentally) found very problematic and irritating. There are stories which don't make sense immediately. There are stories which leave you thinking. There are funny stories, sad stories, scary stories. There is some 'upsettling' stuff in this novel, as well as some extremely sad stuff.

Read this book if you're not afraid to try something a little different. Read this book if you can deal with (or relish) a little bit of oddness. Read this book with an open heart and mind. Read this book without thinking about any 'fantasy' that you may have read before, because this book is not going to be like any of that. Read the introduction of each story/poem right before reading the story or poem because it will really add to your appreciation of the poem or story. Read this book if you're in for something new.

Don't be put-off if you read many unfamiliar names in the introductions. I can assure you that I did not know about 90% of the authors mentioned in the introductions, and that did not stop me from enjoying the book at all, though now I'm tempted to read all the authors mentioned and hear all the songs mentioned. I'm sure that a knowledge of the mentioned literature adds richness to the book, but it is not a prerequisite to reading the book.

This book is great (and quick) way to know whether or not you like Gaiman's style of writing. My verdict? I definitely want to read more. Maybe American Gods.

Last words: Read this book only if you're fine with things being a little bit out of the ordinary. Don't judge too quickly. Read it with a sense of humor. And get ready for a few hours of pure fun.

The Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

The Song of Ice and Fire series is one that has changed my life.

In this review I will be considering the first four books of the series: A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, A Storm of Swords, and A Feast for Crows. As of this date, these are the only published novels in the series.

A little backstory on how I came across this book. At that point in my life I was quite young, though I was beginning to discover my love for fantasy. At this point in my life my favorite fantasy book series was the Sword of Truth series, by Terry Goodkind (my opinions on this book have changed vastly since, but that's a review for another day). Anyway, all I knew about the book can be summed up in a nutshell through this review, which was the most influential review I read, even though it was not the only one. At that time, however, I did not want to read books with gray characters, and characters who could die. I wanted a hero to root for. So, I dismissed the book, even though all reports agreed that Martin was a masterful writer.

Then, as it happened, I went to the 'fantasy' section of my local bookstore. And saw 'A Game of Thrones.' Now, note that I don't generally find quality fantasy books in the local bookshops here, and definitely not the ones I read about online. I usually have to specially order those from America. So, overjoyed at finding the book and not wanting to miss out on a chance to read it (after all, it might disappear anytime from the bookstore) I just bought it on an impulse.

It is said that it is seemingly simple moments that change your life. So, so true.

Remember how I mentioned above that a lot of people had said that George R.R. Martin is a masterful writer? Well, they were all completely right. I was hooked on from the first page of the prologue, which, unlike most prologues, puts you right in the middle of the action. Before I knew it, I was on a ranging mission at the end of the world. George R.R. Martin is amazing at the use of point-of-view. He can, in a span of a few pages, make you see things from the flawed world view of a character. His narrators are unreliable. They lie. They often see things the way they want to. They are wrong. They make mistakes. They have to face consequences.

They are, in short, completely human.

George R.R. Martin gives you a medieval world, full of warring families. At the start of the book, owing to the large number of characters from the Stark family who are narrators, you get the false impression that these are the heroes of the story, and that nothing bad can happen to them. Boy, are you wrong. George R.R. Martin puts you in the world of a million different characters, some nice, most horrible, and makes you walk a few hundred miles in their shoes, and leaves you supporting a hundred different characters on different sides of a brutal war. You are put right in the middle of the action, without a word of explanation, and forced to experience the world of these characters.

And that world is not at all like earth.

Martin builds a world that is both cruel and beautiful. Westeros has a rich, developed culture, full of legends and art and religions. It is not a place where I would want to live. It is not even a place I would want to visit. It is a hard place, full of hard people, and winters that can last ten years, and dead people coming walking in the night. But it is a real, breathing world, and through the pages of this book you can fall into it. Martin does not write about large faceless armies. Martin writes about people. People you have seen living, and people whom you would mourn to see dead.

This is not a book for those who are weak. It is full of violence, and cruelty, and about all the darkest facets of a medieval world. Martin will not talk about brutality done to faceless peasants, he will put you in the shoes of that peasant and let you watch his friends and family die. Characters you love will die. It will seem like its only the bad guys who are winning. You will start to lose your faith in human nature as you watch worse and worse things happening. You will start to feel some despair as good people become bad in order to survive the horror of what is happening.

To some it up best is a quote from the book - "In the game of thrones, you win or you die. There is no middle ground."

But from the midst of this despair will come one more shining hero. You will be put into the perspective of another character and you will start to see him or her trying to do good, and you will rejoice. You will see some of the bad guys get what's coming to them. You will start to feel hopeful again. You will start rooting for some of the people again, hoping for a happy ending, hoping for some happiness to come to all your favorite characters.

That is, of course, until Martin kills another character.

