For a debut novel, Jack
Ranis is well put together. I have to admit right up front that fantasy is
not my cup of tea. Well, not usually. Unless of course it’s Tolkein or Lewis.
And yes of course I see the irony (or fatuousness) of a man saying he’s not
into fantasy when that same man writes the stuff (cf. the Airel saga). But mercifully this ain’t about me, it’s about
Mr. Collings. And he’s got a good book on his hands.
In the interest of full disclosure, I first came across Jack Ranis in the course of my duties as
the StoneHouse Ink Acquisitions Editor. I have two rules:
1. No wizards
2. No unicorns
It’s pretty simple; I just don’t like fantasy in general.
There’s just too much completely made up stuff: gobbledygook place names,
character names that could just as well come from some back forty sweat shop selling
ad slogans, and lots of impossible stuff in the plot as well. In that sense,
most fantasy genre novels are no different than most attempts at sci fi. There
are a few really great ones. Most of the rest are… well… someone should have said
something. You know? It’s like being a Steelers fan. You know? Somebody should
have said something.
My approach to finding good material weeds out the amateurs,
let me tell you. I have this closely held conviction that fantasy was created
by Tolkein and that it mostly died with him. He simply did it so well. His place names and character
names were not arbitrary and senseless phonetic constructions. He built entire
languages, civilizations, mythologies, and then wrote a story for the ages on
the strength of all of that. I think that anyone who steps up to the Tolkein
and Lewis bar is asking for heaps and bags of criticism that they might not get
if they had simply chosen to write a good and simple story.
All of this brings us to the main event. Collings has
written a good and simple story. I, the jaded and prejudiced hater of fantasy, found
myself pleasantly surprised by him. Jack
Ranis is a lot like an old book I found on the dusty back shelves of the second
story of an out-of-the-way Oregon used book shop not too long ago—The Burnished Blade, by George
Schoonover. Jack Ranis is high
adventure, in other words.
It starts off at a snowed-in orphanage in Stallshire, with our boy
hero Jack. He’s a little stubborn, like me. Perhaps that’s one reason I find
him endearing. Sometimes stubbornness can be confused, by user and observer
alike, for courage. It’s not long until Jack finds himself in over his head, quite
literally, and in need of rescue from beneath the ice in the freezing waters of
the lake in the woods. Old Mr. Gudder—the local hermit, of whom all the
children are much afraid, rescues him. And that’s when everything takes on all
kinds of new meaning.
It’s not long until Jack learns quite a lot of mysterious
detail about how he came to be orphaned, who he really is, and where he’s
headed. I don’t want to spoil anything for you. This book is every bit worth
the time you’ll take to read it, so I want to be sure to give you just a taste.
Port Darling, the land of Brighton, await you. Get ready for an adventure.
Synopsis:
Jack Ranis is a
fifteen year old orphan who feels out of place in the only home he has ever
known. When an accident nearly takes his life, he discovers a stranger from his
past that takes him into a world he never imagined, a world where a magical
land holds all the answers to his life story and reveals his true destiny.
After many years of
war, the land of Brighton is finally at peace, but it is a peace that was never
meant to last. Following in the footsteps of his father, Jack, with the aid of
his friends, will risk everything to destroy the Book of the Labi and save the
lives of all those he holds dear.
Visit www.ryancollings.com
for more information on Ryan Collings and his creations.
