Post by lemonmeringue on Jul 8, 2018 18:09:38 GMT -5
Does anyone on here know these books by James A. Owen? They are, as the title suggests, fantasy books, a series of seven, plus a tie-in book and a short story collection to come out soon. It's a wonderful series, one of my dearest favourites, even though it's not widely known and probably quite a matter of taste.
I don't know if it would appeal to ASOUE fans in general. It's very much a fantasy series, and it contains pretty much every fantasy element there is - for a good reason, considering the story. I'll get to that later. CotIG is very, very positive and full of hope, even though some of the things that happen are much worse than what happens in ASOUE. In that way, it's pretty much the opposite of ASOUE - also in the way that ASOUE is technically a children's series but it is often claimed to be better suited for grown ups. CotIG was originally written as a series for adults, and while lots of the content shows that, the sense of style and the humour explain why the publishers decided to market it as teen/YA literature. It's a curious thing - it's like a children's story for adults, but not in the way most "grown up fairy tales" or "old stories with a weird/gory/sexy twist" books are. It's like a good old "kids stumble into magical lands and adventures" story, but the kids are grown up men, and some of the happenings are much heavier and sadder and dangerous, but it's also full of wamrth and humour and all the cute and funny things these stories are known for. And it's full of references - literary, mostly, with some history, mythology, and pop culture thrown in. If you think ASOUE has many literary references and jokes and parallels, you will be overwhelmed by the content of it in CotIG. That's one similarity. The others are secret societies (plus schisms), illustrators from Arizona (who are also the author) and authors who are sort of related to the happenings in the story (because it's all real, or in this case, true), as well as beautiful quotes and a fantastic balance of adventure and horror, warmth and wisdom, and whacky (yet literary) humour.
As for the plot, well... I can't give away too much of it, without spoiling the end of the first book. It's about three young men (at least they are fairly young in the beginning - the series starts in WWI and ends after WWII, with some large gaps between the books) and their very special occupation, which takes them to many special places, which - in all honesty - sounds not all that interesting when described that way. But it is - it is fantastic. And gorgeous. And funny. And heartwarming. And suspenseful. And just generally wonderful and full of blueberries, and principles (the kind that gets you somewhere), and scowlers, and goats, and dragons. And of poets, dead, yes, but wonderful, and of badgers, sometimes wet, and people who do wrong things, and those who want to make things good, and ships, and water, and watches, and time, and travel, and fire, yes, quite some places burning down, and portraits, and drinks, and books, and ravens and crows, and old friends, and familiar stories, and pirates, and children, and rain, and tea, and roses, and swords, and muffins, and anything one could ever want from a book.