Fantasy Review: 'Orlind' by Charlotte E English

This is the third and final part of the Draykon trilogy. I very much enjoyed the first two parts, ‘Draykon’ and ‘Lokant’, and this continues in the same vein, a wonderfully eccentric mixture of unique world-building, believable characters and an action-packed story. In the first book, I was very nervous that Llandry, one of the main characters, a diminutive person with wings, might actually be a fairy. In fact, I can safely say she is nothing at all like a fairy, and not in the least twee. During the course of the three books, Llandry transforms herself from a shy child-like girl who suffers from panic attacks into a self-reliant and formidable person. And by person, I mean draykon (more or less a dragon), of course.

The setting for the story is one of the most inventive I’ve ever encountered. I’m not going to attempt to describe it, but it’s a truly magical array of places, populated with some bizarre creatures and plants. Some of the animal life is, not unexpectedly, tending to the fearsome and toothy kind of monster, but there are also some charming little beasties. I love the way the upper and lower realms change dramatically in moments, so that the landscape is constantly roiling and flowing unpredictably. This book explains a great deal of why this happens. I love, too, that some parts are in constant daylight and some in constant night light, kept that way magically. That’s a really ingenious and (possibly) unique approach to world-building.

The plot continues without a pause from where book 2 left off. The draykoni are attacking Llandry's home in Glinnery, and villain Krays is cooking up some vague but evil scheme. There is high drama and action right from the start as everyone scrambles to find some way to protect themselves. The humans are trying mechanical weaponry. Llandry and her fellow friendly draykoni are exploring their new powers in the hope of finding alternative defences. And Eva and Tren are - well, this was the point for me where the plot lurched into implausibility. Eva dreams up a scheme so downright dangerous and with so little likelihood of success that, honestly, I don't know what she was thinking. It's not unusual in fantasy for characters to be set some impossible task, in order to accomplish some worthy outcome, but it's never very convincing, frankly, and in this case, it's not imposed on them, they decide to attempt it themselves. So I just had to switch off the logical part of my brain and go with the flow. This isn't so difficult, fortunately, since the story rattles along at unstoppable and unputdownable pace.

The second clunky moment is the transition from chasing around after villain Krays to haring off to investigate the mysterious seventh realm, Orlind. Since this is the title of the book, it’s not unexpected that this turns out to be the key to everything, but the way the characters are led there by the nose feels a bit contrived. But it really doesn’t matter. This is the book where everything boils to its dramatic conclusion, and there’s not a dull moment in it. The true nature of the Lokants is revealed in all its duplicitous glory, and the final confrontation is a wondrous explosion of creative magic and whimsy (believe it or not). I’ve never read a book before which so successfully blends together powerful magic, dragons, steampunk, sentient furry insects and multi-coloured mushrooms. It all makes sense, too. And there’s humour, even at the tensest moments. A thoroughly enjoyable, fast-paced read, with some memorable characters, absolutely fizzing with brilliant ideas. Only the slightly not-quite-believable plot contrivances let it down. A good four stars.

Mystery Review: 'The Blackhouse' by Peter May

This is a book which purports to be a murder mystery set in the Isle of Lewis, in Scotland's Outer Hebrides, but don't be fooled. The murder is, for most of the book, almost entirely peripheral to the story, no more than an excuse for the protagonist, an island native returning to his homeland, for a long series of flashbacks to his childhood and an unearthing of past secrets. Well, 'secrets' is probably too strong a word for the revelations here, none of which are terribly surprising. Or interesting, come to that. It’s only at the end that the murder again becomes the focus of events and the author ties things together quite tightly.

Fortunately, there's still plenty to enjoy here. The prose is nicely evocative, although occasionally a metaphor gets a bit above itself and falls flat on its face. The characters are well-drawn, although those who stayed on the island seem to have weathered the years less successfully than the returning one, which smacks a little of wish-fulfilment. Still, the author has a neat way of sketching characters with just a few brief phrases. I liked the descriptions of the island itself, although there was way too much locational information for casual readers (we really don’t need every last street or building name).

