Good Reads, Etc. - Fantasy

   "Fantasy is no good unless the seed it springs from is a truth, a truth about human beings."  
   --Eudora Welty, 'Fairy Tale of the Natchez Trace' in The Eye of the Story (1978)

Hey Hansen, Yes! It is 'beyond' just chess. However many topics are also related to chess when you think about it!

I wrote the following in our "Just Chess?" forum:

"Often, when playing my 'Daily' games, I enter into the infinite world of fantasy.  All my 'men', and my Queen, have names (which may change depending on color).  I picture the game as a medieval battle, often including Rock Giants, Trolls, and even Wizards and Dark Druids.  I encourage my opponents to join with me by 'narrating' moves in 'chat'!  

It's great fun however you visualize it."

   I am now in the process of reading the novel Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell (2004). I was inspired to read it after seeing the film adaptation (2012) last week on Netflix.  I then plan to view the film again as the book has helped me understand some initially confusing bits of the film.

   It consists of six related stories that take the reader from the remote South Pacific in the nineteenth century to a distant, post-apocalyptic future. It won the British Book Awards Literary Fiction Award and was short-listed for the Nebula Award, and Arthur C. Clarke Award, among others.

   The three hour film is visually stunning but pieced together a little differently from the book. It has a stellar cast, most playing multiple roles. The extended preview is available on YouTube, at Cloud Atlas Trailer. I dislike spoilers so I won’t go into too much plot detail. 

    If the trailer hooks you I can urge you to see the movie first, if you wish. However, if you want to enrich the total experience then read the novel… and then see the film again. I found most of the changes to be entirely in keeping with the spirit of the stories, and the combination of the two to be extremely thought provoking. My mind has been buzzing for a week.

    The musical score (soundtrack) is also quite memorable, and makes a great background while reading the book.

A truely interesting series is written by Stephen Donaldson called the Thomas Covenant series. It possess a number of conundrams from the beginning on subjects like sociality, physics, physiology ...

 It is like Tolkiens books but with non mystical folk like Hobbits. Instead he uses Stonedowers (people who use just stone), Woodenheims (who just use wood) etcetera.

The first book "Lord Fouls Bane" can be read as a one off, but I could not stop there. Be warned it is addictive

I remember the first six from long ago... Might have to do a re-read and then finish the series.  Thanks, Colin.

Condensed from Wikipedia:

Stephen R. Donaldson (born May 13, 1947) is an American fantasy, science  fiction  and mystery novelist, most famous for The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, his ten-novel fantasy series.

The Chronicles were originally published as two bestseller trilogies of novels between 1977 and 1983. A third series, The Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, began publication in 2004 with the novel The Runes of the Earth. With the second book of that series, Fatal Revenant, Donaldson again attained bestseller status when the book reached number 12 on the New York Times Bestseller List in October 2007.

The First Chronicles

1. Lord Foul's Bane (1977)
2. The Illearth War (1978)
3. The Power That Preserves (1979)

The Second Chronicles

1. The Wounded Land (1980)
2. The One Tree (1982)
3. White Gold Wielder (1983)

The Last Chronicles

1. The Runes of the Earth (2004)
2. Fatal Revenant (2007)
3. Against All Things Ending (2010)
4. The Last Dark (2013)

   A great story, technically 'speculative fiction' (closer to Science Fiction).  Check out the Wikipedia material on Bradbury and his works, many of which (including Fahrenheit 451) have been made into movies.  Some of my old favorites were The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. All were also made into movies.  Consider writing reviews of the book and movie.

Thanks Omar for the details about the Thomas Covenant trilogy. Still do not understand why it was not made into a film, especially after the Hobbit adventures.

Another is Phillip Pullman trilogy His Dark Materials. (1) The Golden Compass (2) The Subtle Knife (3) The Amber Spyglass.   Brilliant look at space time but in a earthly way.

They did make the film "Golden Compass" but never did films about the other two. Very strange really as I understand the film did well at the box office. 

The reason I liked the Thomas Covenant series was they were like Tolkien but in simple concepts. Like Stonedowers (people who worked predominantly with stone) Woodhelvine (people who predominantly worked with wood) and so on. Of course the mystery was does the earth exist.

Anyone come to a conclusion about that?