January 2008 BOTM: Winterbirth by Brian Ruckley

[Hobbit]

Happy New Year: Discussion is now open on this book.

Winterbirth by Brian Ruckley is a relative newcomer to the Book of the Month Club. It was first published in the UK by Orbit in October 2006. It was a paperback in the UK in August 2007 and in the US in September 2007.

A godless world permanently frozen and in winter: how apt for a book in January!

Mark / Hobbit

 

[Severn]

A godless world permanently frozen and in winter: how apt for a book in January!

Bah, not if you live where I do. Bring me the nearest beach please, I want to jump in! It's so filthily hot right now.

Oh, I haven't started on the book yet, but I'm due to do so in a few days...

happy new year everyone.

 

[Erfael]

A godless world permanently frozen and in winter: how apt for a book in January!

I'll have more comments in the next day or two: Resolution #1 for the new year, participate in the book club discussions again, rather than reading the book and staying mum.

One thing, though, tonight: That quote above, even though it's what everything on the cover seems to imply, just don't [sic.] seem right. I never got the impression that the world was frozen. There was some sleet once, but everything else seemed relatively unfrozen....

 

[Raule]

Just finished, so this is my initial (not by any means thought through) gut reaction.

I thought it was a solid debut novel. The beginning unfolds slowly, but in a way that is appropriate to the scale of events about to take place and for introducing and positioning the large cast of characters. Once the conflict kicks off, I felt it moved right along. There is a certain predictability to the story and mold of the characters, but in a way that feels natural and serves the story. I felt no sleight-of-hand or trickery with the author's storytelling. When things are left vague or unexplained, I never felt like it was for the purpose of leading me astray or keeping me guessing.

Regarding the magic of this world, perhaps this comparison gets made too often, but I'll use it anyway. The Shared felt a little like The Force to me, especially in the way the Na'kyrim can feel and sense the presence and strength of one another.

About the characters, I liked Aeglyss's unpredictability, and I got very much a Darth Vader sort of vibe from him since his rage and hurt fuel his potential powers. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. I'm also left wondering if the Shadowhand will eventually change loyalties. Did anyone else wonder whether the crows are being used as spies (I'm thinking about that scene where Gryvan oc Haig is feeding an imprisoned bird in a cage as he talks to the Shadowhand)?

 

[Wulfa_Jones]

I didn't like it much... gave up about a 3rd of the way in.

Took to long to start and was pretty transparent plot wise. I didn't take to any of the characters and found the prose to be a little dull and hard going - didn't inspire me to want to keep reading and so after a while I just stopped.

It was sold to me as being Heroic fiction but the lack of action left me bored.

 

[Amaunette]

Raule, interesting comparisons to Star Wars mythology, I can definitely see your point about the Force and the Darth Vader aspects. I had never seen it that way before. I'm not sure that it bothers me yet. I think Aeglyss is turning into a dreadfully scary villain, which means he'll make it an interesting story. And as far as the Shared being like the Force, well, I suppose it's unavoidable when you have some magic being used when the mechanics aren't explained very well.

I'm not really sure how I feel about Winterbirth anymore. It's exactly the kind of fantasy I anticipate liking, but I really have to reserve overall judgment until I see the whole story. I think it could definitely be better. I liked the villains best of all the characters, the Inkallim were dangerous and threatening but still human creatures. I can't say I really like any of the good guys terribly much. That's not to say I want them to die, but they need some more fleshing out. They haven't done anything other than grieve and act scared yet. I want to see what they're made of.

I also really liked how the difference between the good guys and the bad guys was a matter of philosophy. All too often it's something along the lines of, well, that's a demon, so he's a bad guy, or that's a foreigner, so he must be acting against the protagonist's interests. But here we basically have an element of civil war stemming from a simple matter of philosophy, which creates an internal struggle as well. Now, in college I read papers from a debate between Martin Luther and Erasmus on the issue of predestination and free will, and I must say that the argument was put forth a lot more clearly there than it was here. I want the bad guys to act more consistently as regards predestination. It seems like they ignore it when it's convenient and believe in luck when the odds are against them.

