The Hotel New Hampshire

I have recently decided to broaden my reading horizon to include general fiction, rather than just fantasy. I pride myself in the ability to pick fantasies that have at least 12 parts to it, that way I have something to look forward to read after I've finished the first book. At book club, I was told to read the Hotel New Hampshire and so embarked my quest to read a stand alone fictional novel.

The book was tragic and beautiful. A peculiar American family with a pet bear, State-o-Maine, is introduced to you through the eyes of the second son, John. His father is a dreamer and sort of blinded to the harsh facts of reality. His mother loves unreservedly and his grandfather, Iowa Bob, enjoys weightlifting. His older brother Frank is serious but loves to dress up, his sister Franny is vivacious and head strong, his younger brother Egg may be slightly deaf, his little sister Lilly is small and his pet dog Sorrow farts a lot.

His father opens the first Hotel New Hampshire in their home town, and with that signals the start of their new life. The story unfolds beautifully and brings you closer to this peculiar family. John Irving manages to introduce the tragedy that besets the family almost whimsically, that I found myself backtracking to make sure that I just read what I thought he couldn't possibly have said. He weaves through symbolic imagery effortlessly and creates this tragic landscape with elegance. The story moves from America to Germany, Vienna, where things take an even more dramatic turn. Their father opens the second hotel New Hampshire and with it comes prostitutes and freedom fighters. The characters struggle to come to terms with grief and either deny it or call it something else. They grow, they learn and they cope. This book dealt with very real human emotions in an overtly tragic family drama, amazingly. I was drawn in and captivated.

I loved this book and it reaffirmed my quest to delve into the unknown world of fiction. I think that you should definitely read this book.

I give it 5 butter beers.

Black Magician Trilogy - Trudi Canavan

I have recently started reading Trudi Canavan and began with the Black Magician Trilogy, for no other reason then I liked the look of the cover, shallow I know, but so what.

I have become so disillusioned with trilogies that I almost did not read this one, but I am very glad that I did.

The first of the three, the Magician's Guild begins with the yearly purge in the city of Imardin. Each year the magicians purge the city of the poor, forcing them into the very outskirts of town. This is the cause of much anger, but the magicians are unconcerned as they are shrouded by an impenetrable shield. Until Sonea, who is so angry with the rough and uncaring treatment of her family and frightened of having to move puts all her rage into throwing a stone. Strangely it passes through the shield and injures a magician.

Sonea, frightened by what she has done runs away, barely escaping with her life. The guild must pursue her, an untrained magician is too dangerous to be left alone, but will Sonea ever trust them enough to allow that to happen.

The second book, The Novice, details Sonea's training at the Guild. I will not go into too much detail as I feel the story is too good to spoil. Finding it difficult to fit in amongst all the high born students she has no friends until she challenges a fellow student to a dual and wins their respect. Meanwhile she discovers a secret about black magic that could destroy the guild.

The third and final book, The High Lord, finds Sonea in the middle of a complex plot. Is black magic really as evil as everyone makes out?

I found each book to be unputdownable, even though the second and third books were not really two stories, but rather one that was split into two. There are enough mysteries and twists to keep it interesting and the plot is not as generic as most questy type fantasy novels are.

All in all a great read if you like fantasy and be prepared for the review of The Age of the Five coming soon...

I give this book 5 phallic fruits.

New kiddies book by Neil Gaiman!

WOOT!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWRvqO1MjIs

Are people here just less interested

So a couple of weeks ago, I managed to lock myself out of my flat, I was doing laundry and thus was outside in the hallway in my socks without a jersey or my cellphone...so as i walk out the door having thought that I had disengaged my yale lock i hear the door click shut, but with arms full of just washed laundry I realise that sudddenly throwing it on the ground is going to accomplish nothing and I will just end up making more laundry for myself, I calmly place it in the tumble dryer, I managed to remember to bring the store cupboard key but not the house keys ? anyways, once inside the store cupboard I realise that there is a long legnth of shower door seal plastic lying on the ground, and that the slot in my front door is big enough for me to force 2/3 of my arm through, so I do and spend 20 minutes smelling my dinner burn and trying desperatly to get the door open before one of my neighbours calls the police on me cos I am clearly breaking in...eventually I opened the door to the flat and only the delivery man saw me although he sed nothing so either that kind of behaviour is normal in these here parts or they dont care very much if your being robbed by a shoeless individual...why you may ask did i not just knock on my next door neighbours door and ask to borrow their phone? I have no idea I didnt think of it before and by the time I did I was damned if that door was going to beat me!

