Facebook posts and Twitter blurbs weren't doing it for me, and, not that anyone will read this or do more than scan the title and click "Like"*, I felt as if I must expound on my thoughts and feelings towards Phil Tucker's new high/epic fantasy series, Chronicles of the Black Gate.
I'm not a high/epic fantasy guy. Never got into it. Got through the first two Ice & Fire books and then tuned out.** Made it to the Tom Bombadil chapter in Fellowship and actually told the book to fuck itself. The closest thing to high/epic fantasy I dig is King's Dark Tower books, and an argument could be made that those aren't really high/epic fantasy at all. So, when Phil, one of my oldest and dearest friends, reached out to me about reading The Path of Flames, the first book in his new epic fantasy series to get my perspective (that of someone who is not a fan of the genre) I was pensive. I love Phil's writing and the worlds he creates and have since we were in high school, where he introduced me to role playing (White Wolf's Mage the Ascension and Vampire the Masquerade mostly), but I was worried I'd get bored with the subject material and it would turn into a chore.
It did not.
It fucking did not.
I found each of the six main character's intertwined stories engrossing and compelling, and, although I was waiting for a dull moment to crop up, spurring me to skip to the next paragraph***, that moment never came. When I reached the end of the first book, I was sated yet still ravenous; both to experience the next step in each of the protagonists' journeys and to discover more about this startlingly original world that Phil had created, its rules, its history, etc. But, more than that, as always with my favorite writings of his, I didn't just want the next book, I wanted to role play in the world, have Phil DM and plot some horribly twisted and delightfully macabre demise for me.
But, taking a step back, what did it mean if I, someone who doesn't know anything about the genre, liked it? It could be a fluke. I could be a fluke. One might also think that I'm biased towards everything Phil would write, as his friend, but, anyone overhearing my frank and, yeah, let's say it, brutally scathing review of the first two books in his recent YA vampire series would have to rethink that opinion. I'm acidically critical of Phil's work because I know what he's capable of. Same with Trent Reznor, same with all of my favorite artists.
So: I liked it. I gave Phil my notes and wished him well. As it turns out, I was right; it wasn't just his closest friends who'd liked The Path of Flames, it was other authors and fans of the genre; positive reviews and record breaking sales had confirmed what I had suspected: this was a truly excellent and potentially far reaching and massively appealing work. After reading an almost final draft of the second book, The Black Shriving, just released on Amazon today, I was completely sold. I'm in for the long haul. Might his Chronicles of the Black Gate make me into an epic fantasy fan? Probably not.**** But if this is the only high/epic fantasy I ever read, I'm comfortable with that.
* Or another one of those goddamn fucking emoticons that I WILL NEVER USE FACEBOOK SO EAT A SMILING DICK.
** And I've never seen an episode of GoT.
*** Not because of Phil's writing, but because my attention span has been as deliquesced by the uprising of social media as the next bent-necked, fungus-brained zombie.
**** Fuck Tom Bombadil. Forever.
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