 

[dgriego]

I was unable to finish the book and laid it down about of a third of the way in. I intend to give it another try later so I can at least say I finished it.
The characters have the potential to be interesting but something is missing, I find myself just not caring about them. The setting of the book has no depth and I find it difficult to imagine the place.
I read the reviews on Amazon and many compared it to Gemmell or Martin, I am curious as to why. I saw nothing that resembled either author. For me the book was a disappointment although I do see some hint of possible promise in the future. The story line in itself is decent, but he needs to figure out what ever it is that makes the characters and the scenery come alive.

 

[Rob B]

I reviewed it late in 2007 and was underwhelmed. I had a difficult time connecting with the characters and felt was unable to connect with them or care about the story.

I also think this book was a case of the (mostly) positive response to the book when published in the UK setting me up for disappointment.

 

[suciul]

The beginning was a little slow but then I started liking the characters and the writing.

It was one of the highlights of 2007 in fantasy for me, in the top 5 and book 2 is one of those I am really looking forward too just after Last Argument of the Kings in fantasy, now that both Rothfuss and Monette seem delayed till 09.

I cannot say why I liked this book, I guess it comes down to the fact that I liked the characters and the writing style resonates with me.

 

[ezchaos]

It's funny, I was reading the board's "What are you reading in September" thread and found my blurb about Winterbirth. At the time I said it was enjoyable. I'm not sure what I was smoking at the time because hindsight tells me it was a mediocre read. Not great, not horrible. The story was slow at the beginning but eventually picked up. I remember the characters were a little hard to get into.

I agree with Rob about how there was initially some positive press which may have set my expectations too high.

I feel like I'm missing something with this book. Although I rarely do it, maybe a re-read is in order.

 

[hawkwind]

It definitely has a slow start but does get better. It took me a while to get into it. I think what disappointed me the most was "a Godless world permanently frozen in Winter" I was expecting a more cold, frozen setting hard to survive. It doesn't come close to the feeling you get reading J.V. Jone Sword of Shadows books, and thats what I was expecting.

 

[Erfael]

I'm surprised to see so many medium to lackluster comments on this one. I had expected the reception to be much warmer, despite the chilly setting.

I don't read much multi-character epic fantasy these days. It usually doesn't entertain me as much and the general shape of this types of series (trilogy at minimum) appeals to me less and less as time goes on. I had the book sent to my parents' house with a holiday shipment (to round out the free shipping), so I received it on Christmas Eve when I got there. Open the box, lift out its heft, read the blurb on the back. "*sigh* Sounds like pretty mediocre, paint-by-numbers fantasy."

Much to my surprise, I found myself reading near 150 pages a night of this one. It definitely kept me turning the pages. The odd thing about it is, I still can't place my finger on what it is that was compelling about it. I suppose I quite like the setting. Not too many of the characters were standouts, and some that I thought were more interesting and would be with us for the long haul were axed early. I think I actually made the comment to my SO that at the rate we were going, books two and three would be one sole surviving person left talking to himself.

It's still fresh, so hard to put in clear perspective, but I think this will probably stand as one of my favorite books of 2007. I'm looking forward to Bloodheir next year.

To some of the (small) possible issues with the book. I think one of the issues people may have with it is that there are relatively few mysteries in the book (at least overt ones). There aren't many things that the reader has to look forward to or base speculation on. One of the interesting things about reading for me is taking what I know at a given moment and trying to extrapolate where the story might go. Through the first half of this book, at the very least, I didn't feel we were given fodder for this kind of reading. Things were happening, and they were relatively interesting on face value, but that's all we had. I suppose that fits with what the "good" characters knew, in that they were attacked at their Winterbirth celebration and didn't know what was going on or why. But narratively, I think we as readers needed a bit more.

I think things got more interesting for me when we started to get a little bit of Kanin's motivations for chasing the Lannis siblings. That's the time when I started to think, "Aha. There's a personal vendetta here, and I see where these motivations may lead us in 100 pages."

Overall, while I thoroughly enjoyed the book, that extra little bit of misdirection and sewing of future ideas could have helped give it that extra push towards the upper tiers.