And then yesterday, I climbed through a hole in the fence around my flat, and several people saw me do this...not one of them put up their hand cleared their throat and asked just exactly what I was doing...I mean...it was late, it was getting dark and I was clearly climbing through a hole in the fence...is this normal behavior in Scotland do you think? Or should I be concerned that apparently no one will ask the ax wielding murderer climbing through the fence what it is that he thinks he is doing?

Restaurant Rant

While I generally hate the generic idea that blogs are primarily a soap box for ranting I feel so strongly about this that I am going to rant here in the hopes that this restaurant will close down forever or send me lots of free goodies as an apology.

The previous post mentioned that 2 of our members are engaged and a couple of weekends ago (when the sun was still shining) 20 of us went to Jonkerhuis in Groot Constantia, Cape Town.

When we arrived there were two tables set out, each seating 10 people. We asked the manager if we could move the table together and have one table, since we all wanted to chat and celebrate together. We were told that this was impossible. When we asked why it became clear that this restaurant likes to serve everyone at a table at the about the same time and that the kitchen could not possibly do that for a table of 20. We replied that while we thought that that was a nice idea, we wouldn't mind if half the table ate before the other half.

We were angrily told that that was not how they operated in a very condescending tone. We then requested that the tables be moved closer together so that whilst we couldn't actually join we could be close enough to talk to each other. Apparently that was also an unreasonable request.

We eventually decided to sit separately and swap around every now and then. Which meant that people who ordered at one table were served at another, totally ruining their service plans. That showed them!

We managed to have a lovely time despite the rudeness of the manager, who also rudely told us to get out because other people were coming soon. The food was good although a little overpriced but the stupidity of the managing staff ruined my experience there. I will definitely not be going back.

Book club 22 April

In an attempt to be healthy, our food theme this month was salads. All this meant was that we stuffed ourselves spherical with *some veggies, and only like 40% cake and junk food. Massive improvement! The other members will be posting their yummy salad recipes soon (or face my wrath). I made a fruit salad which is not exactly rocket science so no need for me to post a recipe (success!).



Of note this month is that two of our members are currently engaged, which is an increase of 20% from the last meeting we attended. Les verrouiller, Mesdames! I am guessing this means that book club will be more along the lines of 'Weddingsdinnermenweddingsbooks' for the next little while, but c'est la vie!



Two people brought the same book to lend out, Douglas Adam's 'Mostly harmless' which surely must reccommend this work as worth a read. I finally completed the Farseer trilogy (Robin Hobb) with a resounding 'Meh', and the 'Dirty bits for girls' (India Knight) is still making the rounds. We started a new book club game this month, called 66,6 or 88,8 depending on which is funnier. Basically each month we will feature a piece made up entirely of the 6th sentence on the 66th page of each of our books. Dirty bits did its part marvellously this month with something about gaping lady bits, however the entirity of the quote is lost to the sands of time as nobody thought to write it down. Next time, we promise.



Thats all for book club this month, our non book club book club event is going to be a girlie night this Thursday so with the many conflicting viewpoints on what constitutes appropriately girly movies I am sure it will be marvellous. If I didn't know the ladies better my contribution would be the movie 'Sunshine', however I have watched one book club member sit through 'Event Horizon' and I don't want to put her through that again, so perhaps something slightly less terrifying will suffice.

Happy reading!