There is one affectation in the writing which I found rather jarring. The present day events are written in the third person, while the flashbacks to the events of the protagonist's childhood are written in the first person. This felt very odd to me, since first person writing gives the story an immediacy and urgency which is out of kilter with the distance of years. I suppose the author was trying to create a stronger differentiation between now and then, or perhaps to suggest the self-absorption and selectivity of the childish viewpoint, but to my mind it would have made far more sense to put the childhood and adolescent sections in third person, as events viewed from a distance and with some adult perspective. Looking back on one's childhood is like viewing any past event. It's a part of history, and the people involved are only loosely connected to their present day selves. The revelations at the end do make this narrative choice more understandable, but it still grated on me.

The ending is always the deciding factor for me, and this one failed on a number of levels. It's outrageously melodramatic, for one thing, while still being sadly predictable and resorting to a variety of cheap tricks to increase the tension or to hide revelations until the designated moment. I'm not a big fan of the hero-must-spring-to-the-rescue school of storytelling, which seems to be obligatory these days in this kind of novel. And the big reveal of the murderer's identity and motivation - meh. Not terribly believable.

This is in many ways a reasonable read. I liked the setting, the local colour and the snippets of island life, although a bit more Gaelic and a little less criticism of the religion would have been an improvement. The author clearly has talent, and the story is well thought out, even if elements of it failed to appeal to me. In particular, the whole local-returns-to-home-territory trope is well worn, and this version of it, although nicely done, adds nothing new. As a police procedural, it is fairly ho-hum (although with a surprisingly graphic post-mortem), but it's still a nicely evocative tale of the Outer Hebrides, and recommended for that alone. Three stars.

Fantasy Review: 'The Tyrant's Law' by Daniel Abraham

This is the third volume of the Dagger and Coin Quintet, the difficult middle book - the one that drags the weight of two books’ worth of previous history, that also has to begin arranging all the pieces for the endgame and still has to make sense by itself. It should be an impossible task, an experience as dense and heavy and glutinous as treacle. Yet it flows like cream, tastes like chocolate and slips down just as easily. Abraham’s prose is a joy to read, elegant and spare, every word in its proper place.

As before, the cast of point of view characters is limited - Clara is finding her feet amongst the nobodies of Camnipol after her noble husband was executed for treason; Cithrin is in another new city learning more about banking; Geder the unstable Regent of Antea is making war again, aided by his spider-goddess priest; and Marcus the former soldier is hiking through the southern jungles with escaped spider-goddess man Kit looking for a magic sword. And as before, the story jumps about from one to another, but the individual plotlines are not independent, so one chapter will show the events of that character is close-up, while also revealing something of events elsewhere, glimpsed from afar in rumour and hearsay. This is done very cleverly, so the overall plot flows beautifully from chapter to chapter.

This is industrial-strength fantasy, so Geder's war is spilling across the whole northern continent, and is seemingly unstoppable. This is the third campaign to feature in the story. The first book centred on the fall of the city of Vanai. In the second, Antea conquered neighbouring Asterilhold. This time, Geder (or rather, his spider-priest adviser) has his sights set on Sarakal. There is inevitably some sense of repetition in all this, but Abraham gives the events a new perspective to keep things fresh. This time, Geder's capabilities are well understood, and there are no illusions about the consequences.

The series is called The Dagger and the Coin, and is presumably intended to contrast the two powerful forces of conquest, by armed force, or by economics. Geder's military ambitions continue to roll onwards, but for the first time there are signs that the financial clout of the bank can have an impact. There are hints about the difficulties of maintaining long supply lines, and getting the staple crops planted and harvested when so many men are tied up in the war. There are hints, too, that the bank can help indirectly with the refugee and resettlement problem, and more directly, in supporting covert acts of rebellion. However, it’s still not obvious how economics will bring a real direct challenge to bear against military might. Perhaps this isn’t Abraham’s intention, but if not, the whole banking plot becomes marginalised.

Abraham has a nice way of subverting the tropes of the genre. Most fantasy is (in the broadest sense) about swords and sorcery, so that all problems are eventually disposed of by one or other of these elements (or occasionally both). The evil villain is bent on global domination for vague reasons, and the hero (or occasionally a heroine) tools up with a magic sword or else learns to use the magic powers they’ve mysteriously been endowed with. Here, the evil villain is sort of bent on global domination, but it’s a role he more or less reversed into accidentally, and all with the very best of intentions. What could be so malign about spreading the spider-goddess’s message of truth across the world? Meanwhile, Marcus and Kit go on a traditional fantasy quest to track down the magic sword which will kill the goddess, but (without giving too much away) that doesn’t go quite as they expected. As for magic, there’s very little around at all. Proponents are called ‘cunning men’ and have minor roles as showmen and healers.

