Book review: The Rithmatist

Remember that one time I tried to review Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear? Yeah, me neither. Honestly, I'm probably trying to block the memory because I didn't do such a good job of it. But you live and you learn. What's more, a book I picked up from Minotaur (the best place in the world) last week has awakened such thoughts and feelings inside of me that I feel the need to try to organise them and share them with the internet.

The book I picked up is called The Rithmatist, by Brandon Sanderson. As you, being a smart, beautiful individual, have probably figured out, the cover is displayed on the right (EDTA: I'm definitely not a smart and beautiful individual since I can't even figure out left from right). As you smart, beautiful individual have probably also figured out, it's a steampunk novel. For those of you out of the loop: if it's got a cover framed by a whole bunch of shiny (and I will publicly vouch for its shininess), golden gears depicting a kid running in a trench coat with what looks like a cathedral in the background, yeah, it's probably steampunk. Another telling sign of steampunk novels is an orange-brown colour scheme -- but really, mostly it's the gears.

I will grant the fact that the book isn't really steampunk in that the technology of the world isn't driven by steam but rather by mechanical energy. However, the world is instantly recognisable for any fan of the blanket steampunk genre.

Apart from being steampunk, the novel is also categorised as young adult literature, as far as I can work out. That's what it says on the author's website, anyway.

The Rithmatist is set in an alternate universe that is somewhat recognisable from a modern point of view in terms of geography, religion and historical figures. Apart from its reliance on mechanical power, a major factor setting the world of The Rithmatist apart from the modern world is the existence of a form of magic called -- you guessed it -- rithmatics. Rithmatics are based on principles of geometry and mathematics, where a rithmatist's ability to draw basic shapes and creatures called "chalklings" on the ground determines their power in this magic -- which is essentially the power to make one's drawings come to life. What I approve of in this magic is that it is clearly constrained with "known rithmatic lines" -- in essence, rithmatic drawings are a little like our good old run-of-the-mill magic spells: you might do them a little differently to the next magician, but they will always produce the same effect. That's a good way of keeping the form magic from getting vague or simply convenient. Of course, the main character will set on a task to bend the magic's rules, as is inevitable, but we will get to that.

I'll note that rithmatics is spelled with a capital R in the novel. I resent that. I don't spell magic with a capital M, physics with a capital P or mathematics with a capital M. I'm not going to spell your fictional discipline with a capital letter, either. I suspect it has something to do with the discipline being tied to the religion of the book somehow -- but since this is never elaborated on, I honestly don't really care.

So sue me

Different to most fantasy novels, the main character, Joel, isn't a progidy in rithmatics. Except that he is. This is to say that he hasn't been chosen by "the Master" (who is clearly a religious figure but whose identity and function never become fully clear, frustratingly enough) to have rithmatic abilities. However, despite this unfortunate fact that he doesn't have the magic, he is an absolute savant in the field. He attends Armedius, which is a school for both rithmatics and for the extremely rich. However, since he is the relatable hero of this story, he is neither of these things and has instead had the opportunity to attend because of a favour the principal owed to his late father. As a short and sweet description, Joel is perfect. The only reason he is not kicking your ass right now is that he is held back by his circumstances -- his passion and aptitude for rithmatic drawings is overridden by the fact that he wasn't chosen by the Master. He is "overlooked" by many because he does not have the wealth to be important or to reach for what he may want in life. I say overlooked in quotation marks because over the course of the book, Joel is in numerous conversations with professors and even the principal of Armedius where he is treated as an equal, or perhaps even more than one. This is despite the fact that he is a teenager, has only studied rithmatics second-hand, and is an unbearable little prick.

Though perhaps he's only an unbearable little prick because he doesn't have any real flaws. He is a hero from day 1 -- it's as if the whole book is just going through the motions of getting him there.

And what a drag getting him there is! The writing style is simplistic, with a matter-of-fact fashion of going through situations. Now, although I have never been a huge fan of this writing style, there are absolute masters of this style, such as Feist, who can use it simply to heighten the tension of their story. In contrast, The Rithmatist is absolutely flat with no atmosphere at all. Granted, the style does begin paying off in a bunch of more high-action scenes toward the end of the book, although I don't think the payoff is equal to the effort of slogging through  200 pages of Joel going "but what if" and "but something seems off and NOBODY WILL LISTEN TO MEEEEE until it's too late and then I'll have to save the day!"