Procession of the Dead

Ok, so I've been feeling really guilty about not posting, so I decided to cheat and look up an old review that I'd already done to try and relieve my conscience. I found a brief review (more of a synopsis really) I did of Procession of the Dead, which I have bought to book club, for the Calgary Herald around April 2008. YIKES! That's two years ago already! Do I pass?... (an apologies for the atrocious grammar in the above sentence. I'm tired, ok?)

When discussing it later, I think I may have been overly harsh in my critique of this book, as 'ol D.B.'s publicists tried to liken him to My Darling Gaiman, and D.B. should tell them not to do that, as no one can live up to Him. The book is worth a read, I guess...

Procession of the Dead

D.B. Shan

D.B. Shan's revision of his first book in The City Trilogy, Procession of the Dead, starts as a cliché yarn about wannabe-gangster Capac Raimi who comes to the city to find his fortune in the underworld. Quickly he is snapped up by The Cardinal, the nefarious kingpin of the city, and a fantastic story of mystical intrigue unfolds as a friend of Capac's goes missing and Capac discovers there's no evidence he ever existed. The mystery spurs him on in a quest to find out about inexplicable lapses in his own memories, and, in the process, he learns the unbelievable truth about how the Cardinal keeps his hold on the city. The story, told from Capac's point of view, is filled with colourful characters, imaginative details and a compelling storyline.

Generic fantasy writers unite!

So the other day I picked up a fantasy book, not going to mention names will probably review it later. And found a young man with a strange heritage he knew nothing about given some crazy quest with some magic talisman and a hearty band of travellers to help him through his hardships. Surprise surprise this band did not stay together for long and split up, leaving our hero with only his bestest friend for support. And I thought, this sounds familiar. And then it hit me, it was familiar. I have been reading variants of this book for years. So I decided to try my hand at writing a fantasy by drawing pieces of paper out of a hat to create my own story.

All words in bold are replaceable and were drawn out of a hat:

Our main character Steve was rudely taken from his budding career as a carpenter by a strange old man. He was given a powerful amulet that is the only weapon against Drollive a power and ancient wizard. Forced to flee his small village, Steve meets up with some friends, a bashful dwarf, an intrepid hunter and a claustrophobic elf. Of course Steve is also backed up by his best friend Lap who he has closeted homoerotic dreams about.

So off the merry travellers go. Steve has doubts about his ability to harness the amulet, but is reassured. Battles follow. People die. But luckily not our band of merry men. Off they plod on this very long journey and has been mentioned in another post all other methods of travel not being an option.

Unfortunately Steve and Lap are left to fend for themselves when the rest of the band are called away to fight an army of rabid mountain trolls. They toil alone until coming undetected to Drollive's lair, whereby Steve activates the amulet and destroys Drollive using and act of kindness. Everyone is saved and they all live happily ever after but are changed for the better by their experiences.

Hmm not bad, now I just need to flesh it out and I will be rich.
Don't get me wrong I love my fantasy and I am an avid reader. But the more you read the more you see this pattern start to repeat itself. That's why a unique fantasy is a rare find and I hope that some of these will be reviewed here.

The weird sex trifecta: a review

I have whiled away some time in the last few weeks reading a trilogy of books that offers a unique, perhaps slightly skewed, perspective on sexuality. I only realised mid way through the third one that I had completed some sort of beginners course in the sexual behaviour of the human being, which made me sit back and go 'Cor, we are dirty buggers!'. The three books that lead me to this conclusion were 'The lives of the English rakes' by Fergus Linnane; 'Snuff' by Chuck Palahniuk, and 'Candy Girl' by Diablo Cody. Understandably these three will inevetably lead to that conclusion, its not like I was reading 'Monogomy for beginners', but I really like the stinky underbelly presented in these books since it is closer to the reality than a lot of people would like to admit.