I also really liked how the difference between the good guys and the bad guys was a matter of philosophy. All too often it's something along the lines of, well, that's a demon, so he's a bad guy, or that's a foreigner, so he must be acting against the protagonist's interests. But here we basically have an element of civil war stemming from a simple matter of philosophy, which creates an internal struggle as well. Now, in college I read papers from a debate between Martin Luther and Erasmus on the issue of predestination and free will, and I must say that the argument was put forth a lot more clearly there than it was here. I want the bad guys to act more consistently as regards predestination. It seems like they ignore it when it's convenient and believe in luck when the odds are against them.

I didn't really feel like he was trying to put forth an argument of free will vs. predestination. I suppose if I felt he was trying to use the book to explore those ideas it would be a little thin. But I feel that while that's central to the philosophical struggle between the two peoples, it's not the idea behind the overall story. I also never really felt like they were merely paying lip service to the idea of the Road.

To someone looking down on the whole story, the destination may seem obvious, but to someone there on the ground in a siege situation, there's no way to know the end. And while someone may believe fully that the road beneath their feet will take them to the proper end for them, they don't have to be happy about how that end arrives and they can still take small joys in turns of fate where it looks like all is lost and then suddenly works out.

I think it's important not to confuse predestination with an attitude of "I have no control of my life, so I'll just be a passive passenger and not bother striving for anything or placing any care in my decisions."

All for now.

 

[Raule]

Maybe part of the problem (if you want to see it as a problem) is that there is no real main character - no good guy/gal to root for? I think when all the players have their reasons and motivations as portrayed in this, it may be hard to become attached to any one of them. Also, this first book very much has the feel of setting the stage for the next one - a long prologue, if you will.

I wasn't too surprised by the deaths that took place early in this book. I felt those coming as the spark that would reignite the old enmities (and perhaps a few new ones). There is a certain capriciousness that rings true to real life history in who might survive and who might die.

I was engaged when reading the book. I thought it was a respectable first effort. It was nothing that blew me away or anything I'd call outstanding. I'm curious enough to probably followup with the next one, but I won't be anxious to get to it.

I'm not one to rate books, but I'd probably give this 3 1/2 out of 5 stars. It's got room to grow and mature.

 

[Power to the J]

Here's my 2 cents. Kinda long winded, I know, but w/e. I think Raule's point about SW and the no real protagonist are valid, and a good way of displaying this book.




I picked up Winterbirth and was pretty excited. It seemed like a good enough premise, and from the small amount of research I had done, it seemed to be getting fairly decent reviews. I was excited to begin reading it, and, unfortunately, this book did not meet my expectations.

I first started getting nervous when I opened the book and began reading the prologue and saw that the novel took place in the Third Age. But soon, the writing took over and the cliché became bearable. The prologue to this novel was excellent, in my opinion. It pulled me into the world and I felt ready for everything to unfold before me and was in a fairly good mood after meeting the people that it seemed necessary to meet.

Then, everything began to slow down. I met a bunch of characters, and didn’t feel anything towards them. They were cardboard, and the dialog that Brian Ruckley gave to them wasn’t helping anything. I think if even one of these characters was witty, it would have added a lot to the overall experience of reading this book, but there was none, and everybody was so glum the characters were depressing to read about. The main characters were, like I said, flat, and I didn’t care about what happened to them..

When Orisian’s father died I was supposed to feel horrible like he did, but I didn’t care about the fate of Orisian’s father or Orisian, and it was as if I watched a fly getting swatted instead of a major character’s father dying.

Like I said, the characters were bad, but there was one who was actually good: the antagonist, Aeglyss. He seemed well fleshed out, and when he was in a scene it seemed to be a superior scene to some of the others in the book.

Also, when I got the first mention of Winterbirth, a celebration, I had a bad feeling in my heart. I pleaded, “Please, don’t let the Black Road attack while the celebration is going on!” Of course, that is exactly what happened, and A) There was no surprise, plus B) I was angry. I was mad that I already knew that this was coming, and that there was a cliché such as that in the writing and the fact that I knew it was coming made me think that the author wasn’t even trying. If he was, wouldn’t he have disguised it a little bit better and made it more of a shock? I think so.