Then, of course, there's Melody. She is the hero's sidekick and the most excruciating female stereotype I have encountered in any book that I have read in a long time. She is described as overly dramatic, prone to moodswings, completely ruled by emotion and devoid of any reason. At first, Joel finds her unspeakably irritating, but warms up to her sooner or later -- the turning point occurs when Joel notes that when Melody isn't being crazy, she can "really look quite pretty." Despite the entire book being centred around a mystery that Melody and Joel are solving together, I think she only has one original thought in the entirety of the novel -- and that is only because she had undergone an experience that Joel had not. Further, Melody is a rithmatist, but don't get excited yet, because she's absolutely terrible at it. Terrible, that is, except for the part where she can draw unicorns and with her woman's intuition, without having to do the careful calculations and geometric drawings that all other rithmatists do (you know, the ones Joel is great at), and literally talks them into doing things for her. As a science major, I find this polarisation of abilities between Joel and Melody into Reason and Emotion extremely belittling and disturbing, and even more so because by the end of the book, Joel is essentially using Melody as a tool to do the rithmatics that he himself does not have the aptitude to perform. Sure, it comes across as cooperation, because "hey Melody is good at one thing stop looking at me like that." She is never the one calling the shots, even though she is the one with the magic power. She exists solely for his benefit.

In summary, I am disappointed. The concept of the novel is fascinating, and some of the world seems to be very interesting -- but even this is poorly developed and shrouded in feeble mystery to keep the reader engaged. The atmosphere of the novel is nonexistent. The characters are flat and offensively polarised into gender stereotypes on subjects that are relevant to the modern world (logic, mathematics) and where women -- young girls -- desperately need positive role models.

In short, the whole book lacked dimension -- which is kind of ironic, if you stop to think about it. Good job at creating a two-dimensional story about people creating two-dimensional beings, Sanderson.

Bringing out the flamethrowers

A few posts ago, I posted about how I was going to try the Snowflake method to plan this year's NaNoWriMo novel, talking about how my 2009 novel faltered and then died because of my poor planning and inability to keep the strings of the story in my head.

Well, since then, I've actually gotten past step 1. In fact, I've gotten as far as step 3!

I have also discovered that I freaking hate it.

Relevant to my hate toward the Snowflake method. Incidentally, I actually made this one myself. In paint. The dinosaurs in Google images were way too cute to adequately express my hatred.

The Snowflake model has no soul. I guess that if you already have an idea that is fairly articulate inside your head but don't have it down on paper yet, the Snowflake model might be some merit to it. With this, I mean that it might be a good organisational tool to get all of your ideas down in a format that will ultimately help you get your work down in an intelligible manner. But as a tool for someone who only has the very raw bones of an idea in their head, such as "two vampires, a werewolf and a shapeshifter go on a road trip" -- it probably doesn't take a genius to figure out that that was my idea -- I would definitely go as far as to say that, instead of being helpful, the Snowflake method could very well kill that idea.

You see, the Snowflake method is a method of production. It's a method of making your novel publishable: of writing a synopsis and then writing the novel to suit that synopsis. It is meant to lay your entire novel down before you actually write it, in a manner that is so clinical that makes me remember the faint chemical smell of hospital corridors. I've sat here for a few minutes, trying to get it into words why exactly I get this feeling from trying to slog through step 3 of the method, but I don't think anything I can produce right now would be very convincing. I thought about complaining about the fact that I am supposed to figure out the motives for my characters before I have actually formulated personalities for them, but in the overall sense of the central story of the novel, I guess asking about the motivation and conflict and epiphany of your characters makes sense.

But that's exactly the problem. How am I -- in fact, why am I -- supposed to know the inner workings of my novel before I've written it? I guess this sounds childish, and this may be only my own opinion, but I think that every story has a soul, and that every story teaches you something about yourself and the way you view the world. Every story evolves as you write it, and often takes you by surprise. For example, in 2009, it took me about 15 chapters to realise that one of my central characters was gay. Only a fool would plot their story out from the get-go, thinking that it won't change.

Saying that, I want to clarify that I'm in no way implying that everyone who has ever used the Snowflake model is a fool. Perhaps others like having the bones of their story down before beginning the actual creative process. I also concede that I may be using it wrong, and that perhaps I should return to it after I have a firmer grasp of what my novel is actually going to be about. But right now, it's just the wrong thing for me: I feel no creative flair when working on it, but just like I'm toiling endlessly at some sort of machinery with nothing to show for it. The point of planning, for me, at least for WriMo, is to lay down a general outline of the story in such a manner that I'm not completely at the mercy of my creative juices, especially on days when they've completely run dry. The point of planning is to inspire, and to make me excited about the scenes I've just described. The point of planning is to make me want to tell my story.

