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The Anvil Of Ice (1995)

The Anvil of Ice (1995)

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Genre
Rating
3.97 of 5 Votes: 1
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ISBN
0380705478 (ISBN13: 9780380705474)
Language
English
Publisher
avon books

About book The Anvil Of Ice (1995)

This is one of my favorite books ever. Well, I read it in 6th grade, and it could just be that it hit me just so at that point in my life so as to make it one of my favorites forever, but still. MSR has put together an amazing combination of myth/folklore (and he really did his research! Or so I see now that I'm a mythologist), prehistory, and modern fantasy. I've reread this book more times than anything except Lord of the Rings, and maybe Chronicles of Narnia. I like this first installment best, I think. A sort of fantastic bildungsroman (well, not really)-- or a coming of age story at any rate, in which the one coming of age realizes just how special he is (after humble origins-- a kolbitr, to use the Icelandic phrase), enters into the study of and takes steps towards the mastery of arcane powers, etc. This book is so influential for me that I can hardly write a review for it, any more than I can for Lord of the Rings. Which I should really do sometime. This series (the Winter of the World) was the source of a quest of my own during jr hi and hi school, as I bought the first book in 6th grade, finally found the second maybe 3 years or more later, and finally found the last either at the end of high school, or right when I started college. I suppose that makes the whole thing a bit more exciting for me, as the key moments in the maturation of the main character could be taken as a sort of parallel to my own life, which was obviously full of changes during the period I read the books. Okay, to close off this disjointed review, some final reasons I recommend this book:-- wonderful coming of age story, does the whole wish-fullfillment narrative of "rags to power, if not riches" better than anything I've read, and maps well onto the life of any kid capable of reading something like this at an early age-- though I don't recommend it just for children, and some parents might not appreciate the sex scenes, which get steamier with each novel. -- gets magic right in a way rarely done-- maybe reminiscent of much of Tolkien's magic, in which it is a craft, a skill, arcane learning, not necessarily occult learning. Tying it to smithcraft is genius! Wow, I still wish I had time to make a forge and trying making something on my own! My first attempt at a fantasy novel, back my freshman year in highschool, I totally ripped this off, and probably will again. By attaching magic to material culture (and not just with smithcraft) he grounds the supernatural just enough in this otherwise very nicely and accurately painted prehistoric culture (well, pre OUR history, anyway). I'm glad this series, along with Tolkien, was my introduction to magic in fantasy-- Harry Potter may be fun, and may be set in a world closer to ours, but the magic does not have flesh on it's bones, like this does. -- Like I said in my review of Orson Scott Card's novel Speaker for the Dead, this could be considered "anthropological" in a way-- only now it is anthropological/archeological/mythological- fantasy. A very nice combination. I don't think MSR is a professor in my field, but he's done a lot of research in it, and has published at least one book in my field-- and certainly these novels have all the depth and clarity of vision and anthropological realism that you find in Tolkien. Meaty. MMMMMmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.....-- The perfect length! Does not get overblown, like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series (though I did like that), though it has just as epic a storyline-- and somehow manages to make it feel more "real" at the same time that it is more "mythic"-- both of those terms being horrendously ambiguous, I realize, and what mythologist hasn't cringed at contemporary uses of the word "myth"-- but I feel like that's the best way I can explain it.

A fantasy book that doesn't read like Tolkien and manages to create an interesting and varied world that you want to spend more time in. The story moves well and keeps you interested with an almost episodic nature that gives you a tour of the world that the author has created. I do feel the author could have expanded a little on the world, however - considering this is the first book and you're in a new world. Heavy exposition would fine I think and given you a bit more texture and background. The Appendix is useful for this, but it would have been nicer for this to be threaded through the story. A minor complaint but I just didn't 'know' the world as well as I'd have liked.The main character develops really nicely and isn't the usual blank canvas that sci if and fantasy deploys to aid the reader's escapism. In fact, he's a really great character IMO, especially as the story progresses. The supporting cast is also well formed but I felt that the antagonist falls away a little too easily and you don't really connect with him, especially towards the end of the book. This what drops it down from 5 stars for me, especially as they talk an awful lot about the antagonist and because he features so heavily at the start of the book.But these are relativity minor complaints: if you're into fantasy are looking for something a little more grounded and gritty than most of what is out there this is a great read. It's a slower paced book in some ways with less a focus on action and adventure and more exploration and discovery, with a sense of mystery and intrigue for the reader and the characters.

Do You like book The Anvil Of Ice (1995)?

