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Last night's discussion of An Unexpected Apprentice

We met last night to discuss An Unexpected Apprentice by Jody Lynn Nye.   As always, we had a lively discussion, so I will try to hit some of the highlights of what people had to say:

  • Mike started off by saying that not only did he read the book, but he liked it.  (!) He wasn't thrilled by the comparison to The Lord of the Rings (in the book blurbs), but felt the book had a good start and moved along at a good pace.  While he felt that the author was, at times, overdescriptive, he liked the concept of the character of Nemeth, "a compassionate evil wizard."   To him, the book really gelled in the second part of the journey [which prompted a "Really?" from someone else].
  • Rachel said that whle she enjoyed this as a much younger reader, she felt that upon a re-read, this wasn't her kind of book.  
  • Furry said that starting out the book, she was thinking it was a lot like Hobbit or LOTR with female characters, and that she was reminded a lot of Mercedes Lackey's books.  However, she found the characters likeable and found the book to be fun.
  • Theresa liked the book, although she thought it was odd that no one, including the Scholars, seemed to pick up on the whole human-elf-other rune similarities (which was odd).  
  • We had some general discussion about the reaction that many readers had to the inn scene in the beginning.   For many of us, we kept expecting something bad to happen to Tildi (and talked about how this made us feel like there was something wrong with us, that we were expecting this).  However, although Rachel said this was because "we're all old and evil-minded," we talked about how many of us are used to books where there are more peaks and valleys with the pace and the action, and that throughout this book, everyone seems very nice.
  • We also had some general discussion about the runes in the book.   Klaupaucius said he thought the book was okay, and found it to be "Runes as lexicographic voodo."  Menolly said this was a central theme, and liked how it used the idea of names and the knowledge of true names to give power.  She liked the twist in this book that the magic is all based on knowing true names.  Theresa mentioned that this is like traditional religion, where The Word is God, and liked how Nye wrote the wedding preparation scene to show how there was a lot of symbolism and the relation of things to each oher.   Rachel said this reminded her of A Wizard of Earthsea (le Guin) and Furry said it seemed more like a DNA kind of pattern, which made her think of Nine Princes in Amber (Zelazny).
  • Hola said she was a bit irked by lack of science in the book, or what she would have expected to be progress.  To her, the progression of scrolls to books would have meant there would be other progress, as well.  Menolly said it felt like the people in this world were afraid of their magic.   She also said it felt like the Scholars were "like Nazis of the Word."
  • We then moved on to some discussion of Nemeth.  Menolly said he seemed very inconsistent as a character; when we meet him, it seems like he has a total command of his magic, but then it turns out that no, he has more power by association with the book.  She wondered how he had been able to turn himself into the sea creature and back.  Rachel wondered why, if he is so powerful, he could not get out of the tree stump.  Moose pointed out that he theorized that when Nemeth was the sea creature, he lost a lot of himself, and his humanity, so maybe he had to rediscover it (and thus, gain magic back).  Some readers were bothered by the fact that Nemeth professes to mean no harm, but, in fact, acts completely the opposite.   As Hola said, "If you're thinking idly about destroying something, you're not compassionate."
  • We also talked about the characters, in general.  Mike said he found it interesting that overall, the men were all nice, older men who appeared a bit senile (except for Morag and Magpie) and that all of the women tended to be nice and smart.   Theresa brought up the idea of gender-swapping in The Hobbit, and we talked about how in this book, if you did this, that the story wouldn't be nearly as interesting, because the only obstacle Tildo would have to overcome would be his height.
  • Moose mentioned that he felt they went on like "it's no problem" far too much in the book.  He mentioned, for example, when the Madcloud attacks, and Olen is telling Tildi to be prepared. . . and then goes on and on about something else, so by the time TIldi needs to be prepared, of course, she's not ready at all.  Other readers agreed, mentioning that the meeting at Silvertree seemed to be a bit too relaxed (and a lot of banter).
  • One interesting comment came from Nathan, who said that he felt the book was written much longer ago than it was.   Other readers agreed, saying this book had a 1970's feel (instead of 2007).   We talked about how this might feel that way because the pacing was very even, with few peaks and valleys, and also because every character was consistently very nice (more or less).   Some of us said we felt the book would be a good "warming up" book for readers who didn't read fantasy, because it does have some of the familiar tropes of some fantasy books (the plucky character, the quest, the fellowship, the shared enemy), but isn't as complicated (or scary) as some other stories.

Overall, people liked the book, and we did have a great discussion.   We gave the book the codes: QUE, FEM, AGE, MAG, TOL, ELF and HRO and the averaged-out rating was a 4.

As always, we welcome the opportunity to continue our discussion, so please feel free to leave a comment!

Comments

Jen - Great and fun meeting, as usual. I am reading the sequel - A Forthcoming Wizard - and I am enjoying it immensely. I think this will shape up to be a great duology! I have to admit that I really liked it, despite its more gentle pace.

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