a quartet of book reviews: II

The second book I read was The Wizard Test, by Hilari Bell. I read it all the way through, and was moderately entertained as I did so. Bell has some strengths; the world she wrote in was neatly drawn, though not remarkable, and she created a couple of pretty good characters. The secondary character, in particular, was very engaging. But still I didn't find the book worthy of the hearty endorsement Uncle Orson gave it. It seemed altogether too lightweight: not in themes or content, but in execution. It was a book I could have written, without giving it too much sweat. In fact I would guess Hilari Bell is at about the same level I am as a writer. Difference is I mean to get a lot better before trying to have anything published.

There's a lot of inventiveness in the book, and good details holding images together. There's a nicely constructed social system, with soldiers, who are held in high honor, and wizards, who are considered unreliable and looked on with scorn. The main character is an aspiring soldier who's found, to his dismay, to have aptitude for magic. He's an interesting enough character, with strong desires. It's not his fault he's named Dayven, which sounds far too much like an uber-trendy baby name of the present day (though I admit my perspective was already turned that way, having read that the main character of another of her books is named Makenna.) And the writer creates both some good, tight situations and some interesting moments.

The problem? I was not remotely moved or captivated by anything in the book. I was, as Dave Lister would say, completely ungripped. I read it, and was entertained enough to keep reading, but if every copy of the book in the world, including mine, had spontaneously combusted while I was in the middle of it, it wouldn't have disturbed me for a minute.

Actually, that's a great test to put a book to: the spontaneous combustion test. If every copy spontaneously combusted while someone was in the middle of reading it, thereby preventing them from ever finishing, how upset would they be? My mind scans over a list of old favorites: Emma-- greatly upset. Crime and Punishment-- greatly upset (except when I was writing my paper on it. Then I would have been ecstatic-- but by then I had finished it anyway, so never mind.) Lord of the Rings-- greatly upset. Ender's Game-- just about frantic.

Anyway, for all its mild virtues, The Wizard Test utterly fails the spontaneous combustion test. Not only did it not hold me in any kind of suspense, it failed to move me in any way. I can only think of one moment in the book that aroused any kind of emotion in me. And it's not the fault of the plot: there's lots of great issues, like loyalty and friendship, an interesting moral dilemma, war and peace and destruction of the land.

I've read books that had this problem before. Some of them came from one of my favorite authors, Lloyd Alexander. Many of his later books just seem lackluster, like he's skimming the surface of a good story, but never quite diving down into it (and thus not allowing the reader to dive into it either.) I don't know what this comes from, but I suspect it is laziness: a writer knows how to string together a good plot, and does it smoothly, almost mechanically. A story doesn't come alive, though, by a smooth mechanical process. It takes wrestling, wrestling with characters and details, and it takes flexibility, a willingness to let go of your first ideas so that they can bloom into new shapes. That's what I think, anyway.

For someone like Alexander, he can get away with writing a lightweight book because he's already such a big name in the genre that they'll publish anything he writes. Now I'm interested to read Bell's other books, to see if they all suffer from the same problem or if she wrote The Wizard Test coasting on an earlier, much more difficult book.

Lessons learned:
1) Don't be lazy. Work harder to know your characters, to make them come to life. Think more freely and loosely about your plot; when something's not working, be truly creative with your new ideas. Don't be afraid to go into difficult places. If it doesn't hurt a little, it's not great writing.