One nice aspect is that we have two interesting female characters taking strong leadership roles in the fight against Geder the war-making Regent. Clara is now released from the stifling conformity of court rules and taking advantage of her freedom to plot and scheme in Camnipol, as well as enjoying a degree of personal freedom. I very much like Clara, her subtlety, her cleverness and her determination. It makes a nice counterpoint to her husband’s more ham-fisted efforts in the previous books. Even though things don’t always go quite as anticipated (what ever does in an Abraham book?), she always makes well-considered decisions.

In contrast, Cithrin... Look, I’m going to have a bit of a rant about Cithrin, so feel free to skip ahead to the next paragraph if you want. Cithrin, you stupid, stupid woman. When will you ever learn? Your entire character arc has been defined by short-sightedness and downright bad decision-making. You find yourself stuck in the wrong city with the bank’s wealth? Why not forge a few papers to set yourself up as a pretend bank? After all, it would be too simple just to write to the bank’s head and await instructions, wouldn’t it? And if you find yourself trapped during an uprising with a powerful but totally unstable character who wants sex? Well, why not? This book is quite a good explanation of why not, actually. And then, given a one-time opportunity to get close to the Regent, to influence the events of history and do some good, could you actually, just once in your life, do something sensible? Course not. Gah. Stupid woman. I mean, what exactly does she think Geder is going to do now? Smile sweetly and forget all about her? He already burned one city because he felt slighted.

Geder himself is a fascinating character. Of course he makes dumb decisions as well, but in his case his motives are entirely understandable and believable, and it’s possible to feel very sympathetic towards him, and appalled at the same time. Being the focus of everyone’s amusement is dispiriting and annoying, and being the patsy for other people’s political games would get anyone riled. His response to the Vanai problem, although it was more a fit of petulance than a rational decision, was not an unusual way to deal with a recalcitrant conquest. Even when he’s behaving very badly, it’s easy to see exactly how and why it happened. He’s a social incompetent, who would be very much at home in the modern world, head buried in his iPad or harmlessly slaughtering orcs in World of Warcraft. It’s only in his fantasy setting that he is the tyrant of the title.

Marcus - meh. I like the banter, and the low-key cynicism which sometimes borders on suicidal fatalism, but it’s not an original character trait, and the whole tragic wife and child history is a bit over-used. I like Yardem a lot better, in fact, because although he has baggage (why did he leave the priesthood, exactly?) he doesn’t let it define him. Although that may simply be an artefact of not being a point of view character; because we never get inside Yardem’s head, we never see how tortured his soul is. Or it may just be the ears. Gotta love a character with such speaking ears.

This is not a high-action book. Even though there’s a war going on, and a new religion spreading like a stain from Camnipol, and the whole continent is in turmoil, it still feels like an intimate, close-up portrait of the characters before all else. A whole chapter may feature nothing but Clara walking about Camnipol, Clara taking tea with a friend, Clara going home again, but this gives the characters the space to breathe, to live, to think, to feel. Between paces, Clara can contemplate a great many subjects without it becoming heavy philosophising. Abraham doesn’t ever tell his readers what to think about anything (religion, war, slavery, inherited monarchies), and those who want can simply enjoy the story and the author’s exquisite prose, but the deeper themes are there to be explored by those who wish, usually by the contrast of one approach with another. For example, Kit and Basrahip are both spider-infested; one is using that to control people so that he can take over the world in the spider-goddess’s name, while the other goes to great lengths not to control people at all, and is trying to find a way to end the spider regime altogether. Is it evil to remove lies from the world and impose honesty? Good question.

The ending? Awesome. A great big bowl of awesomeness, with lashings of awesome sauce on top. The first two books I had some settling down reservations about, but this one, none at all. It’s a quieter book than the previous ones, but in my view it’s all the better for that. Perhaps the series is just getting into its stride, or the characters have grown into their roles (even Cithrin, maybe, possibly), or perhaps it’s just that, after a lot of circling round, we’re getting to know something about the dragons at last. Dragons make everything better. So unquestionably five stars. And now the long wait until the next book...

