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The Sunrise Lands
Oct. 1st, 2007 02:33 pmI started reading SM Stirling's The Sunrise Lands this weekend. Ordered it from Amazon as soon as I got back from Worldcon. I suppose it was silly of me to think that there would be English language books for sale at Nippon, but I didn't want to order it if I could buy it in the huckster room. In any case, I cherished the unopened volume until I thought I would have a whole weekend to sit down and read it.
Of course, that didn't work out, exactly, and I had to spend most of Saturday driving up to Boulder to see my niece who was visiting from Chicago. But I did get almost halfway through the book before I closed it and went to bed on Saturday. At just about the half way point I realized - and it should have been obvious before I even opened the book - that this is the first part of a trilogy. Stirling ALWAYS writes trilogies. I should have known! But here I was forging on waiting for the quest to get started, and the book was half over and they hadn't even started yet.
So I although I read most of Sunday it was a little less intense. I'm not going to get to the end of this story for at least two more years. Damn!
Makes me remember talking to MZB back in the late 60s when she was reminiscing to some of us young things at a Mythcon about what it was like to read Tolkien one volume at a time as they were published in hardcover. Now that's something I have trouble even thinking about. I remember the agony of finishing the Fellowship at lunch at school and having to wait until I got home to start Two Towers. It's been more than forty years and I still remember that surge of emotion.
Also, I suppose, makes one wonder how a reader would feel who came to Stirling's Dies the Fire novels (of which Sunrise Lands is the fourth) without reading Tolkien. Is that possible? Certainly it would be difficult. It's a world that not only references Middle Earth, but where the mythos is strong in the actions of the characters. There's a bit in this last book where one of the Rangers is comparing the Fall of Gondolin to an event that happened just before she was born - and the two things are equally real to her.
And then there are the little throw-away references - like shopping in the "weapon shops of Isherman". You gotta love it.
Well, I still haven't read The Children of Huron, so I suppose I can keep busy with that while I wait.
Of course, that didn't work out, exactly, and I had to spend most of Saturday driving up to Boulder to see my niece who was visiting from Chicago. But I did get almost halfway through the book before I closed it and went to bed on Saturday. At just about the half way point I realized - and it should have been obvious before I even opened the book - that this is the first part of a trilogy. Stirling ALWAYS writes trilogies. I should have known! But here I was forging on waiting for the quest to get started, and the book was half over and they hadn't even started yet.
So I although I read most of Sunday it was a little less intense. I'm not going to get to the end of this story for at least two more years. Damn!
Makes me remember talking to MZB back in the late 60s when she was reminiscing to some of us young things at a Mythcon about what it was like to read Tolkien one volume at a time as they were published in hardcover. Now that's something I have trouble even thinking about. I remember the agony of finishing the Fellowship at lunch at school and having to wait until I got home to start Two Towers. It's been more than forty years and I still remember that surge of emotion.
Also, I suppose, makes one wonder how a reader would feel who came to Stirling's Dies the Fire novels (of which Sunrise Lands is the fourth) without reading Tolkien. Is that possible? Certainly it would be difficult. It's a world that not only references Middle Earth, but where the mythos is strong in the actions of the characters. There's a bit in this last book where one of the Rangers is comparing the Fall of Gondolin to an event that happened just before she was born - and the two things are equally real to her.
And then there are the little throw-away references - like shopping in the "weapon shops of Isherman". You gotta love it.
Well, I still haven't read The Children of Huron, so I suppose I can keep busy with that while I wait.
