They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard..
28 August 2014
Filed under Uncategorized
Tags: Fantasy Review Barn, Tough Travelling, Towers
This week Nathan from the Fantasy Review Barn is taking us travelling through the tropes of fantasy and focusing on towers:
‘TOWERS stand alone in waste areas and almost always belong to Wizards. All are several storeys high, round, doorless, virtually windowless, and composed of smooth blocks of masonry that make them very hard to climb.’
Surprisingly I found this more difficult than I thought! I’ll start off by chucking in Rapunzel – no doors so it counts – and it belongs to a witch.
This is a cheat – The Once and Future King by T H White – in which Merlin is banished to a remote and crumbly tower in Sir Ector’s castle. This is only a cheat because I never finished the book – not because I wasn’t enjoying it but because it was a library book and I had to return it – I just need to go and get it out again!! Duh…
The Tower of Raven’s Reach – the setting of the grande finale from Scott Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora. No witches or wizards and there are doors into the place – but it’s a very tall tower! In fact I seem to remember the lovely Locke suffering from a fear of heights at one point! Plus there are the Glass Towers where all the elite live. Not really any magical connections though…so, grasping at straws at all!
The Two Towers – LoTR by Tolkien – if you chuck a stick anywhere in middle earth you pretty much hit a tower – this is definitely a bona fide entry – however it’s a very easy and rather obvious one. Still, never miss an opportunity to get Lord of the Rings on a list seems to be my motto and therefore it would be folly not to include this!
Two cheats – although I do own both books I haven’t read them so I’m assuming that there are towers involved because it says so in the title!:
The Tower Lord by Anthony Ryan
The Dark Towers by Stephen King
And, finally – thinking outside the box…
Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer – this is a bit of a twisted one really – four explorers are sent to explore zone ‘x’. They find a circular staircase that goes down into the ground – for some reason throughout this is called a tower – given that this isn’t really a tower I could also mention that there is a lighthouse in area x – which also plays a very prominent part?? Trying to think along different lines here – not quite sure it’s working out for me though! Anyway, much creepiness – stay away from area x is my general advice ! – although do read the book I hasten to add.
Books and travelling with Lynn 
I really want to read The Once and Future King – was it hard-going?
No, it’s really well written – I had a copy from the library though and it was due back (damn that person for wanting the same book as me!!)
I will get it out again, it’s such a good story and the author has a lovely style. You would breeze through it.
Lynn 😀
The Once and Future King is one of my favourite adaptations of Arthurian legends! It’s so beautifully written. Personally I always really enjoy the classics. There are actually a couple other stories featuring Merlin where he gets locked away in a tower; kinda nice to see a man getting sent to the tower for once, right?
I also love the classics and I thought that the start of the book was so well done – I will definitely get it back out and finish it off.
And yes – men very rarely get sent to the tower so it’s a refreshing change.
Lynn 😀
Lies of Locke Lamora certainly counts; the towers of emberglass have old magical origins (or at least tech no longer of the world). I didn’t think of it, nice pull.
My cover of the LoLL is actually the purple one with the tower in the background (it’s an actual shot of Venice with St Mark’s Campanile) – that’s the only reason I remembered – due to the cover.
Lynn 😀
Ohh these lists sound so much fun. If I read enough fantasy, I think I’d like to participate sooner or later…I really want to read T. H. White! He’s been on my wish list since high school! The Gunslinger and Anthony Ryan are also on my wish list! 🙂
They are fun – I like the challenge of trying to come up with at least 5 – plus it gives you some good ideas for future reads. You should defo join in – you would probably surprise yourself with how many you know. Next week is turncoats so put your thinking cap on!
Lynn 😀
The inclusion of the “reverse” tower of Annihilation is really cool! Totally counts too, imo. That scene where they go below is so creepy! And great catch for LoLL too, I totally forgot the final scene involved a tall tower, though I should have since the cover on my copy shows a city with really tall buildings in the background! And yeah, Gunslinger has A Dark Tower in it, the biggest baddest tower of them all 😀
I should read the Dark Towers but I’m always put off starting a series when I can actually see how many books are really involved. If I’d started at the beginning and been all clueless I would have just read them all.
Annihilation was so good – I have to read the next one soon.
Lynn 😀
I have to read Scott Lynch’s Lies of Locke Lamora. I actually have the book but never find time to read it.
Great list. Love your reasoning on the “Annihilation” by Jeff Vandermeer. 🙂
I know – the Annihilation inclusion was a bit of a cheat but I figured if I had some sound reasoning….
You should definitely read Scott Lynch’s series – it’s well worth getting into.
Lynn 😀
I think Harry Potter had lots of towers. I’m glad you tossed in Locke’s towers because they were definitely impressive. Nearly any medieval type fantasy has a tower because of basic logistics – the ability to spy afar, and of course, poor boiling oil on those besieging the place. So I bet McCaffrey’s Dragonriders of Pern series has some. I’m going to be pondering this all day and counting up towers.
Yes – I thought about putting the Pern series on here – they have some sort of towers in there definitely – and then I forgot!!
Harry Potter does have a tower (or maybe two) – the Gryffindor Tower. I completely forgot that but it was on somebody else’s list.
You should take part in this event – I quite enjoy the challenge of trying to come up with different books – it doesn’t always work though! Turncoats are ‘it’ next week.
Lynn 😀
The Tower of Raven’s Reach is a great pick! That’s the only one of your picks that you’ve read that I have read. (I did also read Tower Lord 🙂 ). Also love your Annihilation pick! Thinking outside the box is fun. 🙂
Yeah, I sort of wondered if it would fit – no magicians or witches – but Nathan did point out there is old magic in the towers! Need to read Tower Lord very soon.
Lynn 😀
I just want to thank you for getting “They’re taking the hobbits to Isengard” stuck in my head now… 😀 LotR and Dark Tower were on many lists this week!
Haha, I nearly inserted a little YouTube clip of the extended song version! Probably not really necessary though!
Lynn 😀
The only I know of with towers is LOTR.
Yes, but it is a very fine example – and more than one tower so its a total winner!
Lynn 😀
I’m still reading Scott Lynch’s series and maybe I’m not on the part where towers are present already.
There are the glass towers where all the elite live – the first book is based in a place that is very much like Venice – which as we know does have towers!
Lynn 😀
PS – hope you’re enjoying Lynch
Ah, I see that a lot of participants have included Gunslinger and Two Towers in their TT posts. LoTR certainly has a lot of towers aside from Orthanc and Barad-dur. Gunslinger, I am quite curious but not so sure if I’m going to pick it up since the King’s books (4 of them) never worked for me.
This week’s TT is hard for me so I don’t think I’m going to join. Hahahaha. I haven’t read enough fantasy books that have towers in them. I still have 3 books in my imaginary list and all of them are pretty obvious. Ngaks.
Hah! this is where cheating comes in handy – you could have just picked 5 books with the word Tower in the title (and there are loads) that you want and are on your wish list!
Lynn 😀
My choices would have to be Lord of the Rings and The Dark Tower too. Other than that I’m finding it hard to think of any unless we’re allowed to count any of the towers at Hogwarts?
Yes, there was the Gryffindor tower so it would totally count and it’s good to get Harry Potter and LoTR into every week – you should join us – you always have excellent examples and frankly you don’t have to come up with five – just one or two good examples every week – next week is turncoats!
Lynn 😀
I do love the topics that come up but it is having the time!
I know what you mean. I enjoy Tough Travel and also Top Ten Tuesday – but simply because I find then bookish without actually being reviews.
Lynn 😀