Following Fantasy Series

Over the years I've read a lot of Fantasy, whether part of a shared world (DragonLance), or of the stand-alone variety.  The problem is that very few fantasy books stop at just one title.  Case in point - I've just finished up reading Orson Scott Card's Tales of Alvin Maker series, which is comprised of six books, but does hold out the promise of a seventh.  Following taht I'm currently going for my first run through Roger Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber - which is such fun I'm likely to revisit it again in a few years.

Every month I try to make sure I read at least one book from each of my favourite genres; Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction (SF), but although Horror and SF both have plenty of series, Fantasy seems to be almost nothing but series.

On the positive side I can invest a lot more in the characters in a Fantasy series than I can those who only appear in a single novel, but at the same time, while I'm trying out a large number of different Horror and SF authors, I find that over the course of a year I'm reading as few as two or three Fantasy authors, as it takes me months and months to get through their series.

I don't really have a solution to the problem, because I love reading these series, but sometimes I wish I could just find a nice collection of Fantasy short stories, and that would be enough.

Genre Character of the Week: Alvin Maker

So here I am, not even fully through the first novel in the series, and I'm really loving the character of young Alvin Maker in Orson Scott Card's Seventh Son.

The series takes place in an alternate history version of America, in the early 1800s.  It follows the childhood of a young man called Alvin, who happens to be the seventh son of a seventh son, which in his world makes him pretty special indeed.

Unlike the author's other main protagonist (Andrew "Ender" Wiggins), Alvin comes across as a pretty great little kid (and later young man), he's honest, works to make the world around him a little better, and has the knack to make just about anything.

To be fair there are some pretty obvious parallels between Alvin and the real world historical figure Joseph Smith, founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Later Day Saints (also known as the Mormons), but seeing that the author is a practicing member of that faith, parallels can be expected.

So far the story is pretty great, there's a great sense of both wonder and danger throughout, and even though I'm Canadian, stories set in the history of my continent (even an alternate history), are pretty fun for me to check out.

Although I can't recommend the series as I'm only on book one, the first book is pretty great and definitely worth a look if you enjoy fantasy fiction.