Prepare yourself for some off-the-cuff book talk as I tackle another middle-grade book, chapter by chapter,
to learn if this is truly a treasured tale worthy of a place of honor in the fortress fiction.
The Chronicles of Bredain Chapter 4, The Gwithyns, by Lloyd Alexander, was a good one.
So, I have said before, I like this book. I like the whole series of The Chronicles of Bredain, the five books I've read.
In fact, I recently got the short story collection, which I'll get into at a much later date.
But for now, I'm just going to go ahead and talk about Chapter 4. I really liked it. There was something kind of fun, kind of interesting from a meta perspective.
And other than that, there was a lot of good stuff in it, just, you know, on the actual narrative level of the book.
I'll talk about the meta-narrative thing later, but for now, I'll talk about the chapter so far.
So, in this chapter, we get to see more of Tarim's foolishness, his flaws, his naivete, and it's interesting because it kind of cuts both ways.
The quality that he has, where he assumes that everything's going to be fine, is positive,
because if you think everything's going to be awful, then odds are you're going to see everything through that lens,
and you're going to make everything be awful for yourself, which is not good.
That's not a way to get ahead. That's not a way to win.
However, this works against him in several ways.
One, we got to see it in Chapter 1 when he tried to make a sword, as opposed to horseshoes, and he made an ugly stick snake, he said.
And then, two, oh, what was he saying? Oh, he said a lot of, if only I had this, if only I had that, if only.
And I don't remember if it was Kull at that time, or if it was Gwydion he was talking to, who said, but you don't.
You don't. This is not who you are.
And in Chapter 4, that ball is spiked, or whatever, when we learn that Tarim cannot swim,
and he neglected to tell Gwydion that when they were crossing this river,
because he thought that when he needed to be able to swim, he would learn how to swim.
And that's such an interesting character trait, because like I said, it cuts both ways.
One, he's very confident, and he is willing to jump into something, and I guess give it his best effort,
and he's willing to do that whether or not he's prepared for that thing,
which you would think is a heroic trait, except for it is foolish, and it did almost get him drowned.
And we have another example of this, or something like this being done, and it's a much better showing for him.
I'll explain. At some point, Gurgi shows up, and Gurgi is skulking around in the bushes, like a Gurgi does,
and Tarim goes ahead and jumps into this thorn bush and attacks Gurgi,
because he believes that Gurgi is actually a bad actor, some sort of creature, monster,
whatever that's going to attack Gwydion, because they're resting at night after this whole chase,
and after some nasty stuff they saw.
And Gwydion congratulates Tarim and says that despite the fact that Tarim was foolish to not know who he was attacking,
not know what he was doing, he believes that Tarim earnestly believes that it was a threat to Gwydion's life, to his own life,
and therefore Gwydion credits him and says he appreciates him, he thanks him sincerely and seriously for saving his life.
And the fact that it turned out to be just for Gurgi, it doesn't really matter, because he didn't know that at the time, so he did it in good faith.
And I think him jumping into the river and assuming he'd be able to swim is a parallel to him jumping into the thorn bush
and thinking he'd be able to defeat whoever or whatever was attacking Gwydion and was threatening his life.
So it's brave, but it's also foolhardy.
And I think the tension in that is interesting, because if you look at warriors, if you look at soldiers, if you look at police officers,
if you look at these people who put their lives at risk for saving other people, for helping them, for protecting them,
if you look at men who do this, the reason...
Well, it is a little foolish, it is a little stupid, but ultimately it's heroic and it's brave and it's courageous.
And you can argue that lots of different ways, but from ancient times.
I'm an ancient person, I'm a traditionalist, I'm a medievalist or whatever, even beyond that.
I have ancient values and ancient fundamentals that I derive my worldview from.
Men are expendable, because women and children are more vulnerable and more delicate.
And if a man dies, his wife and his children, or his wife alone, can move on and they can continue to live,
and they can have a good life, and they can be protected by other men, whether those are male relatives,
or whether those are the men of the conquering force who defeated the husband in battle,
it kind of doesn't really matter, because humans are incredibly adaptable,
and I think men believe in the strength and the resilience of children, and the strength and the resilience of women
to forge ahead and to cope and to live and to make the best life in whatever circumstance they find themselves.
Whereas, I don't know that men aren't able to do that, but men have the opportunity to engage in battle,
to put their lives on the line, and to come out victorious, so that they can preserve the lives
and the way of life of the people who they care for, the people who they are indebted to,
to whom they belong, who belong to them. And it's this really interesting reciprocal kind of deal.
