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A review by gerd_d
Rocket Fuel: Some of the Best From Tor.com Non-Fiction by Bridget McGovern, Chris Lough
3.0
Fun, for the most part, as most essays primarily talk about the respective writers love of reading and writing.
I would say, however, it's been a very bad editorial decision to put two essays on Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" back to back.
While the first is effectively piquing interest in the series by not much talking about it but rather focusing on how it affected the essayist, the second just as effectively squelched that interest when the (different from first) essayist tries to compare Jordan to Tolkien but only succeds to make the author's story sound to be a rather bland brand of juvenile fanfiction (with no disrespect to either juveniles or fanfiction, both of which surely can produce better stories than what the essayist describes there) freely mixing elements of various mythological origin, with a mainly white Christian focus.
That makes Robert Jordan's work definitely "American", yes, but it sounds a far cry from being the work of an "American" Tolkien.
On the things I really enjoyed reading side, there's a long history of everybody's fave Tolkien character, Galadriel.
Really wants me go back to Tolkien.
Then there's a fabulous 40 page essay on the complicated realtionships in Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys cycle. Even if the articla left me unsure if the series itself would be to my taste, the essay itself is such a glowing love declaration to, well, love in all its unfair complication, I can't help but recommend reading it.
The greatest disappointment IMO, are the two essays included that focus primarily on African-American culture, both give you no basis where they come from or where they intend to head to and just leave you confused if you haven't already a solid backdrop to the matter - in which case both essays become superfluous.
I'm sure there stood better on offer.
So, some of the best is a misleading subtitle in a ways, or an honest one, depends on which ever way you want to read it. Because some of the articles included are best, but the majority is just there to give us broad overview of the rich variety of essay written on Tor.com regarding reading, writing, books, novels, movies, TV and society and every imaginable aspect of culture inbetween...
I would say, however, it's been a very bad editorial decision to put two essays on Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" back to back.
While the first is effectively piquing interest in the series by not much talking about it but rather focusing on how it affected the essayist, the second just as effectively squelched that interest when the (different from first) essayist tries to compare Jordan to Tolkien but only succeds to make the author's story sound to be a rather bland brand of juvenile fanfiction (with no disrespect to either juveniles or fanfiction, both of which surely can produce better stories than what the essayist describes there) freely mixing elements of various mythological origin, with a mainly white Christian focus.
That makes Robert Jordan's work definitely "American", yes, but it sounds a far cry from being the work of an "American" Tolkien.
On the things I really enjoyed reading side, there's a long history of everybody's fave Tolkien character, Galadriel.
Really wants me go back to Tolkien.
Then there's a fabulous 40 page essay on the complicated realtionships in Maggie Stiefvater's Raven Boys cycle. Even if the articla left me unsure if the series itself would be to my taste, the essay itself is such a glowing love declaration to, well, love in all its unfair complication, I can't help but recommend reading it.
The greatest disappointment IMO, are the two essays included that focus primarily on African-American culture, both give you no basis where they come from or where they intend to head to and just leave you confused if you haven't already a solid backdrop to the matter - in which case both essays become superfluous.
I'm sure there stood better on offer.
So, some of the best is a misleading subtitle in a ways, or an honest one, depends on which ever way you want to read it. Because some of the articles included are best, but the majority is just there to give us broad overview of the rich variety of essay written on Tor.com regarding reading, writing, books, novels, movies, TV and society and every imaginable aspect of culture inbetween...