Steampunk Review: 'The Kaiser Affair' by Joseph Robert Lewis

I recently read ‘The Burning Sky’, the author’s debut book, and while I loved the original setting and found the story a fast-paced steampunk adventure, the characters never quite came alive for me. The author had a truly wonderful response to that; he made the whole Halcyon series (of which ‘The Burning Sky’ is the first part) very cheap, and encouraged readers to decide whether they agreed or not. And he added: ‘I want you to go read my latest steampunk thriller, ‘The Kaiser Affair’, and let me know if I have improved my characters in the time between the two publications’. I dutifully went off to check it out, started reading the sample and (you can probably guess the rest) yes, I got so engrossed I ended up buying the book and neglecting a long-awaited new arrival to finish it. So indeed I would agree that Mr Lewis’s writing (and not just the characters) has improved hugely.

Like the previous work, this is steampunk but this time with strong fantasy overtones. The story is part of a collaborative effort between a number of authors, who pooled their talents to create the background world, and then each set a stand-alone story in that world, under the collective title ‘The Drifting Isle Chronicles’. The Kaiser of the title is Ranulf Kaiser, imprisoned for complex and ingenious financial crimes, who has managed to escape from prison only a short time before his release date. Our heroes, Bettina Rothschild and her husband Arjuna Rana, are given the task of tracking down the missing Kaiser and putting a stop to whatever nefarious schemes he has in mind. And so begins an entertaining chase all round the city of Eisenstadt, and above it, too.

The two main characters are a delightful pair, with a charmingly bantering relationship and a liking for steamy sex in unlikely locations. While Bettina is clearly the senior (in professional terms), and is the one giving orders, she generally sits out the fights, while improbably athletic husband Arjuna does battle with the baddies. This makes her seem oddly passive. I appreciate that the author has put female characters in strong plot-driving roles, and obviously they don’t all have to be the kick-ass type, but the contrast between these two is extreme. However, when Bettina does get drawn into a fight, she’s quite capable of laying into her opponent without a problem, and I totally loved the imaginative ways she used her cane. Another nice contrast between the two - Bettina is smart and thinks things through carefully, while Arjuna is clever in a different way, knowledgeable and with what appears to be a photographic memory.

The other characters are relatively minor, but are neatly drawn, if a little one-dimensional at times (but then minor characters are allowed to be). The plot is hare-brained, of course, but it hardly matters and it all resolves itself very effectively and logically. And (the part I really liked) there are some wonderfully fantastical elements - the drifting isle itself, slowly circling above the city, mysterious and enticing; the talking birds; and the shadow people. I really love this kind of world - original, intriguing and wildly unpredictable.

I’ve found it fascinating to read these two samples of the author’s work back to back. The style is the same, of course, and both could do with a bit more polish on the editing front, but where one had a mish-mash of main characters and a complicated inter-weaving of plot threads, this one focuses tightly on just two characters and follows them throughout the book. There’s still a lot of chasing about and fighting and guns and improvised weapons and even a bow but the actual injuries are few, and they are more realistic, no more than a few scrapes here and there or the occasional arrow to the shoulder, so the whole story is more plausible and less cartoonish (although - an autogyro chase? Well, that's different!). There isn’t much introspection or philosophising going on, and I wouldn’t say the characters are exactly deep, although there are one or two moments when they do reach for something more meaningful (especially the discussion about Arjuna’s home), but they’re always likeable and behave believably. In addition, there’s loads of humour and a light touch that is (to me, anyway) way more enjoyable than ‘The Burning Sky’. Highly recommended for a light, entertaining read. Four stars.

Steampunk Review: 'The Burning Sky' by Joseph Robert Lewis

So there I was, struggling to get invested in a book with a fairly lack-lustre main character, a difficult alternate history setting and an opening stuffed with explosions and other dramas that I really don’t care about. And then along comes Qhora the Incan princess, with her pet sabre-toothed cat, and suddenly things are interesting. A sabre-toothed pet? Yes, count me in.