There is another factor of this book that I found a bit annoying, and that is the names. They seemed to start with one of three letters every time, and it often led to confusion and sometimes getting characters mixed up in my head. Then, I would have to look back, which also took away from the total experience of the book.

This book is fairly boring, except for the very beginning and the very end. The first ten or so pages--the prologue--were good, with the great descriptions of the Black Road, and then our first time meeting Aeglyss. This was a fantastic part of the book, and then the end, which was also very exciting. But, in between, not much happened, and I thought that it was a whole lot of talking and contemplating, and when you have forgettable and boring characters, this isn’t very fun to read.

Overall, this wasn’t very good. My expectations may be a bit too high, but I still think that this needed a lot more work and editing, and perhaps a different author.

 

[Rob B]

I think one of the issues people may have with it is that there are relatively few mysteries in the book (at least overt ones). There aren't many things that the reader has to look forward to or base speculation on. One of the interesting things about reading for me is taking what I know at a given moment and trying to extrapolate where the story might go. Through the first half of this book, at the very least, I didn't feel we were given fodder for this kind of reading. Things were happening, and they were relatively interesting on face value, but that's all we had. I suppose that fits with what the "good" characters knew, in that they were attacked at their Winterbirth celebration and didn't know what was going on or why. But narratively, I think we as readers needed a bit more.

That could be part of my problem (no mystery). While the world was fairly interesting, there didn't seem to be much of a narrative pull nor a character to care about.

 

[Amaunette]

I didn't really feel like he was trying to put forth an argument of free will vs. predestination. I suppose if I felt he was trying to use the book to explore those ideas it would be a little thin. But I feel that while that's central to the philosophical struggle between the two peoples, it's not the idea behind the overall story. I also never really felt like they were merely paying lip service to the idea of the Road.
...I think it's important not to confuse predestination with an attitude of "I have no control of my life, so I'll just be a passive passenger and not bother striving for anything or placing any care in my decisions."

I didn't mean to imply that the book necessarily had to have an argument between free will and predestination. I just wanted a way to understand why the villains suddenly decided to believe in predestination. I wanted to understand the motivation, I'm not expecting an intelligent debate. To me, it seems strange to believe your entire life that you have free will in your actions and then to suddenly believe that everything that has ever happened and ever will happen to you was actually determined by an outside agent. The conversion of the original Black Road followers was presented as a sort of epiphany situation, which seems unlikely, albeit possible. Most people don't suddenly give up deeply held, "obvious" beliefs like free will without some arguments being professed. For example, suppose I tried to tell you that, despite the fact that it seems you control your body, you are actually being controlled by the ghosts of aliens that conquered the planet a long time ago (some people actually do believe this). You wouldn't just say, "well, of course, I can't believe I have been misled my whole life!" You would expect some arguments. That was all I was trying to say. I was wondering why anyone would suddenly decide to believe in predestination. I also don't believe the argument should be central to the book, its just that the conversion seems to lack motivation.

I certainly don't believe that the villains were only paying lip service to the Road. They believe in it with all their hearts. But I seem to remember a part in the book where (sorry for lack of names, I don't have a copy of the book) the Black Road Prince and his sister are holding a siege and, despite being low on supplies and being outnumbered, decide to leave their castle to proffer battle on the field to a more numerous, well-fed force from a neighboring country. Their reasoning for this unlikely move? That the Road must have determined they would win. Really they're relying on luck, which is a great deal more uncertain. But if you asked them, they would not say they were relying on luck, but rather their faith in the Road. But I could be wrong about why they decided to go to battle, I haven't read the book recently and don't have a copy to review the details.

Nor do I believe that believing in predestination makes the villains lack will or initiative. I don't believe I said that anywhere. It seems to me that it does quite the opposite. The Black Road believes that, whatever they do, the outcome is already predestined, so when they make choices, they are more likely to choose the more dangerous path, because they have no reason to fear an unfortunate outcome since they have no control over it. This is what I love about making the villains predestinationists - it makes them seem more dangerous.

