Non-fiction: Review of Wisdom of the Mythtellers by Sean Kane

Journey to the West, one of the ‘four great novels of the Chinese canon’, is most often attributed to Wu Chengen.  Author and title requisite for fiction these days, most take for granted that indeed, he is the one who penned the story.  Wu is, in fact, the person who collected, collated, fit, polished, and presented in finished form the myriad pieces of the magnificent tale of Sun Wukong, Sanzang, and their quest for the holy sutras.  The original story having undergone thousands of iterations by street corner storytellers, the result is a narrative that holds its history in episodic rather than escalating form.

But this simple transition in the evolution of storytelling in China, from oral to written tradition, is but one minor—and late—step in the history of storytelling as a whole.  Before street corner storytellers were bards, and before bards, shamans, and before shamans simple gossip over the campfire—thousands and thousands of years of human culture and existence covered in this simple statement.  Tracing story and myth all the way back to its roots, another observation can be made in the manner in the evolution of stories: humanity’s subservience, or lack thereof, to nature.  From the Paleolithic to the Mesolithic, Neolithic to the Bronze, Iron to the Information Age, humanity, an idea in this context identified by the West, has shifted its stance on the power of the Earth and its inherent forces.  Where once gods inhabited every rock and shadow, it was whittled down to a pantheon, and from the pantheon, distilled into one ruling god, and from one god to the belief mankind holds its fate in its own hands.  Science fiction the mode of discourse which most obviously represents the latter, we are left with scraps and tatters of what remains of the former.  Enter Sean Kane’s Wisdom of the Mythtellers (1998).

Review of "The Last Light of the Sun" by Guy Gavriel Kay

Since writing the Fionavar Tapestry, Guy Gavriel Kay has become formulaic.  Tigana, The Lions of Al-Rassan, A Song for Arbonne, and the Sarantium Mosaic have all been in the same pseudo historical style, featured archaic European cultures, and were written in the same style (excluding Arbonne's excesses).  It is thus with Kay's 2004 Last Light of the Sun the reader cannot be faulted for expecting a product precisely in line with these points.  Kay does not disappoint, and as long as there is a willingness to be flexible with style as the reader was with Arbonne, then the novel should satisfy.

With Italy, France, Spain, and the Mediterranean all touched upon before, Last Light of the Sun moves north. Another historical fantasy, the novel blends elements of Norse mythology with the history of the Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians and the Welsh as they try to coexist on the isles in and around Britain and Scandinavia.  Three basic story arcs comprise the tale: the forgiveness-seeking father and his wandering son, the young man who would become king, and the man seeking revenge for the murder of his brother - all coming together for a dramatic, surprising, and gratifying conclusion.  The storytelling, as is to be expected from Kay, is superb.  More fantastic than books since Tigana, the novel plays off Norse myth in an eerie, delightful manner.  The fairies and monsters of the forest send a chill down the spine, and, as is to be expected with Kay, indirectly inform the storyline while enhancing imagery and sense of wonder.