Read the Song of Ice and Fire series if you like fantasy. Read it if you dont. Read it if you like conventional fantasy or brutal fantasy. Read it whether or not you have ever read anything like this before. Read it to expand your horizons, to find something new, and to get the experience of your life. Read it so you know just how good it can really get. Then re-read the book. Expect to find something new on your first (and third, and twenty-third, and seventy-fifth) re-read. Then read some crackpot (and some very interesting) theories on an online forum and then re-read the books again.

I guarantee that the Song of Ice and Fire series will change your perspective on your life.

Last words: No matter what kind of books you like, you have to pick up at least 'The Game of Thrones'. Because otherwise, you'll be forever depriving yourself of something both beautiful and touching.

Some great links: A Blog of Ice and Fire (a fan reading the books offers funny insights into each of the chapters...loads of fun to read while you're reading the books yourself); George R. R. Martin's 'Not A Blog' which tells you more about the author; Details on the HBO show based on this series.

Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay

Tigana made me want to write this blog.

This probably sounds like an odd statement. How can an ordinary book want to make you write pages and pages of blog posts that I will probably devote days, weeks, and months to?

In a nutshell, the answer is: Tigana is not an ordinary book. It is a book so beautiful that I couldn't help but want to share with someone else.

A little background. I'm a hard-core fantasy fan, but its hard to find books like Tigana in the bookstores in the small Indian city I live in. Therefore, I have to order each book from Amazon, at about double the price you'd get a similar book here, and wait till April, when my parents usually go to America and are able to pick up the books. Therefore, each one of the books I order is carefully picked. I read many reviews. I wait for recommendations from people I trust. I think a hundred times on whether I'd rather have a new book from an author I've never read before or the latest addition to Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books. These are hard choices.

For Tigana, it wasn't so hard. I had a recommendation from Limyaael, whose posts I read as often as I possibly can, and whose book recommendations (on her live journal) generally fit in to my tastes. Besides, I'd already read (also on the recommendation of Limyaael) "The Lions of Al-Rassan" by Guy Gavriel Kay, and liked it, though not nearly as much as I eventually came to love Tigana. I read many reviews about Tigana, good and bad, but eventually went with my gut feeling and just decided to buy it.

I think my life would have so much poorer if I had not.

Why can be summed up in just one brilliant line of the book, "Tigana, let my memory of you be a blade in my soul."

The basic premise of the book? A peninsula divided into seven states. Two foreign conquerors who have captured six of these states - Brandin and Alberico. One Prince of Tigana who dared to kill Brandin's beloved son. One spell that removed the existence of an entire culture from the face of the earth, not even leaving the name of the place. And a group of people who will do anything to bring back their beloved country.

On the outset, this seems like a pretty simple story. You root for the people who are fighting against the evil sorcerers. They win. You celebrate.

To a certain extent, this is what happened with me. I loved Alessan, I liked Devin, and even though I wasn't too fond of Catriana she still struck me as a fairly respectable character. I could believe in their cause (especially thanks to the breath-taking prologue, which reveals exactly what the cause means to them and why) What happens, though, when you fall in love with the characters on the opposite side too? I didn't want to like Dianora, the woman who begins as someone who wants to kill Brandin but ends up falling in love with him. But it was impossible to help. Kay lifts this story from the regular cliche of woman-falling-in-love-with-person-she-is-supposed-to-kill and puts you right there with Dianora and Brandin and whether you like it or not, you eventually end up loving them, or at least sympathizing with them. Till the end of the book, I was hoping for an ending that was happy for all of them, and there was even a point when I thought that was possible.

But characterization, even though it is a major part of why I like this book, is not the only reason I would recommend it to someone. Another is undoubtedly the world-building. The Palm is a real and beautiful place, with a history and a future. People don't act and think in a vacuum. You can almost see the two moons, hear Alessan playing on the pipes and taste the blue wine. The descriptions used by Kay are masterful. You get the feeling that this world is alive, that it exists somewhere, and doesn't end once the pages of the book end. The description in this book makes me want to spend a vacation in Tigana, and see the towers and the buildings and the beauty. I'm not a visual reader. I don't, unlike most readers, generally see images in my head of the characters and locations. But I see Tigana.

The language is another part of this book that makes it worth recommending. The book is beautifully written, in a number of different points of view. For someone who enjoys something other than the regular black-and-white fantasy, this is a beautiful book to read, because it tells you things from the perspective of many characters. Even Alberico, who I definitely wouldn't sympathize with normally and whom I only cautiously liked in this book, was a wonderful read. Besides, sentences of this book will set themselves in your sub-conscious memory and come back on lazy days, and the time before you go to sleep, or when you are looking out of the window in a drive, and make your heart twist in a way that is both beautiful and tragic.

Many people will tell you that the ending leaves you wanting more. In my opinion, this is one of the best, best parts of this book. The ending with tantalize you and grip you. I don't know if any other author could have made this ending work. It still makes gives me butterflies in my stomach when I think of it. The ending alone is a really good reason to love this book. Tigana is a book to love, to savor slowly on lonely afternoons, to re-read, and to write reviews about. Tigana is truly a book to treasure.

Last words: Read Tigana. Re-read it. And let your memory of this book forever be a blade in your soul.