Heaven's Prisoners, Amir Hamza, Apprentice Assassin

I was on vacation during the last two weeks, so I managed to cram in a lot of books -- always one of the side benefits of going on a trip.

The first book I polished off was Heaven's Prisoners, the second Dave Robicheaux book. I hadn't been really impressed with the first one, because it felt like there was a lot of politics about American involvement in South America shoehorned in where it didn't really fit, but I'd decided to go on to the next one, because in general Burke is a very solid writer (I've really enjoyed the Billy Bob Holland novels). This one was a tremendous improvement -- there's still a connection to politics (US immigration and drug policy), but it felt more integral to the story, and at the same time took up much less space.

I then began The Adventures of Amir Hamza, which is something between a long story and a collection of stories about Muhammad's uncle, who seems to have become this epic figure in Islamic folk stories, with a whole cycle of stories about his exploits. As a collection of folk stories, it's obviously going to be pretty episodic (though there is an over-arching story-line), but I'm not finding it to be too repetitive over-all, and I'm enjoying it much more than the Monkey King stories. I think it harms the experience of a book like this to read it straight through -- the repetition becomes more glaringly obvious -- so I'm reading a couple of chapters a day.

The New York Times Book Review had called Hamza a combination of Iliad and Odyssey (which is what intrigued me into reading it), and I think that does a disservice to both traditions. The two Greek poems are noted for their unity, their very composed nature. Hamza is much more digressive, and it lacks the Greek poems' tragic awareness. But if we look at it on its own terms, it's often very funny, with surprisingly poetic turns of phrase (a character wipes away tears with "the handkerchief of gentle words", for example).

Amar, the trickster friend of Hamza's, constantly upstages the nominal hero, and quickly became the kids' favorite character (I've been telling them bits of the story).

Amazon gives away some kindle books for free on a semi-regular basis, and one of the first was Robin Hobbs's Apprentice Assassin. I've been hearing good things about Robin Hobb for years, but her fantasies always looked a bit generic to me, so I was hesitant to give them a try. The free book proved irresistible, so I dived in. Ultimately, I think she is a good writer, and the fantasy setting isn't completely generic, but it never really grabbed me either. I think she can write some good solid characters, but I could never quite get myself to care about them (the most interesting character, I felt, was the court fool, and he remains an enigma throughout).