mostly harmless books

Most of my favorite books have stories behind them. And even though I’ve only started reading Charles de Lint relatively recently, it conforms to the rule.

One of the best series I’ve read is Robert Holdstock’s Mythago cycle, and one day I joined a Yahoo! group dedicated to the writer. While the group is sadly not very active, it did bring one good thing into my life: an author name, recommended as very close in style and themes to Holdstock. That author was Charles de Lint and, even though I don’t think the style is similar, both of them have the same dreaminess around (most of) their books.

I remembered the connection today because I was trying to figure out what the title of the collection I am going to talk about, The Ivory and the Horn, meant. Then I was a bit confused, because Holdstock also has a book called Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn, and for a second I didn’t know which was which. So, in short, I went out to figure out what was so special about ivory and horn… and the answer came quick. Of course, it’s the same thing that connects the two authors: dreams. The gate of ivory is the one false dreams come through, while the gate of horn is the one true visions come from.

My first contact with de Lint’s Newford was the collection Dreams Underfoot, and The Ivory and the Horn is a sequel of sorts. While you don’t need to know the background for any of the stories, it’s probably better if you read the two collections in order - and if you actually remember the first (which I didn’t). Many characters reappear and their past is sometimes reminisced.
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My trip to Ukraine was awesome (saw a very good friend again, made new friends, saw cool places), but I didn’t spend all the time socializing. Long train journey + lots of downtime meant I also got to read a lot, four books to be exact:

• John Joseph Adams (ed.) - Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse
• Charles de Lint - The Ivory and the Horn
• Tim LaHaye & Jerry Jenkins - Left Behind
• Charles de Lint - Memory and Dream

Three of them were mine, the other borrowed from the lovely Peace Corps lounge. I was this close to also reading Richard Adams’ Shardik (solely for the Dark Tower connection, I admit), but then I saw that the “small” book I had borrowed also had really tiny fonts, so it was impossible to read in a couple of days.

Anyway, thoughts on the books forthcoming.

Thanks to my friend Cristi who dragged these all the way from New York to Bucharest, I have new books! I’ve been drooling over Wastelands for about a year now, so I am excited.

I’m going to save them, however, for the trip. 27 hours by train from Bucharest to Kiev is a lot… And since I want to re-read Vellum, Ink is scheduled for after I get back home.