The Lives of the Enlish rakes by Fergus Linnane is a non-fiction account of the sexual misadventures of upper class English men, spanning from 1660 to the 1900s. Since I never studied history at school and have an extremely limited knowlege of the English history, I had to gloss over sections relating to things like Oliver Cromwell and some sort of civil war. I know this is a bad thing on my part, but it says something for the book that a complete cretin like me could be drawn in and held captively interested for the duration even though there were some bits that made me go 'eh?'. Anyway, so the definition of a rake is, as best as I can put it: a gentleman who drinks, womanises and enjoys life to the full - but there is something more to it, a sort of cavalier attitude that is immediately endearing and goes some way to explaining why even the most outrageous behaviour was only met with tuts from the court - of course, that is before Queen Victoria's time. Queen Victoria did for the rakes what MacDonalds has done to the fast food industry: eliminated all competative viewpoints until only the one (hers) exists. Her viewpoint happened to be something along the lines of 'sex is ikcy!'. Anyway, this book describes the depraved doings of these daredevil dandys cleverly and in such a way that you forget you are reading an historical documentation. I like how, on the surface, it seems like the role of the woman in the English court was to stand fanning yourself and saying 'Lah, sir!' coquettishly to the nearest fop; but when you get down to it a lot of the public opinion and policy decisions of the upper class men was dictated by the activities of their mistresses. Certainly these woman controlled the cash flow situtation with a lot of very wealthy men, and in so doing surely in some way shaped the future of the country.
Three powdered wigs.



The second book, 'Snuff' by Chuckles Palahniuk, is totally awesome. It follows a porn star, Cassie Wright, who is trying to break the 'most sex in a day' world record by doing 600 men in a day. The book follows three of the men who make up the 600; Mr 72, Mr 137 and Mr 600; while they are waiting backstage for their 1 minute of allotted time with Ms Wright. Most of the dialogue is internal as the three men interact minimally with each other until their number is called. There isn't much actual sex, however, its more like extended foreplay building up to the moment on film. There are some hilarious porn film names, for example 'Gropes or Wrath' and 'Chitty chitty gang bang', and a good deal of 'insider' info on the porn industry, which makes me respect Mr Palahniuk's ability to really get into a topic and research the poop out of it, weeding out all the dirty little secrets it would seem the industry would prefer to remain secret. Or actually, they probably wouldn't really care because what is clear from this book is that sex sells, it always has and in all probability it always will.
Five bleeding hearts!



And, bringing the sexual revolution to a close is the honest and frank portrayal of the stripping industry 'Candy Girl' by Diablo Cody. Diablo writes very well, she has a lot of the flair in this book that was so prominent in her screenplays - which first endeared her to me after all. The issue here is I might have a sliiiiightly biased point of view on strippers... Besides the point, maybe, but Diablo Cody's account didn't exactly endear me to the industry. I mean, I totally understand her motives for doing what she did, and you could argue that she wasn't hurting anyone anyway; but for some reason I just find the whole thing a little dirty, a little seedy and a little too eager to please - maybe because thats what a stripper seems to be, for me anyway. Personal distate aside, it's a very well written book and funny in places, and I must say that the costumes she wears sound very cool. Anyway, I am aware that this review marks me down as some sort of prude and I would like to assure the reader that I am, in fact, not. She can shake her downstairs and get dudes to put money between her boobies (yukky money germs) and if that makes her happy, so be it. Gotta say though: dudes, your idea of sexuality is pretty warped. I have to conclude that the male psyche is more weird than we gave them credit for to begin with. Ladies: you thought that a lap dance was bad, check out a 'bed dance' if you really wanna be grossed out. Yeah, yeah, prude, I know.

3 nice clean pine beds.

Fantasy

I love fanatasy. It is by far my most favorite book genre. The settings are vast and complex mixed with dragons, wizards, total domination and leather. There are never small problems in fantasy and there is no middle ground. A peace treaty can never fix anything, democracy has not yet been invented and war is just another day at the office. Here I describe my love and loathe of some of the common features to any fantasy book.

