Read This: The Heroes
My latest review for Shelf Awareness is a look at Joe Abercrombie’s The Heroes, an epic fantasy novel that’s equal parts J.R.R. Tolkien and Steven Pressfield. Or, to paraphrase my own opening line, if Sam Fuller had ever made a sword epic, it would have looked a lot like this.
Like Fuller’s war movies, The Heroes is a profoundly unsentimental look at combat: Before the fight begins, (nearly) everybody jockeys for the position they think will bring them the most glory; once the swords come out, everyone just scrambles to stay alive. The particulars of this conflict are almost beside the point, although Abercrombie does do a fantastic job of outlining a complex political scenario underpinning the battle between the fragile alliance of chieftains under Black Dow and the advancing Army of the Union. As I suggest in my review, Abercrombie may be drawing on a lot of historical parallels here—in particular, I think American readers may find echoes of the Civil War—but the novel’s strength lies in the ability to create an entirely new reality out of those real-world influences. The Heroes depicts no war you’ve ever seen, but you will believe that this is how people like these characters would behave in circumstances like this—and that, to me, is a mark of truly great fiction.
25 February 2011 | read this |
Come to the Forgotten Borough Book Party!
I was thrilled when Nicole Steinberg asked me, close to two years ago, if I would be interested in participating in an anthology of essays by writers living in Queens (or who had lived here in the past); I brainstormed some fancy literary ideas on what I would write about, and then reality came crawling out of the woodwork to set me straight. If you want to find out what I mean by that, you should pick up Forgotten Borough: Writers Come to Terms with Queens—but I’m amng the least of the attractions in a collection that gives you original writing by Julia Alvarez, Marcy Dermansky, Victor LaValle, Arthur Nersesian, Jill Eisenstadt, and a bunch of other writers besides.
You will find many of us at LIC Bar in Long Island City Saturday, February 26, from 6 to 8 p.m., for the official Forgotten Borough release party. Nicole Cooley will join Dermansky and Nersesian in reading from their contributions, and I’m sure the rest of us who are there will be happy to sign books, too. If you’re on Facebook, you can RSVP that way, but really we’ll be delighted to see you without any advance warning, of course. If you can’t make it that night, don’t worry: Nicole assures me that other events are being planned around Queens throughout the spring. (I’ve volunteered to read at one of them, and if that comes to fruition I’ll be sure to let you know!)
24 February 2011 | events |
Our Endless and Proper Work is my new book with Belt Publishing about starting (and sticking to) a productive writing practice. 