This has one of the most unusual settings I’ve encountered - a world where the ice age never ended, Europe is still in the grip of snow and glaciers and civilisation is clustered around a narrow strip of usable land. There are some locations with recognisable names - Marrakesh, Hellas, Italia, Persia, the Atlanteen Ocean - there’s an Incan empire across the sea, and there are some interesting beasties (the afore-mentioned sabre-toothed cat, plus a large bird used for riding). There’s a motley array of countries, all of them with their own belief systems, technologies and customs, trying to get along (or not). And there’s a nice steampunk feel - steam powered trains and airships, plus guns and electricity. It’s all very carefully thought out, and thank goodness, there are maps at the front and a vast, detailed glossary at the back.

There are half a dozen point of view characters, some with only an occasional chapter or two, which reveal all the various aspects of the complicated plot. Yes, this is one of those tales with a huge amount going on in several different places, and there’s a multitude of conspiracies and machinations to try to untangle. The problem is that most of these characters are not terribly interesting. Taziri, the airship engineer with the husband and baby at home, veers from feisty initiative to near-apathy. Syfax the soldier is a standard-issue macho type, solving all problems by bluster and fists. Qhora, the Incan with her Spanish lover and pet beasties, is more interesting, but even so she doesn’t exactly set the pages alight. There are hordes of sidekicks, as well, equally unenthralling. Frankly there are too few lulls between the action for any of these people to come alive, since they spend most of their time reacting to the mayhem all around them. There are some moments of introspection, which nicely illuminate the author’s strange and fascinating world despite feeling a little contrived (do people actually stop and discuss their beliefs while waiting for the bad guys to show up?), but otherwise it’s all explosions and fights and chases and narrow escapes.

I don’t read a lot of steampunk, so I’m not an expert, but I rather liked the imaginative way the technology is integrated into the plot. It’s not merely a backdrop for the action, and it’s more than a quick fix when our heroes (and heroines) get into trouble. I also liked that, without fuss or fanfare, Marrakesh society is matriarchal, although it’s disappointing that so many of the female characters are either villains or else very passive, being pushed around by others. Taziri, in particular, who ought to be an assertive female lead, spends way too much time drooping around and whining about her husband and baby. Still, it’s nice to find a fantasy society that’s a little outside the usual pseudo-medieval or Victorian box. The politics are a bit simplistic, but that’s a very common (and minor) flaw.

This is an intriguing piece of work, with an original and well-thought-out setting, but the constantly churning high-action plot doesn’t make up for the lack of deep characterisation. I confess that I got bored with the repetitive chasing about the countryside interspersed with yet more gun/knife fights, and skimmed a bit towards the end. I would have liked a little more sabre-toothed cat and giant bird, and a lot less fighting. Recommended for fans of high-octane steampunk, but for me it fell a little flat. I’m in a generous mood, so let’s say three stars.

Mystery Review: 'Gently To The Summit' by Alan Hunter

This is the ninth in the series about the genial but sharp-eyed detective, George Gently, and just in case anyone out there is paying attention, yes, I did miss out number eight. OK, so I got confused, alright? There are forty-something in the series, so this is a problem that's only likely to get worse. One thing that's interesting about reading the whole sequence in order (well, more or less) is the subtle but noticeable change in approach. In the early books, Gently sucked peppermint creams constantly, ate vast meals (described in some detail) and merely ambled through the landscape, populated with a variety of dialect-speaking hicks, as clues and suspects fell at his feet. Book by book, however, the eccentricities have fallen away and what remains is much more of a conventional police procedural, albeit still fossilised in post-war Britain.

A large part of the enjoyment of these stories is the period setting, and although there are fewer details than previously, this is still a world of diggings and cheery landladies, three course lunches and a well-delineated class system. I find it curious that anyone with pretensions to grandeur feels quite at liberty to be obstructive and downright rude to the police. There is still the uneasy air of rebuilding after the war, not simply of bombed out houses, but of people too. The loss of many records in council offices, churches and the like means that anyone who wants to can simply vanish and reinvent themselves, with no one able to check their history, and this makes an interesting plot point here.

This is perhaps the best of the series so far. The premise is that an unsuccessful pre-war attempt to climb Mount Everest, which resulted in the death of one climber, comes back to haunt the participants when the supposedly dead man turns up again, plaintively searching for his wife. There's an immediate outbreak of disbelief, a very public spat with another expedition member, followed by lawsuits, whereupon the other climber falls to his death (a slightly less dramatic death, on Snowdon). Gently potters about London and Wales, in his relaxed way, uncovering the details, and if the suspects line up rather too easily and the big reveal is blindingly obvious, the tale is none the worse for that. A mildly entertaining, if not particularly challenging, little mystery. Three stars.