Geographically , fanatasy worlds consist of one continent and many, many islands. Isalnds are mainly reserved for magical places or prisons you see while the mainland is reserved for pillaging of villages and libraries. The only thing that bothers me with the geographical aspect of fantasy is that the tropics always get left out. Most worlds represent a large Europe or America and thus the landscapes represent this: mountains, woody forests, grasslands and glens. However, there is hardly a fantasy novel that includes a tropical rainforest, monkeys, heat or humidity. Always rain, grand oaks and a conveinient ring of elm trees that offer vital protection from wights.

In fantasy your only option is to walk and the thought of going to another country/town/city/super secret tomb via any other means is perposterous. Let us imagine for a moment that you are the protaganist, against your better judgement your crew decided to travel by horse. BAM! You are immediately a target. There is blood everywhere spewing from random decapitations occurred by both sides and mean men looking to rape or kill you or sell you into slavery. Also there are scouts looking for you, yes you! They know about you from the prophecy. And you know that old dude who found you? Well he totally told someone else about you! So now everyone is on your ass! Damn you for taking that chance on a horse! Once you’ve managed to narrowly escape death, you question this quest and realise how super alone and misunderstood you are. There is always a moment of self-doubt in fantasy. Either the character gets over it and assumes an attitude of resolve or the character is constantly looking for reasurance. “This burden is too heavy! I didn’t ask for it! Blah, blah, blah, weak, blah, not prepared blaaaaah.” This reasurrance is found in the love interest. “I think you’re great, you’re so strong and stuff!” Your love interest is so awesome. The way they move is always super sexy and their eyes, oh their eyes! So dreamy! So intense! Sigh.

I love that in fantasy books the love interest is always ionosphere hot, and the lead character always deems themselves to be subterrainian that is until the love interest spills how they are the most gorgeous/handsome thing ever in the world EVER! This is usually revealed near the end of the novel, or if you find that you’ve bought yourself a fantasy/erotic fiction book this happens right at the beginning so that there can be more time for sex throughout the novel. And the sex, oh the sex! It ranges from the completely bizarre to the ridiculous. I prefer “and they continued into the night.” I don’t need to know the intimates, I would have bought an erotice fiction if I had wanted them. I once had the misfortune to read a book that contained incest sex. Not fun. I don’t want to imagine first cousins doing it, but alas! I didn’t have to imagine, because I was told in such great detail that at times I felt like retching. One word : rimming.

In fantasy there is always a huge build up to the final battle! The battle that will take the tyrant down, that will right all the wrongs, which will appease the gods and make every single person in the world happy. This build up includes the characters that you like, dying and the lead character finding their true power (hooray!). The books that I love, that really stick with me, are the books that have the greatest battle scenes of all time. The characters just kick ass! In those novels, the authors know how to wrap you in and weave you through multiple happenings that lead to the final encounter with finesse. They never fail to dissapoint. Inevitebly there are other books that let you down. For example, the character finds the cure/button/book before the battle even starts or becomes so powerful just in time that nothing needs to happen (sort of like the end of Fable II – one punch!). The same thought always occurs to me, “dude, I just read 1000 pages to find that nothing happens, what the what? It’s not even ironic or poignant, just lame!”

Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocolypse

This book has both an amazing title and an amazing story! I brought it to the very first book club and it is still somewhere in circulation. (Well hopefully someone knows where it is.)

Written by Robert Rankin (What a hero with his Ray Gun, man I love the Internet) who writes tongue in cheek books like the Da-da-de-da-da Code and Raiders of the Lost Car Park, this book actually made me laugh out loud. And not a small grin or snigger, but oh did I chortle.

The book revolves around two characters. Jack who is a boy out to seek his fortune and Eddie Bear, a stuffed bear that belonged to a detective, now deceased.

First things first, when Jack begins his journey he meets a farmer, and falls into a hole. You must keep reading. My theory is that Rankin wrote the beginning of a story and the end of one, both of which contained people called Jack and then he just mushed the two together. It makes no sense and has no bearing on the story. In fact had the rest of the book not been so excellent it would have ruined it entirely. So remember: Farmer, hole, ignore and continue.

