Audible Review, "Michael J. Sullivan"

            This book review was written for “Erikson Presents” a recurring book review series on a Facebook group I frequent called, “The Tavern at the End of the Internet”.  It is a nerdy fucking place.  That being said, here are some of my thoughts on the work of Michael J. Sullivan.

The Author and Their Strengths

            For the last year+ I have been delving into audio books.  I recommend this as a hobby as combining an audiobook with a lot of walking leads to being both well read and much trimmer.  The reason I bring this up has to do with how many authors I have discovered during that time, one of which I will be talking about today with a recommendation.  Michael J. Sullivan, who I would point to as a true success story in the self-publishing market.

            Michael, as he explains in one of the forwards to a series tends to take an interesting position on how to write a fantasy series, he writes the whole thing up front and then edits it for clarity, foreshadowing, and theme as he does the re-write, insuring that the whole thing hangs together better.  The second entry in one of his series was delayed to account for greater clarity to be put in at the behest of his main editor, his wife, and as the rest of the series is released I will see how that banged out.

            Enough about method, let me explain to you why I am recommending Sullivan’s work to you, prospective reader.  And it mostly boils down to two strengths that I feel define what I have read of his work, good dialogue and good group interactions.

            Different authors have different strengths, when I list what I like about JK Rowling or Ray Bradbury I point to the almost melodic quality to their writing.  When I want to tell someone what I like about Dennis E Taylor’s work on “We are Legion (We are Bob)” I point to how thoroughly he explores the premise of the work.  Heinlein is good at philosophizing, Tolkien at mythologizing, and Neil Gaiman at somehow making fairy tale logic feel real and even brutal.  This is not to say that Gaiman can’t write great dialogue (he does) or Tolkien can’t write beautiful prose (he does), but when I want to single out their true virtues that is what I point to.

            Sullivan has great dialogue.  People quip, stammer, affect socioeconomic standing, or betray prejudices thru (what I consider) subtle language usage.  They are also frequently funny.  Two men are lost in the wilderness, hungry and cold, and one of them relays a story about fairy creatures that lure in lost travelers with delicious food and then keep them forever, to which the other rightfully questions why that is something to be feared.  It has a timeless quality and the humor comes from the word play and observations.

            Which leads to the next strength, group interactions.  There are scenes where a half dozen characters are all talking in a room and they all have different points of view, experiences, and goals, and you are able to understand where each are coming from.  The way they address each other, challenge each other, and try not to tip their hand all while enticing, threatening, or tricking each other is clever.  They are fun conversations to read.

The World of “Riyria”

            As of writing this I have read 5 of his novels, the beginning potions of each of his series.  I also read them in a unique order, making me see different hints and foreshadowing in a different light as I went.  For simplicity sake, I will talk about them in the order they are “intended” to be read.

            “The Riyria Revelations”, this is Sullivan’s first series, following the work of two legendary outlaws as they become pawns of a grand conspiracy.  They are framed for murder and must work with a series of colorful characters in a quest to first clear their names and then to unravel the conspiracy as it threatens their friends, livelihood, and you know… The lives of many-many innocent people too.  Riyrie (pronounced Rye-ear-uh) is the elven word for “Two” and is the name of their thieving enterprise.

I do not know who made this fan art, but I like it.
The only source link I can find goes to Goodreads.  If you know this person send them a compliment.

“The Riyria Chronicles” is a prequel series, showing the various adventures that Riyria went on to become legendary outlaws.  These novels are a paradox for me.  They are all standalone adventures, but they are also filling in blanks in the personal mythology of the heroes and their supporting cast, so at the end of the first book, I guess I was supposed to say, “Oh, so that is how that all went down” but (as I read the first book in this series before reading “Revelations”) I ended up just saying, “Wait, what?  Why did it just stop?”  This is most sequel-prequel series I have ever experienced.

“The First Empire” is a prequel to the other books in much the same way 3000Bce Ancient Egypt is a prequel to 1990 Desert Storm.  This series takes place in the mythologized past and shows how humanity moved from a disparate group of stone age tribes to an iron age empire battling the dominate Elf Empire and coming out on top thru the rather brutal strategy of “Keep fighting, we’ll choke their rivers with our dead I we have to!” Zerg Rush.  This is the first series I started with and aside from certain characters in this book being the people important places are named after in the Riyria stories, Alexandria style, this might as well be a standalone series.

Some Weaknesses

You might be asking now, “Well, what is the bad side of these stories?”  I am not one to shy away from offering criticism even to authors whose work I love and respect, so here are a couple.

I think that the foreshadowing can be a bit much.  You see twists and Revelations coming from too far off in the distance.  Not a bad thing really, you are following the key characters closely and hear much of what they are thinking, feeling, and remembering.  If something doesn’t surprise them then it shouldn’t surprise the audience.

Sometimes plot development happens too fast and is then resolved too quickly and neatly.  The most egregious of these happens in the second half of book two in “The Riyria Revelations”.  A creepy, violent, inquisitor has suspicions about one of the heroes and plans to get him lynched by revealing this information.  The villain decides to make a pact with a witch doctor to accomplish this.  Now in most stories this dark pact would be hanging out in the background, always just on the edge of springing.  It is the ticking clock, Sword of Damocles, (third literary term) that keeps tension in the story.  When is it resolved?  The next chapter, in like 10 pages.  Shrug.

The last issue might be the world building.  While I don’t have any issue with it, Sullivan does jumble some elements from history that lead to a somewhat patchwork appearance.  Some kingdoms look like Skyrim, others like London just before the Industrial Revolution, and others have the feel of Renaissance era Italian City States.  This is fine for me, I like juxtaposition of elements (same reason I like Conan stories) but other people might find the clashes jarring.

I will however indulge my PETTIEST complaint ever right here, in book two of “The First Empire” one of the subplots involves the creation of the first writing system.  That is an interesting story to tell.  HOWEVER, at one point a character uses the phrase “this underscores” to provide emphasis.

What is the issue?  “Underscore” means to underline something.  A society that does not have writing would not use that phrase.  That being said I invented my own head canon to explain this discrepancy.  In this underscore refers to scoring the sole of a shoe or boot to give it traction.  That makes enough sense to fit as a metaphor to turn colloquial.  Fight me.

(No joke, I actually sent Sullivan a fan e-mail explaining this issue and this solution to it.  I think that is the only time I have actually sent fan mail to an author.  I really hope I didn’t hallucinate that use of the phrase.)

In Conclusion

Okay, that is my recommendation, I hope that if you like fantasy that emphasizes good dialogue between groups of colorful characters you will consider reading this one.  If you have Audible, my preferred method of consuming books now, then the narrator is Tim Gerard Reynolds.  I consider him a gifted voice actor and he grants a distinctiveness and mood to each of the characters, his Royce Melbourne (the cynical rogue) sounds different from Hadrian Blackwater (the dashing swordsman).  His versatility is appreciated for those scenes with lots of characters.

If you would like to try out a story for free on Audible, here is “Professional Integrity” which is a clever little (1 hour and 20 minutes) story staring Hadrian and Royce, the two main heroes of the whole thing.  And here is another one called “The Jester” which is basically 1 clever trap room in a Dungeons and Dragons game turned into a story, I loved the cute little moral to the whole thing.

I hope you enjoy your reading.

______________________________

            If you like or hate this please take the time to comment, +1, share on Twitter (click that link to follow me), Tumblr, or Facebook, and otherwise distribute my opinion to the world.  I would appreciate it.