And also just, you know, physically men are more equipped to fight into battle and to kill.
And it's really interesting, because we do see that manifested in Taran here.
And actually we see both sides of the spectrum manifested in Taran and Gwydion.
Taran is careful about what he earns. No, Taran is reckless. Taran is foolish.
And Taran is incapable or inept versus Gwydion, who is a seasoned warrior, seasoned whatever,
soldier, footman, tracker, hunter. He is careful. He's very deliberate as well in his actions.
I don't remember how I said it. Taran is reckless. Taran is something, and he's like foolish and he's incompetent.
So he's careful. He is wise. And he is competent, because he's been through a process. He's learned these things.
He's learned the way of a tracker, a hunter, a warrior, all these different things.
And he even is very upset with Taran at some point, but he calmly responds to him.
And he doesn't chide him, doesn't yell at him, or maybe he chides him, but he doesn't yell at him.
He doesn't seek to punish him or hit him or anything like that. He has his own strength in check.
And he has his own person. He has himself in check. And he does what he needs to do and does only what he needs to do.
He doesn't go beyond that. Whereas other men would, other men can, other men do.
And they go from being heroic and noble to being villainous and innobile, I guess, would be the word to use for that.
So it's really interesting. We see these three traits, let's just call it, going both ways, to the negative and to the positive.
We see that in a boy who hasn't been trained in this, he naturally goes to the negative.
And in Gwydion, who has been trained in this, he not naturally, he through dint of hard work or through the hard work,
through the trials that he's had to pass through, he emerges with the ability to choose to go the right way on these things as opposed to the wrong way, like Taran does.
And it's a really interesting contrast. It's really interesting that they're foiling each other in this way.
And it's really interesting that they are making this statement about competency in manhood and all these different things.
And also it's all happening within this greater overarching narrative of they're looking for Henwin, they're having trouble, they ask Gurgi for help.
They go and they see the Horned King leading this group of men, these proud walkers, it believes what they're called,
who are doing this ritual that before battle, I guess, they take people and they burn them alive in these baskets.
And it's pretty awful. So we get that, but we also get these hints about what's going to happen, what's going to come in the future,
which is that they will possibly have to face the Cauldronborn, who are these effectively zombies,
they're European zombies that they're put in, their dead bodies are stolen from their graves,
and they're put into this submerged in this cauldron, which is a giant pot, it must be big enough for a man to go into,
and they come out of there with life or whatever, but they cannot speak and they have no will of their own.
And Aran twists them to his will and he teaches them just to be horrible, relentless killers.
And they have a will to kill other people and make them like them. So they're just this completely destructive force.
And I guess you could say that my little duology or pairing of Taran and Gwydion on the spectrum
shows what a good man can be in both extremes of life when he's young and foolish and reckless
and has not been trained in these things and what he's like when he's older and wiser and has been trained and has achieved competency.
So beyond that you have this third thing going on where the Cauldronborn are dead and corrupted,
and Aran is taking the bodies of these men who were either heroic or villainous in their lives,
and he's turning them into mindless, soulless things that he's completely twisted and corrupted to his will
to be the enforcement of his guards, typically in his land, in Anuven.
And he sends them out to him, but the farther away they go the weaker they become.
And then I don't know if they would just go back to being dead or what, but they go and they come back.
I don't know what the timeline is on it. It's not clear in the book, but it is talked about here.
And it's interesting that contrast, that third expression of manhood that it's turning into a tyranny.
Which apparently if you go back to the Greek tyrant, the root of it is that it means just a strong guy,
like a champion or whatever, but it comes to be known, it came to be known as a person who oppresses others
with his power, with his... it's a hero corrupted basically. That's how we understand a tyrant.
That's what it was at one point, and now it's just like, oh, this is a bad guy with a lot of power
who pushes that on other people, but that's not the original conception of it, which is interesting.
But yeah, so then we're getting this complete contrast. So it's like Aron is, he's a lord,
just like Gwinnian is a lord or a prince, and you get to see what a good prince is like and what a bad prince is like.
And because they're both men, they can both have passed through these stages of apprenticeship or young manhood
or whatever, or boyhood, where they are ineffective, foolish, and incapable of ascending to that on their own.
And they need to go through trials or teaching in order to get them to that point.