So after Jack gets out of his hole he meets Eddie in a bar in Toy Town, where there are more toys then humans, although humans have special status. All the nursery rhymes are actual people and the tale begins when the pair discover that Humpty Dumpty has been brutally murdered. They immediately embark on a whirlwind adventure trying to solve the murder before more famous characters die in horrible and twisted ways.

I am not going to spoil the book by giving you a blow by blow, but I will say that Rankin created an amazing world with realistic toy characters. Eddie laments the lack of opposable thumbs and when he drinks has to keep standing on his head so the alcohol drains out of his now drunk feet and back to his head. There are so many random elements that fill the book, down to the different religions of the toys and theories about what caused Humpty Dumptie's fall.

So if you like fantasy that is light hearted, funny and cleverly written this is for you. If animated toys freak you out then possibly not the book for you however I highly recommend it.

I give it 4 phallic carrots:

Why Books?

Well dinner, sex and men make sense. Add in a good dash of alcohol in the mix to make it all the more interesting and you have the average woman's get together. This of course is all done in lingerie whilst holding the ever present feather pillow in case a fight needs to be settled.

But why the books? Why not settle down to watch a good movie instead of a book? Less effort, much less time consuming and sometimes you get to watch a movie like 300, where countless amazingly toned men run around. On the flip side, you sometimes get to watch Billy Conolly take off his clothes in "The man who sued God". Blergh.

I'm not sure that I can explain to a book hater why books are possibly the most amazing things every invented (and this includes sliced bread by the way). The way that a book captures your imagination and allows you to create a world in your own mind that to you looks perfect is infinitely more appealing then watching Peter Jackson's version. And you can definitely not watch a movie in the bath or on a sun drenched beach,.

All in all, books are by far the cheapest method of both stimulating and entertaining your brain, allowing you to live a million different lives in a million different worlds and all for the price of a library card.

So in fact the question is rather: Why not books?

Savoury Cheese Muffins

Totally yummo, totally stolen recipe off some other blog (with slight modifications)!

Ingredients:

2 cups self raising flour (or 2 cups regular flour, 2 tsp baking powder)

2 eggs

1 cup milk

1 cup grated cheese

1/4 cup olive oil

1 level tbsp sugar

chopped chives/spring onions/regular onions

chilli flakes

1/2 tsp salt

Optional: bacon bits, spinach bits, feta cheese

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C.

Sift flour, set aside.

Grate cheese into cup, add to flour and add other dry ingredients (chilli flakes), mix well.

In another bowl, beat 2 eggs with sugar until frothy.

Stir in olive oil, milk and chives/onions.

Make a well in the flour mixture and add egg mixture until combined, but do not overmix.

Fill into cupcake liners (I use sillicone, reusable, non-stick liners) until 2/3 full.

Bake for 15-20 mins or until golden brown.

Garlic mustard sauce - drizzle over muffins like savoury icing!

1 tsp crushed garlic

1 tsp mustard (English preferably)

1 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp lemon juice

3 tbsp mayonnaise

Cayenne pepper to taste

Mix well with a fork, until the sauce is smooth.

This is unbelievably good!

Robin Hobb: The Farseer trilogy - a review

So even though most of book club has read most of this trilogy, I feel like I should write this review 1) because nobody else has done it yet, and 2) because I am sufficiently geeky and fantasy obsessed that I feel I might do it justice. I have slightly fudged my CV in this case because I have not yet actually completed the third book, because it has been misplaced or removed illegally from its owners house. Curses! However, having read and enjoyed the first two books I feel like I am at least prepared enough to take a stab at what the third book in the trilogy would be like, which is to say: he meets and falls in love with a woman/dog/his mother who is then his loyal companion until they/he dies/is maimed/is taken into the underworld by beelzebub himself. Yes, without giving too much away it is safe to say that Mr Hobb subscribes to the 'hellish agony for the protagonist' school of fantasy, which is predictable enough that at least you aren't ever SURPRISED when your favourite character loses a limb/his puppy/all hope of ever succeeding in life.

