Yurt (C. Dale Brittain)
Sep. 13th, 2013 09:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahn3+/5 for the series. skygiants totally hooked me on these utterly charming books, beginning with A Bad Spell in Yurt, about Daimbert, a wizard who was not at the top of his class. Not even slightly. He gets a job as the royal wizard of a tiny kingdom, Yurt, and then proceeds to get embroiled in various plots.
These books are basically the antithesis of grimdark. I can think of maybe one human-ish character in all six books who isn't just plugging along trying to do his/her best (if sometimes misguidedly, and occasionally completely misguidedly), and that character isn't completely human. What often saves the day is Daimbert's tendency to bounce around making friends with everybody he meets, as well as a huge dollop of sacrifice and redemption running through the books and popping up at various points. …It will surprise no one that these books hit me straight in the id, and I found myself racing through all six of them at top speed.
They were all (with the exception of the last book) written in the 90's, so, you know, The Fabled East is a Thing starting in book 3, and the books tend to follow a slightly formulaic bent (although the plots themselves are always charming and amusing, with the exception of book 5, whose plot fell apart a little to me). But they're all so good-natured I can't really bring myself to care. I just wanted more Daimbert!
One of the really interesting bits about it is that Brittain just lifts the Catholic Church wholesale into the world, complete with theology, some hierarchy structure (there doesn't appear to be structure past the Bishop level), saints, and so on. I was a little freaked out by this at first, but on second thought I guess it's really not that different from transplanting, say, medieval-era blacksmithing, or animal husbandry, which people do all the time. Why not?
And then there is Daimbert's friendship with Joachim, the palace chaplain in Spell. Wizards and priests, in this world, are traditionally enemies, or at least rather wary of each other. In another book, this would have been the impetus for much angst and suspicion. In Spell, there's a bit of suspicion in the first book, but mostly it's Daimbert bouncing up and down and not taking "Well, actually I suspect you of dastardly deeds" for an answer when he wants to be friends, and continuing to be Super Awesome Friends throughout all the books. Their friendship is by far my absolute favorite thing about these books.
The first one is available for free here. The first five are available in e-book for $5 each; the sixth is available only in paperback.
skygiants totally hooked me on these utterly charming books, beginning with A Bad Spell in Yurt, about Daimbert, a wizard who was not at the top of his class. Not even slightly. He gets a job as the royal wizard of a tiny kingdom, Yurt, and then proceeds to get embroiled in various plots.These books are basically the antithesis of grimdark. I can think of maybe one human-ish character in all six books who isn't just plugging along trying to do his/her best (if sometimes misguidedly, and occasionally completely misguidedly), and that character isn't completely human. What often saves the day is Daimbert's tendency to bounce around making friends with everybody he meets, as well as a huge dollop of sacrifice and redemption running through the books and popping up at various points. …It will surprise no one that these books hit me straight in the id, and I found myself racing through all six of them at top speed.
They were all (with the exception of the last book) written in the 90's, so, you know, The Fabled East is a Thing starting in book 3, and the books tend to follow a slightly formulaic bent (although the plots themselves are always charming and amusing, with the exception of book 5, whose plot fell apart a little to me). But they're all so good-natured I can't really bring myself to care. I just wanted more Daimbert!
One of the really interesting bits about it is that Brittain just lifts the Catholic Church wholesale into the world, complete with theology, some hierarchy structure (there doesn't appear to be structure past the Bishop level), saints, and so on. I was a little freaked out by this at first, but on second thought I guess it's really not that different from transplanting, say, medieval-era blacksmithing, or animal husbandry, which people do all the time. Why not?
And then there is Daimbert's friendship with Joachim, the palace chaplain in Spell. Wizards and priests, in this world, are traditionally enemies, or at least rather wary of each other. In another book, this would have been the impetus for much angst and suspicion. In Spell, there's a bit of suspicion in the first book, but mostly it's Daimbert bouncing up and down and not taking "Well, actually I suspect you of dastardly deeds" for an answer when he wants to be friends, and continuing to be Super Awesome Friends throughout all the books. Their friendship is by far my absolute favorite thing about these books.
The first one is available for free here. The first five are available in e-book for $5 each; the sixth is available only in paperback.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-13 04:54 pm (UTC)I'm so mad I just want to finish and post about all of them ;____;
no subject
Date: 2013-09-13 06:20 pm (UTC)If I didn't live across the country from you I'd let you borrow mine :(
no subject
Date: 2013-09-13 06:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-26 04:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-25 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-26 04:07 pm (UTC)