And I think it's really interesting how it covers all that. And like the naivete and the...
like positivity that Tarin has is really core to him, and it even extends to things like
when they see these Gwithaens off from afar, which end up spotting them, that because of Tarin's fault,
through some fault of Tarin, these Gwithaens, which are spies for Aron, which he like, from the time they hatch,
he's controlling them and influencing them, and he understands their speech and he talks to them and controls them basically.
And they're his spies. Gwitian has avoided them all this time in his journey, however long it's been.
And because Tarin fell off a Melongar horse, he revealed their location, and now the Gwithaens know,
and they're going to fly off and tell him that they're there. And Gwitian, at this point, doesn't get mad.
He just says, they would have found us eventually. They would have found me eventually, and let's just move on.
But in talking about them, Gwitian tells Tarin about them, and Tarin says, oh, they must be his worst servants.
And he says, no, they have... he has far worse servants than that. They're just spies, and they're just used for information.
The fact that Tarin thinks that the first thing that he encounters from Aron, besides the Horned King,
is the worst of what he has to offer, because of their beaks and claws, I guess.
Beaks and talons is interesting, because in his naivety and his willingness to rush forward,
he rushes and jumps to this conclusion that these must be the worst things that Aron has at his disposal.
And he's humbled to learn that they're not. And then he goes on and sees these men being burned alive
under the Horned King and under these Proudwalker guys who end up joining him.
I don't think we ever really get much more information on them, who they are, what their deal is,
but it's interesting. Interesting world building. So it says, they're the Proudwalkers, Gwitian answered,
in a dance of battle, an ancient rite of war, in the days when men were no more than savages.
The baskets, another ancient custom best forgotten. So he doesn't even tell Tarin what these are about.
And then...
Oh, and then the Horned King comes along and...
He lights them on fire. Flames freeze the austere cages. Billows of foul smoke rose skyward.
From the baskets rose the agonized screams of men. Tarin gasped and turned away.
So not only is he uninitiated into this world, and he's unprepared for it altogether,
it's just like this humbling... It's interesting because he's going through this whole humbling process,
which is showing him how little he knows and how little he is, and how ineffectual he is,
and that's kind of the start to his journey. You have to know and be able to admit to yourself
what you aren't before you can become what you want to be, I guess.
I like the austere because to me that sounds like the word for bone,
but let me see, I don't think that's what it means.
Like, austere is definitely like osteoporosis, right? Maybe if it was austere it would be bone.
Anyway, any of several willows, having long, raw, like twigs, used in basketry, especially,
Salix viminalis, native to Eurasia, a twig of one of these shrubs of trees,
any of several North American dogwoods, especially the red austere.
Okay, so these are baskets made of these dogwood or probably more likely these willows
that were woven together to burn these guys in as... I don't know where you got these guys to burn them alive
and how that helped your battle. Maybe it's like some of the warriors are volunteers. I don't know.
But like, he doesn't talk about it, Gwydion doesn't want to talk about it,
I think Alexander doesn't want to talk about it, so we'll leave that behind as well.
And just say like, it's interesting, it's a short chapter, not a long half, it's like, you know,
Gurgie comes back and they kind of fumbled around and they realized that they lost the footsteps.
They're like, there's no more tracks of Henwin who they were, you know, Gwydion, the expert tracker,
was tracking and they don't know where she is and they get interrupted by this
and these guys spot them and they're going to attack them and it ends on a cliffhanger.
So we don't know what's going to happen next. But it's interesting because I really, you know,
I said everything I said and you heard all that so I'm not going to repeat it,
but it's interesting how Alexander tells a story and at the same time he does world building,
but he also does kind of like, I don't know, it's like beyond world building, it's like...
I don't know how to call this, but like, I don't have a quick term for it, but he presents you ideas
that can get into your head and make you think about things in a more profound way,
aside from just enjoying the story as a fun story, as a fantasy story.
And I think that's really cool. I'm going to stop talking about that and I'm going to start talking about my book
and what I've been doing. If you go to grobugs.com right now, G-R-O-B-U-G-S dot com,
you can sign up for the newsletter, you can get updates for when I release posts on there,
and you can learn about behind the scenes stuff about the Grobug world of stories and books,
and you can also get notified for the pre-launch release, and then when the book is out,
it's release and where you can get it and find it and everything, which will all be posted there.
But the Grow Bugs are something I've been working on for a while. It's a fantasy thing.
It's basically magical bugs who battle monsters. And I actually have a shorter book written already,
and it's from the Grow Bugs perspective. It's in their world. You get to see a group of Grow Bugs being born
and going through a bunch of trials, and it's kind of like a magical academy type thing,
but it's wholesome and pure, and they face lots of dangers, and I think it's a really interesting story.