While Michael Scott Rohan sure isn't one of the famous names of fantasy, he's also one of my favourites, and this first book of “The Winter of the World” imho a true masterpiece.This series is set in our own world, but during the last Ice Age, on the West Coast of North America, realistically described mixing fact and... fantasy, and clearly thanks to a huge amount of knowledge and research on mythology, paleontology and ecology by the author.But you don't need to be a nerd/scientist type to appreciate this book, as it's also a wonderful adventure and bildungsroman with real, morally ambiguous, characters who change and grow during the book(s).Magic is “real”, and while this book isn't that similar to Tolkien's works, at least superficially as deep down, in their “philosophy” there's more in common, the two authors use magic in a similar, constrained way (and this is one of the reason I like so much both of them), and here magic is appropriately linked to smithcraft (as in many traditional cultures in the “real world”).Beside the naturalistic descriptions and the main characters, another favourite of mine in “The Winter of the World” are the Neanderthals as sort of dwarves (“duergars”) and great magesmiths who live underground to avoid conflict with the invading Homo sapiens.It's a pity Rohan is absolutely unknown here where I live (Italy) as his books have never been translated to our language...
—Finrod

"The Anvil of Ice"This was highly recomended to me by a housemate who was greatly influenced by reading it when he was much younger- and I find it very like the books I read when I was reading fiction of this fantasy-style as well, at that age. A meaty book, it qualifies as one of those 'what if' sorts of 'NOT-history' fiction. It creates, out of our own world's facts and myths, a perfectly plausible world in which for the stories and events to happen, without confusing our senses about what we KNOW to me TRUE and all that.This is the first volume, beginning with a boy with no past and ending with the man he becomes at that pivotal moment when he finally DOES become a man... it is no light reading, though- it challenges the imagination and yet keeps to the human within us all. I found it a lovely mix of magic and myth while still retaining the reality we suppose we all live in. It just offers us another way it might be viewed, might be seen, might have happened.I loved it. I am looking forward to the next one. KUDOS to the author, Michael Scott Rohan, and to my housemate for putting it in my hand and saying 'no really, READ THIS...'. :)
—David

Not too long ago I was asked to provide some recommendations for a reading list for someone. I went to my shelves and started pulling out some classics, some of my favorites, and other just plain important books. Zelazny, Donaldson, Jordan, Sanderson, Rothfuss... I was picking out some stuff with which to provide a pretty good foundation. And then I got to this book. The description of it started with, essentially, "And this is something I've read so many times it's falling apart."Michael Scott Rohan is an author that basically nobody else I know has ever even heard of, but is a name that really should be on the lips of anyone that is interested in original fantasy by an author that clearly cares a great deal about every word that goes on a page. The first time I read Rothfuss I was blown away by the precision and care that was clearly evident throughout his writing. It just wasn't something that I really had found in many other places. Rereading Rohan's books recently, I was struck by just that same feeling. The language is descriptive, painting a picture of a time long before our own.Where so many authors will reach out for creating their own world from the ground up, Rohan has rooted his in an interesting realm of pseudo-historical fiction. Imagining what the world could have been like during an ice age. What if the great glaciers were driven by a malevolent will, and mankind was barely holding on, barely holding back the inevitable crush of cold? It's into this world that Rohan delves, both as he builds his own variant, and as he seeks out the actual anthropological record of mankind, so as to weave it into his story. Where many authors take a very in-your-face approach to magic in their books, Rohan has opted for something somewhat more subtle. Aside from the Powers that guide and shape the world, the magic system he's gone with is one based around metalworking. It's the smith that serves as the keeper of knowledge and arcane arts in his world, and it's the tale of one smith in particular that the series seeks to tell. We watch a peculiar coming of age tale, as the protagonist comes into power and skill, only to end up dealing with the consequences of what it can mean to have both without the knowledge or wisdom to use them appropriately. There are a few things about the book that do occasionally get to me, unfortunately. The way it is written is as if it were merely someone reading about it to the reader (a book about a book about something that happened?), albeit where the source material isn't necessarily complete or always accurate. This style is useful in that it lets Rohan deal with some time warping where he needs to advance the story timeline by leaps and bounds in just a few pages rather than add a couple hundred pages...but it does feel artificial and forced at times.Some of the action sequences are also conveyed at something of a cursory level as compared to the descriptions of the world in which they take place. While great care may be taken with describing the setting, the movements of the figures fighting within it sometimes boil down to "and he had superior strength because....because Smith, so he wins."Despite the above, The Anvil of Ice introduces readers to a unique take on a low-magic fantasy setting that is like very little written before or since. It's one of those hidden gems that exists in the genre; the type of book that nobody seemingly has read, but every student of the genre should not be without.Overall: 8.5/10
—Joshu Fisher

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