Fantasy Review: 'Oath of Gold' by Elizabeth Moon

This is the third in the ‘Deed of Paksenarrion’ trilogy. The first described how Paks left her home to become a mercenary in Duke Phelan’s company, and was a very down-to-earth story of a soldier’s training and campaigns. The second book saw Paks take off on her own and be sucked into various disconnected enterprises. This book was very disjointed, and heavy on conventional fantasy elements, but the ending raised it above the ordinary. And then there’s this. How to describe something that feels like a different story altogether? I suppose it’s not too spoilerish to reveal that all Paks’s problems at the end of book 2 are airbrushed out of existence very early. There wouldn’t be much of a story if she couldn’t fight again. It’s all a matter of having the right kind of magical power to ‘heal’ her. So that’s all right then.

The rest of the book is Paks tearing about the countryside on a quest to find the lost heir to the kingdom, who can be identified by a magical sword, apparently. And there are elves and dukes and squires and royal courts and a great deal of high-flown semi-poetic Tolkienesque language, which the sheepfarmer’s daughter has an unexpected knack for, and everyone’s taking orders from her, it seems, as she transforms before our eyes into a Person of Great Importance. And there’s evil to be defeated, naturally, and the religious overtones are quite heavy and... I would say this is all very clichéd except that it was published in the eighties, so although it’s quite derivative, it was probably the norm for that era.

For me, it was a disappointment. I liked the first book very much, and the over-the-top elements of the second book were more than offset by a terrific ending. This has no such redeeming feature, because even a two-year-old could work out how things are going to end. I lost interest, frankly, and had to force myself to finish the last few chapters, not helped by some fairly graphic torture descriptions. I think for those who enjoy a certain type of fantasy, the traditional battle of good versus evil, the hero’s journey, the wordy slightly old-fashioned language of courtiers rather than the more down-to-earth speech of soldiers, this would be a terrific read. It’s difficult to do this well, and the author does a creditable job here. There are some quite lyrical passages, especially when the elves are around, and happily it never quite tips over into parody.

The story of how a humble sheepfarmer’s daughter went out into the world, plumbed the depths of despair and finally triumphed to become a paladin, a heroic champion, is well-written, well thought out and even profound, in parts. For those who wish to see such things, there's a fair amount of religious symbolism in Paks's suffering and its aftermath, and the whole business of believing in your god or gods and the power of that, but I found it all a bit heavy-handed. Ultimately it failed at the final hurdle for me, with a limp and contrived plot in the final book and a heroine who isn’t quite convincing in her paladin incarnation. A disappointing end to an otherwise very readable series. Three stars.

Fantasy Review: 'Divided Allegiance' by Elizabeth Moon

This is the second part of the ‘Deed of Paksenarrion’ trilogy. The first part told how Paks left her home to avoid a forced marriage, joining the local Duke’s private army and discovering they were mercenaries. There was a lot of detail about army life, with numerous skirmishes and battles, and Paks made many friends and attracted the attention even of the Duke himself with her fearless fighting and loyalty. I enjoyed it very much and looked forward to more of the same. And within a chapter, this book has veered sharply off in a different direction altogether.

Not liking the Duke’s support for the violent methods of a pirate-turned-nobleman, Paks leaves the army and sets off over the mountains for home, accompanied only by what must be the world’s most devious elf. No longer are we following the realistic lifestyle of the mercenary troop, we’re into full-on fantasy quest mode, with a succession of threats to be defeated and magic everywhere. Magic beasts, magic rings, spells conveniently summoned to get out of trouble. Here’s a mysterious underground place, obviously full of evil, but Paks has a ‘feeling’ that someone is calling for help. Which way to go? Another strange feeling tells them. How shall we get rid of the evil spirit? I know, let’s use this magic scroll - no idea at all what it does but - oh look, it worked. Now, I have no problem with the principle of magic (I read fantasy, after all, it comes with the territory), but it shouldn’t be a universal get-out-of-jail-free card for all occasions.

