StoryreaderStews, Trews and Supercomputers
April 5th 2008 07:14
Well, I have almost finished reading The Stone Key by Isobelle Carmody, which, as I said before, is a very long book. For those who haven't read it, the basic set-up is that the world as we know it has been destroyed by the Great White (which sounds suspiciously like a nuclear holocaust), and the survivors have recreated their world in the style of a medieval society. This means horses, villages, wearing old-timey clothes like trews, cloaks and shawls, and eating stews on a campfire in the middle of a journey. If you read fantasy novels, all of this will be very familiar to you.
If it sounds like I am making fun of that sort of thing, you're right, but I do it out of love. If I wanted to read books set in the modern day, I would, but I often go for the medieval-fantasy-world book because I, like many, many others, find it entertaining and interesting. I like to read about people travelling in carts, and stoking fires, and just generally doing old fashioned things. That is the charm of reading this genre of books, and one of the charms of reading the Obernewtyn Chronicles (of which The Stone Key is book 5).
Now, not everything from the 'Beforetime' (ie, our world, and the future, before the Great White) has been destroyed. Throughout the series, characters occasionally dig up something like a laminated piece of paper, and marvel at it. This, too, has been one of the charms of the series. It's fun to take a step back and wonder how complete strangers to our world would react to the things that we find normal. Of course, the discovery of laminated paper makes you step out of the medieval fantasy world, but only for a tantalising moment.
One of the things which has disappointed me about this new book is that the balance has been broken. For those of you reading the book, and don't want part of it to be spoiled, stop reading now, because I'm going to whinge about a big part of the plot.
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Okay, so towards the end of the novel, Elspeth is reunited with some of her friends who have for some time been living in an underground complex built by 'Beforetimers'. This is a very advanced building, something more akin to Star Trek, perhaps, than our world. This complex is run by a supercomputer called Ines who talks, like the Star Trek computer. Elspeth's friends, despite living all their lives in a pre-industrial world with no computers, save the non-working ones they dig up sometimes, are able to use the computer and live in the technologically advanced complex without much trouble.
My problem with this, apart from the way it connects to the plot, is that it just spoils the whole theme of the post-apocalyptic medieval world in which the series is set. As I said, I have found it entertaining that the characters occasionally marvel at little bits of technology, but chatting with a supercomputer, tapping at keyboards, and apparently wearing jeans and T-shirts instead of cloaks and tunics, is too much. Carmody may have been hoping to successfully mesh a little science fiction with the fantasy, but for this part of the novel, the spell is broken.
I guess my point, if I have a point other than complaining, is that when you read a fantasy novel, you are suspending disbelief and buying into the whole fictional world that is created. Occasionally, the author can get away with taking the reader a step back and reminding them of the real world, often to humorous effect. But in this case, it was taken too far, and the narrative drifted away from the world it had initially been created to exist in, and I, as a reader, found it difficult to adjust my imagination in the middle of the story, to follow it.
Has anyone else read this book/series and thought about the same thing? Or another book, perhaps? Feel free to tell me it's my own fault for having a rigid imagination.
If it sounds like I am making fun of that sort of thing, you're right, but I do it out of love. If I wanted to read books set in the modern day, I would, but I often go for the medieval-fantasy-world book because I, like many, many others, find it entertaining and interesting. I like to read about people travelling in carts, and stoking fires, and just generally doing old fashioned things. That is the charm of reading this genre of books, and one of the charms of reading the Obernewtyn Chronicles (of which The Stone Key is book 5).
Now, not everything from the 'Beforetime' (ie, our world, and the future, before the Great White) has been destroyed. Throughout the series, characters occasionally dig up something like a laminated piece of paper, and marvel at it. This, too, has been one of the charms of the series. It's fun to take a step back and wonder how complete strangers to our world would react to the things that we find normal. Of course, the discovery of laminated paper makes you step out of the medieval fantasy world, but only for a tantalising moment.
One of the things which has disappointed me about this new book is that the balance has been broken. For those of you reading the book, and don't want part of it to be spoiled, stop reading now, because I'm going to whinge about a big part of the plot.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Okay, so towards the end of the novel, Elspeth is reunited with some of her friends who have for some time been living in an underground complex built by 'Beforetimers'. This is a very advanced building, something more akin to Star Trek, perhaps, than our world. This complex is run by a supercomputer called Ines who talks, like the Star Trek computer. Elspeth's friends, despite living all their lives in a pre-industrial world with no computers, save the non-working ones they dig up sometimes, are able to use the computer and live in the technologically advanced complex without much trouble.
My problem with this, apart from the way it connects to the plot, is that it just spoils the whole theme of the post-apocalyptic medieval world in which the series is set. As I said, I have found it entertaining that the characters occasionally marvel at little bits of technology, but chatting with a supercomputer, tapping at keyboards, and apparently wearing jeans and T-shirts instead of cloaks and tunics, is too much. Carmody may have been hoping to successfully mesh a little science fiction with the fantasy, but for this part of the novel, the spell is broken.
I guess my point, if I have a point other than complaining, is that when you read a fantasy novel, you are suspending disbelief and buying into the whole fictional world that is created. Occasionally, the author can get away with taking the reader a step back and reminding them of the real world, often to humorous effect. But in this case, it was taken too far, and the narrative drifted away from the world it had initially been created to exist in, and I, as a reader, found it difficult to adjust my imagination in the middle of the story, to follow it.
Has anyone else read this book/series and thought about the same thing? Or another book, perhaps? Feel free to tell me it's my own fault for having a rigid imagination.
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