It's a little bit of a weird story. It's kind of a weird place to start and just present to people to say,
hey, read this story about these bugs, these bugs that protect kids from monsters.
So I ended up writing and working on writing this book, Axel's Arcade, which in Axel's Arcade,
it's boy Axel, he's 11 years old, he has some issues with his family, and he basically gets trapped in a video game.
And he wants to stay in the video game, but after he beats the video game, he ends up having this one companion
that was with him in the game is still there when the game resets and he has the opportunity to do a new game plus kind of thing.
And he talks to this thing, and it's a giant bug that he's talking to.
And it was a giant bug in the game because it happened to be that the game had a giant bug in it,
and then this giant bug, this grow bug, ends up being in there in the game with him.
And then the grow bug is telling him, like, hey, Axel, you should really go home.
And like, I don't know what you're doing here, but I know I'm here to help you and I'm here to, you know, do whatever I can.
I'm going to stick with you no matter what you choose, but I'm here for you and I know you need to go home.
And I'm going to help you with that, even if you don't want me to, basically.
And they have this whole journey, and it's a really interesting, exciting story. It's about choosing reality over fantasy.
It's about choosing the imperfect but true and real over the perfect but false and fake.
And it's a journey of internal struggle for Axel with a lot of cool stuff going on.
There's lots of cool video game stuff in there, cool magic system for elemental powers.
The grow bug does some crazy stuff towards the end once he's, like, activated and able to do his things.
And that's the story I'm telling.
And it's able to happen in the grow bug world because the grow bugs basically are able to facilitate miracles and do magic in this very soft magic system kind of way.
Like, they have particular types of, like, there's a class of grow bugs, different things they can do.
There's, like, the seers, there's guardians or champions, who I call them.
There's tenders that help grow and raise up the next generation of grow bugs.
And they all have their own magical powers, and they all do different things.
But this Axel's Arcade book, which is part of the grow bug world, it kind of, like, sideways brings grow bugs into this story.
And, like, is a good, interesting place for people to get into this.
And, you know, why do I feel good about that?
Because grow bugs protect kids from creatures who would harm them.
And Axel's a kid who these creatures want to harm.
And specifically, this grow bug goes there to help him.
And they go through this whole journey together, and then they end up being safe and escaping.
And then there's potential for more stories to be told after that.
And I feel really good about it because that's what grow bugs do.
They, you know, there's a little bit of a pun in there.
They grow, they help kids grow by protecting them, keeping them alive so that they can grow.
But also, their interactions with children, in special cases, help facilitate their growth
by giving them something that they needed and helping them get over something that was hurting or troubling them
and stopping them from becoming the people they need to be.
And, anyway, that's kind of the premise of the grow bugs in the grow bug world.
And that's a little bit of insight into what happens in Axel's Arcade book one.
And I do have it planned as part of a trilogy.
And it's a nice, tight trilogy.
And believe it or not, the main story, the main adventure, I'd be planning on it all being on one day.
One bad day or one very busy day for Axel.
And I think it's a lot of fun. I think it's a really cool thing.
And I invite you to, again, go to grobugs.com, subscribe there, and stay tuned for updates.
I'll update, I'll start updating my progress of writing.
I'm in the draft. I'm in the first, probably, I'm in, like, the first sixth of the draft is done.
Of the first draft is done.
And I'm hoping I'll do about a draft today and, or the goal is to do a draft today
and be done with it in not too long a time.
And then I'll go through it again, make sure it's good, give it to an editor, and whatever,
and then I'll be able to release it.
But, yeah, it's definitely, I'm trying to be, like, Tolkien, I'm trying to be like Lewis,
I'm trying to be like Alexander here, and make really high quality books that are super entertaining
and have depth to them as well.
That don't beat you over the head with it, but just, they present the world to you,
they present the story, they present the ideas to you in a way that's compelling.
It's, first of all, entertaining, and second of all, really good for the soul
and the hearts and minds of kids, because that's what I believe in, I believe that's important.
So anyway, I invite you to check that out again, and that's it for now.
If you enjoyed my commentary on this book, I think you will enjoy my storts.
Head over to growugs.com to find out about my latest middle grade novel
featuring magical bugs fighting monsters.
Find a link in the show notes or go straight to growugs.com.
That's G-R-O-B-U-G-S dot com.
So grow without a W, right?
Grobugs.com.