Fortunately, the whole book isn’t like this, and soon Paks is back on more prosaic turf. The real difference between this and the first book is that she is essentially alone, cut off from the familiarity and support of the company. Paks is in many ways the perfect soldier - tough and hard working, willing to follow orders but without losing her innate sense of right and wrong. Her weakness comes from inexperience with the world, which leads her to accept people at face value and follow along without questioning, or even thinking much about the consequences. This is fine within the structure of a military outfit, but isn’t so good when she is travelling about on her own.

This book made me uneasy. I like Paks as a character very much. She’s the complete antithesis of the typical fantasy hero - well, maybe being handy with a sword is quite typical, but still... She’s self-effacing, honest and straightforward, yet she constantly seems to bump up against people who are more complicated, people who lie to her, or trick her, or withhold information, or push her into things that perhaps she’s not suited to. She’s very easily persuaded, especially when there’s an attractive adventure in the offing. Sometimes Paks seems quite stupid in her simple-mindedness, but that’s as much her lack of education as anything else, plus the innocence of youth, perhaps. But still, I ached for her to cut through the web of other people’s schemes and see her way to something more than being pushed around.

This book feels much choppier than the first. Even though they both have episodes of action interspersed with slower passages, the first book had the uniformity of always being set within Duke Phelan’s company of mercenaries. This book hops about - the company, the journey with the elf, the village of Brewersbridge, dealing with the robbers, training with the Girdsmen, the journey west and so on, and none of them very well connected. They seemed like a more or less random collection of events. Each time, there are new characters to get to know, new circumstances to understand, new mistakes for Paks to make. And each time there are histories to recount and long philosophical discussions to be got through regarding the essence of good and evil. Paks floundered a bit with these, and I confess that I didn’t understand a lot of the points either. It might be thought-provoking, if it wasn't analysed in exhaustive details by a whole succession of characters. It begins to get repetitive after a while.

The action parts are terrific, though, even if they seem a bit dated now - all those underground passages, evil beasties and magical this-that-and-the-others. And it does seem a little too easy, sometimes, that Paks manages to survive all these trials. Somehow there's always a magical gizmo or a character with convenient powers to rescue her. And then the ending. Few books have moved me quite as much as this one. Poor, poor Paks! Her tragedy is heartwrenching, and it’s hard to see that she herself did anything wrong to invoke such a terrible fate. This is a very uneven book, but, as with the first one, the final chapters more than overcome the earlier flaws. Four stars.

Steampunk Review: 'The Deadly Games' by Lindsay Buroker

This is the third of the ‘Emperor’s Edge’ series, featuring former enforcer (cop) Amaranthe and her motley band of outlaws cum undercover agents - Sicarius the assassin, Maldynado the ladies’ man, Books the scholar, Akstyr the learner mage and Basilard the former slave wrestler. The steampunk setting is, as always, a nicely drawn backdrop and convenient plot device, so that one of the events in the games of the title is the clank race, where contestants compete on a mechanical (and rather unpleasant) obstacle course. As usual, there’s a mysterious series of events for the team to investigate in the hope of ingratiating themselves with the young emperor, and restoring themselves to respectability. There are also some ongoing backstories, and the author is brilliant at reminding the reader of past details at just the right moment, and without it ever feeling contrived. If only all authors were so skilled.

This is a million miles from the gritty realism end of fantasy. The characters are just the right side of caricature, and the plot - well, it really doesn’t matter. It rolls along nicely, a jolly adventure that is always one wobbly step away from disaster but never quite teeters over the brink. It’s predictable in the sense that the eventual outcome is never in any real doubt, but there’s a huge tangle of twists and turns along the way, most emanating from the fertile (if not always sensible) imagination of Amaranthe. You’ve got to love a character who never fails to have a hairbrained idea, however dire the circumstances. There are moments when it’s tempting to pause and think - how on earth did they get into this situation? And how can they possibly get out of it? There are times, too, when it all got a little bit over the top. The amount of punishment the characters manage to take, the number of armed and/or magic-wielding opponents they tackle simultaneously, and the sheer number of problems they encounter, all of it becomes just a little too cartoonish sometimes. And then there’s another brilliant bit of humour, and I just don’t care. In the end, it’s the characters who matter, and the funny, tetchy and even (occasionally) affectionate moments between them that make these books so wonderful. Even Sicarius the ice-cold assassin gets some bonding with Basilard, and... and... no, it can’t be... is that a romantic interlude with Amaranthe? Well, sort of, maybe.

