There are some authors who just simply make one despair of ever achieving anything.
Glen Cook.
“Old Tin Sorrows” was published in 1989. He finished seven more novels in that series alone before he published “Cruel Zinc Melodies” in 2008.
Cook does not have, for example, Shakespeare’s facility with language, with turning a phrase. He does not have Tolkien’s strength with building new worlds. But damn. The man can drill down to the very heart of human existence, to the absolute crux of what it is to be human.
“Old Tin Sorrows” *hurts*. I always have a good cry after reading that one. And I’ve read it maybe ten times now. It gets the blood up, makes you want to charge around and bash heads and make things right. It makes you hate and loathe and despair of your fellow human beings – but you at least feel that maybe you’re not actually, absolutely alone.
“Cruel Zinc Melodies” demonstrates some of the most real character development in a series that I’ve ever encountered. And also some of the strongest hope for humanity to be found in a murder mystery. Cook is terrifically adept at blending the tropes and the cliches of the hard-boiled detective novel with basic sword-and-sorcery stuff. Even so, it just barely manages to avoid feeling hackneyed, even while it presents a wonderfully fresh take on a world in its twelfth installment.
But then you hit the ending. And it all gets turned on its head. And you just want to crawl into a hole and sleep forever, because you don’t want to stop believing.
I will never.
Ever.
Achieve anything remotely close.
And yes, I know. All I’m doing is revealing just how shallow and selfish I am. Trying to distract myself, maybe, from thinking about what the story says about the human race. And also from being real and true about my place in that human race.
Self-awareness is a bitch.