In the first book, Assassins Apprentice, we meet Fitz, who begins his life with the surely enjoyable experience of his first warm bed marred slightly by the fact that his mother was the crown prince's whore, he has been abandoned by her, the crown prince wants nothing to do with him and the one companion he has ever had is a small adorable puppy. Yes, the puppy is so adorable that Fitz discovers he has the little understood power to commune with, and direct, the thoughts of animals, a gift that child Fitz is unaware he even has until the man whose care he is placed in sees what he is doing and quickly helps him out by putting the puppy in a sack and 'taking care of it', mob style. Oh, and then his father the crown prince dies. Fitz, no doubt an emotionally stable youth, is then taken into the care of the King who wants him trained as a royal assassin, cos you know, if you have emotionally tortured bastards running around the court the best thing to do would be to teach them how to kill really really quietly so that nobody ever knows it was them. All this aside, he manages to do do the killing thing pretty well all the while hiding the fact that he has the 'wit', or puppy communing power, which is thought of a little like neo-Nazism in his world. Instead he focuses on the other realm of power known as the skill, which he would actually also be quite good at only the King thinks it would be smart to get the royal bastard trained by an actual bastard, who sort of magically lobotomizes Fitz so that he can't do it anymore. Meanwhile, the coastline of his kingdom is threatened by these fearsome Red ships that take villagers and 'forge' them into a sort of zombie, which then rain terror on their friends and neighbours. Anyway, the story sort of winds up with some good ol'court poisoning and hijinks - kids! Lets play 'guess who dies at the end of this book'!

The second book, Royal Assassin, takes off with Fitz recovering from his near fatal poisoning at the end of Ass apprentice (you guessed wrong!). When he returns to his home castle he finds that the King is sick, the new crown prince is killing himself by 'skilling' the Red ships away from their coast and the woman he has loved since childhood is ignoring him. Whilst spending the rest of the book pouting about the palace, he manages to befriend a young wolf cub who he rescues and forms a very strong 'wit' link with, establishing something like a pack bond with the animal. Also, his chick is suddenly totally down with hooking up with him as long as nobody knows. The crown prince, who Fitz loves like a father, discovers that he can hide himself away in Fit'z mind, allowing him to hear and see things in the court that he would otherwise not. This is groovy and all, but Fitz is after all a bit of an emotional wreck by this point and has had his brain messed with by various magical means so when the prince does this he gets a bit wobbly for allowing his thoughts out, and other people's in. Thus, he starts letting his wolf into his mind when he is doing the nasty with his wench, he lets himself into the prince doing the nasty with the queen-in-waiting, and he lets the whole castle feel his loins pulsating whenever he gets a boner. Its kinda weird, ok, but not as weird as this. Oh yeah, so there are lots more plots and he is eventually arrested as a traitor. Kids! Lets play guess who dies again! You are correct! Fitz is tortued and dies but he hides his soul (?) in the wolf and is saved, because the wolf returns his soul to his smelly corpse weeks later. It all turns out awesome in the end.

I am assured that in the third book (Ass Quest) all sorts of dragons happen, and Fitz totally kicks the asses of anyone who has ever wronged him (like, half the kingdom by now). I would love to believe this but I am more certain that he spends the rest of his miserable life hiding in an old monastery with nothing but his aged wolf to keep him company, while everyone he has known is turned into evil zombies by the weird Red ship raiders and his kingdom goes to shit under the rule of a crazed king.
Its not an uplifting trilogy, but it is very very well written and very clever in its court intrigue and the construction of the world. If you like fantasy and find George R. R. Martin slightly too depressing, give this a go. If you don't like fantasy, or want to read a book where the main character's progression is not directed by evil dicks who want him dead, then give it a skip.
I give it 4 Legolas heads.

Boobies

I feel this is something important we should all consider:

http://www.geekologie.com/image.php?path=/2010/02/24/chest-yams-large.jpg