Status
Available
Call number
Series
Collection
Publication
Gollancz (2022), 832 pages
Description
"All legends are borne of truths. And just as much lies. These are mine. Judge me for what you will. But you will hear my story first. I buried the village of Ampur under a mountain of ice and snow. Then I killed their god. I've stolen old magics and been cursed for it. I started a war with those that walked before mankind and lost the princess I loved, and wanted to save. I've called lightning and bound fire. I am legend. And I am a monster. My name is Ari. And this is the story of how I let loose the first evil. Thus begins the tale of a storyteller and a singer on the run and hoping to find obscurity in a tavern bar. But the sins of their past aren't forgotten, and neither are their enemies. Their old lives are catching up swiftly and it could cost them the entire world. No one can escape their pasts and all stories must have an ending"--… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member antao
Storytelling is an oral art form. The storyteller does not use a book, but stands within the story he/she is telling taking the audience into the landscape of the tale, creating images in the minds of the listener. The power of this oral retelling of often ancient stories is beyond what can be
Reading aloud is one thing, and a good thing it is (it certainly convinced me books were great as a child) but it's not quite storytelling and definitely isn't much of the oral tradition in Fantasy (compare the difference between Patrick Rothfuss’s efforts (“The Name of the Wind” and “The Wise Man’s Fear” and Virdi’s “The First Binding”).
The "thing" about the oral tradition in a framed narrative and its roots in folklore and myth is how changeable the stories were; what survives in collections is likely only a tiny amount of what ever existed. The moment you start codifying storytelling into recital - as Rothfuss did-, it's no longer the same beast at all.
John Clute in one of his SF reviews makes a good point about the difficulty of top quality getting published - and what of the vast delta of lesser works including Kvothe conceits masking the vital, quickening language that should sit at the top. No new Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Greg Egan, K. J. Parker, Stanislaw Lem, John Kessel, Peter Watts, Jeffrey Ford, Maureen F. McHugh, or any uncannily mimetic Russian sorcerers? Where are they all, obscured and buried in the mollifying clatter of polished SF type? Wider and more pacific the contemporary river flattens, and less the atavistic, primal streams emerge from beneath. So what do I know, I'm just one of so many readers. Maybe Clute is right on. In the competition for attention with the proliferation of alternatives sufficient popularity is all.
Is “The First Binding” an important novel SF-wise? How does one define a 'serious' or 'important' novel? As far as I'm concerned, a SF novel which is engaging, and genuinely enjoyed by its intended readership is important because it has touched their lives. Isn't that what storytelling is all about? Yet, writings which change lives in this way come in all genres, and adult and child, not just the 'literary' set. There is something valid and life-changing to be found in all works, from the most superficial to the most complicated; something moral, something interesting, something healing, something which causes us to question. We just have to open our eyes and look.
Great literature (be it SF or not) is immortal and impervious to anything but asteroid strike or catastrophic civilization collapse with loss of means to electricity or archaic printing.
If you want a terrible slow, boring as hell, with beautifying prose, stilted dialogue, where the past and future seem artificially intertwined look no further. This novel is for you.
2 stars.
NB: SF = Speculative Fiction.
Book Review SF = Speculative Fiction
Show More
achieved by reading aloud and is what makes storytelling performances so special. The poor "oral storytelling tradition" in Fantasy has become like the whipping-boy of the literary world used to justify and defend pretty much everything except what it actually is. Fan-fiction, derivative works, e-books, any and all experimental fiction, it's all claimed to be the next step of the framed narrative (stories within stories).Reading aloud is one thing, and a good thing it is (it certainly convinced me books were great as a child) but it's not quite storytelling and definitely isn't much of the oral tradition in Fantasy (compare the difference between Patrick Rothfuss’s efforts (“The Name of the Wind” and “The Wise Man’s Fear” and Virdi’s “The First Binding”).
The "thing" about the oral tradition in a framed narrative and its roots in folklore and myth is how changeable the stories were; what survives in collections is likely only a tiny amount of what ever existed. The moment you start codifying storytelling into recital - as Rothfuss did-, it's no longer the same beast at all.
John Clute in one of his SF reviews makes a good point about the difficulty of top quality getting published - and what of the vast delta of lesser works including Kvothe conceits masking the vital, quickening language that should sit at the top. No new Gene Wolfe, Jack Vance, Greg Egan, K. J. Parker, Stanislaw Lem, John Kessel, Peter Watts, Jeffrey Ford, Maureen F. McHugh, or any uncannily mimetic Russian sorcerers? Where are they all, obscured and buried in the mollifying clatter of polished SF type? Wider and more pacific the contemporary river flattens, and less the atavistic, primal streams emerge from beneath. So what do I know, I'm just one of so many readers. Maybe Clute is right on. In the competition for attention with the proliferation of alternatives sufficient popularity is all.
Is “The First Binding” an important novel SF-wise? How does one define a 'serious' or 'important' novel? As far as I'm concerned, a SF novel which is engaging, and genuinely enjoyed by its intended readership is important because it has touched their lives. Isn't that what storytelling is all about? Yet, writings which change lives in this way come in all genres, and adult and child, not just the 'literary' set. There is something valid and life-changing to be found in all works, from the most superficial to the most complicated; something moral, something interesting, something healing, something which causes us to question. We just have to open our eyes and look.
Great literature (be it SF or not) is immortal and impervious to anything but asteroid strike or catastrophic civilization collapse with loss of means to electricity or archaic printing.
If you want a terrible slow, boring as hell, with beautifying prose, stilted dialogue, where the past and future seem artificially intertwined look no further. This novel is for you.
2 stars.
NB: SF = Speculative Fiction.
Book Review SF = Speculative Fiction
Show Less
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2022-08-18
Physical description
832 p.; 9.21 inches
ISBN
1473233984 / 9781473233980
Local notes
All legends are born of truths. And just as much lies. These are mine. Judge me for what you will. But you will hear my story first. I've called lightning and bound fire. I am legend. And I am a monster. My name is Ari.
And this is the story of how I let loose the first evil.
Signed by the author, red sprayed page edges, limited to 500 copies.
And this is the story of how I let loose the first evil.
Signed by the author, red sprayed page edges, limited to 500 copies.