The Snowflake model is not doing it for me. I'm not sure if any planning model will work with this particular novel. I'm not sure I was ever any good at planning. I'm not sure that this story is even worth telling. But I guess I'll try to keep at it, even simmering at the back of my brain, and see if I can salvage at least a bit of what made me excited about it before.

Hope the rest of you have more luck at this than I have had.

Review: The (incomplete) Kingkiller Chronicle

If you've visited this site every now and then, you would've probably realised that my GoodReads profile gadget thing is sitting right about ----> there, but further down (depending, of course, where this post is when you get to it). If you've been paying even more attention than just to go "oh, I see" and then glazed over thinking about penguins (wait, everyone doesn't do that?), then you would have noticed that by now, there have been two different book covers in that section there, representing the two books I've read since I started this blog. For those of you who aren't freakish stalkers (not that I don't love all my freakish stalkers), those two books were by Patrick Rothfuss, and were called The Name of the Wind and The Wise Man's Fear, respectively. This morning, I finished reading The Wise Man's Fear, and I think I promised to write something about these two books once I had finished, so here goes nothing.

Actually, before I start, I should probably warn you that I have no idea whatsoever how to do book reviews, or even book overviews, for that matter. While I stall and try to think about how to go about all of this, feel free to go update twitter to talk about the crazy blogger girl who doesn't plan her posts and just spews random nonsense.

Back? Alright, let's get this show on the road.

Patrick Rothfuss' Kingkiller Chronicle (of which The Name of the Wind is the first, and The Wise Man's Fear is the second part), as I understand it, is intended to be a trilogy, each novel of which represents a single day, during which Kvothe (pronounced 'quothe', as the author reminds you every chance he gets) the protagonist of the novel, tells his own story. The function of the story within a story is twofold -- as the writing style is extremely intense, full of twists and turns and surprises, victories and downfalls, it gives the reader a chance to breathe every now and then, reminding us of the fact that since Kvothe is still alive, nothing that bad could really have happened. But at the same time, as Kvothe reminds us during almost each of these breaks in the story, the situation he has landed in by the end of his story is far from ideal, and that we really shouldn't except the best -- so there's a definite sense of foreboding going on all the time. It's very captivating, even if the sentiment of the interludes can get a little repetitively depressing at times, especially in the second book.

The comparison between the two books is actually quite different to the comparison of any other two books in the same series. I usually like the first book more, because it is always, always far more polished, and contains the introduction to the story and the world, which is always my favourite bit in every series I read. The first book is spent introducing Kvothe and his background, whereas the second book concentrates more on his adventures and experiences in the world. The fact that he travels so much allowed the second book to preserve that sort of introductory feeling of the first book, which I was pleasantly surprised by. In many ways, the story in the second book may be richer in its surroundings, because there need not be such emphasis on the character himself, since he has been thoroughly introduced in the first book. I was especially impressed by the dual simplicity and intricacy of the cultures Rothfuss introduces in the second book. Saying that they were both simple and intricate sounds a little paradoxical, I know, but what I mean is that the cultural quirks at least appeared deep and well thought-out, but were still very easy to follow.

What I am not impressed with is Kvothe's age. By the end of the second book, he is around 17, if I remember correctly -- but throughout the entire series, there has been no indication of him being this young, except for the author's intermittent statements that Kvothe does not know his way around women. I partially understand Rothfuss' need to have a young character as the protagonist (to do with his motivations; avid fantasy readers can guess this), but... It's just annoyingly unrealistic. For those of you whose brains have gone off, screaming "MARY SUE MARY SUE MARY SUE", I should issue this warning: Kvothe is pretty much the epitome of a Mary Sue character. However, I can also say this: I hate Mary Sues, but Kvothe's exceptional skill in absolutely everything didn't bother me. I'm not exactly sure why: I guess he has enough human awkwardness (though I do admit that that diminished to almost nothing at the end of the second book; this is one of the things I didn't like about it) to justify his exceptional skill at most things.

Overall, Rothfuss is both an amazing writer in a technical sense -- he has this fondness for subtle suggestion, which always rings true for me -- and a great storyteller. The praise on The Name of the Wind suggests that I shelve mine next to Lord of the Rings, and while I don't think that it's exactly comparable to LOTR -- it's very hard to be -- it definitely wasn't much of a step down to go from Tolkien to Rothfuss. If you love fantasy, this trilogy is a must-read; if you don't, you could still enjoy it, if you just gave it a chance. Rothfuss makes his world extremely accessible, and the story is oftentimes unpredictable, full of secrets and foreshadowing and exciting characters.

I can't wait for the third book in this series, I really can't.

Phew. There. How did I go? Did I inspire you to pick up the book? Did anything that I said make sense? Give me some feedback!