io9 on Seven Princes
Nihilism got you down? Can’t stomach yet another scene of rape and torture? Need a break from learning your eleventeenth language and living abroad? If so, then io9 has the prescription for your burning fever:
These days, fantasy novels seem to be all about realism. Or at least, semi-realism. … So it’s a pleasure to read an unabashed over-the-top fantasy epic like John R. Fultz’s Seven Princes, in which totally batshit stuff happens every few pages and the wonders aren’t rationed at all. Fultz writes at a frenetic pace, as if worried he’ll run out of pages before he throws in all the cool stuff he’s thought up. It’s kind of amazing.
…
What Seven Princes does have to offer, though, is breakneck pacing and nonstop insanity. Every few pages, foxes are turning into naked ladies or giants are going off to talk to the mermaid queen, or a long-lost race of blue giants is randomly discovered, or evil dark spirits are destroying entire kingdoms. It’s epic with a capital EPIC.
And judging by the majority of comments, vitamin Fultz is the tonic lots of folks are craving.
I’ve been reading Seven Princes and it has been effortlessly kicking my narrow ass around the house.
I’m pleased that the reviewer likes the book as much as he does but, for all his delight in the proceedings, he seems to miss the author’s almost ecstatic plunge into Myth. This is fantasy of the Dunsany, Smith and Vance school, where breathless wonders spill off the page in spendthrift profusion.
I can imagine a reader familiar only with the more prosaic, predictable and “realistic” approaches to fantasy finding this novel to be the equivalent of a powerful dose of Black Lotus—dizzying, spellbinding, maybe even hallucinatory. And a screamin’ raftload of fun.
Congratulations, Mr. Fultz! Thus begins your conquest of Western Civilization. Can I have Rhode Island?
Allow me to quote Jimi Hendrix: “Aw, shucks.”
Seriously, all of you guys–thanks for the kind words and positive exclamations. People can say whatever they want about a book and I’m glad people who dig SEVEN PRINCES are speaking up (and loudly).
Sounds like my kind of book. I’ve been checking out the cover for a minute. Looks like I need to get it. It’s on the list.
GAZONG! This is going on my Amazon wishlist. I even love the TITLE! But mermaids! Giants! Fox girls! My buttons, they are pushed! I go!
[…] week genre website io9 called it “Amazing… It’s epic with a capital EPIC… You sort of wish Frazetta was still […]