 

[Severn]

Psst, Hobbit, have you read this? ~poke~ Actually, the cover is very misleading: 'it is a world of ice, it is a world of blood, it is a godless world.' That kind of ridiculous drama annoys the hell out of me. It is not a world of ice - it's just a world that has, you know, seasons and it happens to be winter, and the main characters flee over some mountains.

Well I loved it. I wasn't too surprised at all the negative reviews myself - while reading I thought to myself 'yeah, this is going to annoy some people isn't it...' I think it's what we prioritise in stories, and story-telling, that govern how we react to them. And in this one, there is no mystery, and it is a simple story; fortunately for me, I like both of these elements. In fact, I think of it as a pure story - no twists and turns and clever plot set-ups. It's set out to tell the story of one land's fall into war, and it does just that. (I have a feeling, though, that Aeglyss may turn into something I don't like much - a standard, scary villain, in the next book. We'll see). So yes, I love slow stories - sitting 'round the camp fire tales I call them - and this is definitely one. The pacing reminds me of Russell Kirkpatrick's Fire of Heaven series, with which a lot of people have issues.

Contrary to so many I also believe the characterisation was great (in part, because of the slow nature of the telling), and I really believed in each character. Yes, there was a lack of humour, but they're not exactly living in humourous times. I did enjoy the repartee between Theor and Nyve, though, and felt the portrayal of two men of high, powerful standing growing old together was exquisite. Inurian's death was brilliant, and quite heart-breaking for me. I didn't see it coming, as I thought he would have more of a part to play - I thought it likely that Rothe was the one who would die, rather than him.

I always had the sense that Orisian was the main lead, the one to root for? I personally felt he went through quite a like of character growth, too, on the bleak road he travelled. I appreciated the unrequited love element, and that his closest female relationship was with his sister.

Hm, this may sound odd, but the typeset of a book really matters to me: The size of the text, the white space, the look of the letters, all subconsciously play a role in my reading experience. It came to me that I was completely enamoured with the layout and the letters, and realised I'd stumbled upon a Garamond printing. I love Garamond. I write in Garamond (though I can't be assed using it for my posts here) - it's so clean looking. Fresh. I actually read faster if it's printed in Garamond.

The Black Road are a bunch of fanatics. There is no logic, because it isn't logical. It's only logical to them, and I think that in a world of no gods, the promise of a new world infused with gods seemed like a rich promise to some. After all, the first followers were dispossessed and homeless, and forged a new home in an inhospitable place. The early settlers, if you will, needed to keep the fuel beneath the fire, to keep the thought alive that the beliefs mattered, and were worth something. I think Ruckley made a realistic choice by portraying the Gyre Thane as more involved in the day-to-day grasp for power within his own little swatch of Bloods, than about the Road - it shows the erosion of belief, and a century of settling into a new homeland. The Inkallim are the true fanatics, as a whole. The Bloods are Bloods at their core - lots of in-fighting and power-shuffling.

I also liked the symmetry - two Thanes grasping for more and more power, and two sets of siblings, with dead fathers, thrown out of their respective comfort zones.

I am looking forward to Bloodheir, although I'm very worried about Aeglyss becoming typically evil...

 

[Corporal Blues]

I just finished the first chapter, and I skipped ahead of all of your posts so as to not spoil anything, but so far, so good. I like what I've seen, and the first chapter, (100 pages or so) seems to set the table quite nicely. Its definately got me hooked in and interested in the events. I'm hungry for more, so I'm gonna go read.

 

[Hobbit]

Psst, Hobbit, have you read this? ~poke~

LOL. Yes, which was my point. I didn't mention that I don't remember it being particularly icy, though it is mentioned in there somewhere: certainly colder.

However, I stand corrected: how about 'it is a world of ice but not necessarily explicit'. And definitely not in the Southern Hemisphere at this time of the year.

(Darn that Eurocentricity!)

Mark / Hobbit

 

[Severn]

~giggling~

You're forgiven.

(And seriously, so damn hot here (well my silly Nebraskan husband doesn't think so, because he's 'accustomed' to greater heat. Whatever, I say. I'm sweltering).