For anyone looking for a light read, with plenty of action and huge dollops of witty banter between the characters, this fits the bill beautifully. These books are just so entertaining, it’s all too easy to think - just another chapter, and then another, and perhaps just one more... The book equivalent of a box of chocolates. Lovely stuff. Four stars.

Fiction Review: 'Just Henry' by Michelle Magorian

This ought to be a nice little story, an award-winning YA coming-of-age tale of fourteen year old Henry, set in a not-quite-settled post-war England, learning that his assumptions about people are not always accurate. Yet none of it worked for me. So what went wrong? Firstly, the characters are so simplistic it’s hard to take them seriously. There’s a harassed mum, a bratty sister, a truly nasty and parasitic gran, a working class stepdad studying to better himself. There’s the angelic Mrs Beaumont, who waves her magic wand and makes good things happen. There’s the inspirational teacher, Mr Finch. Henry himself is ridiculously dorkish to start with, before being shown the error of his ways.

And secondly, none of this is subtle. All those Henry despises - the illegitimate schoolfriend, the deserter’s son, the stepdad who has stolen away his mother and inflicted the bratty daughter on the house - turn out to be perfectly nice, sensible people. Those he likes - his dead dad, his granny - turn out to be less than nice. Maybe it’s meant to be allegorical or some kind of fairy tale reworking, or maybe it’s aimed at quite a young demographic, but I found it dull and predictable. I gave up on it, so possibly there are some dramatic twists further down the road, but I had no interest in finding out. One star for a DNF.

Fiction Review: 'Pure' by Andrew Miller

I don't really get this kind of fiction, something which purports to tell a story but trowels on so many layers of meaning and metaphor and symbolism that the characters never have the chance to breathe. Take the title, for instance. Deeply ironic, given that the plot revolves around the destruction of a Parisian graveyard in 1785, so contaminated that it affects even the food that those living around it consume. There is the purity of the sexton's young daughter, contrasted with the local prostitute, who yet displays a certain purity in her nature. Then there's the elephant in the room (or in Versailles, in this case), the impurity of the royal regime which the reader knows will be swept away in a purifying, if horrifying, cleansing in a few years' time, an event which is unknown to the characters and unacknowledged by the author, beyond a few mentions of riots, graffiti and the elephant. And a certain M. Guillotine.

Beneath all these suffocating layers of meaning is a lightweight little story that never really bears much scrutiny. None of the characters really come to life, and I certainly didn't care about any of them. Motives are never clear. Things happen, but it's not obvious why. The main character, the engineer Baratte, ambles through the pages without ever coming alive. I never understood him. After being bopped on the head by the irate daughter of the house he lodges in, he starts to make changes in his life without any apparent thought for the consequences. His relationship with Heloise, for instance, is bizarre for the sort of career-minded, serious person he’s been until that point. I get that he had been faced with his own mortality and decided to do what he wanted with his life, but still - it’s an odd choice. I’d have loved to take him on one side and ask him - just where do you see this going, Jean-Baptiste? Then there was Jeanne, who suffered appallingly but, you know, it’s fine because she’ll get over it. So that’s all right then. Not sure whether this was meant to be some kind of social commentary on the prevailing attitudes in the eighteenth century, but it typified the book - a dramatic event passed over with little depth, perhaps with little interest from the author, who moves past Jeanne to focus once again on Baratte. Who isn’t even interesting.

On the plus side, the book is beautifully and evocatively written, recreating certain aspects of Parisian life to perfection. A little more attention to the characters and a little less to smothering the entire plot in metaphor, and this would have been a wonderful read. As it is, it’s utterly meh. Three grudging stars.

Sci-Fi Review: 'Caszandra' by Andrea K Höst

This is the third part of the Touchstone trilogy, and anyone who, like me, loved the first two, won’t have any problem enjoying this too. I’ve classified these as sci-fi (other planets, high-tech everywhere) but I’m getting less sure, since the technology is delightfully arm-wavy. All communication is via the ‘interface’, a brain-embedded universal internet which is incredibly useful at crucial moments. It can send/receive messages, provide all sorts of background information (aka instant info-dump) at the drop of a hat, and helpfully records everything so that the detail can be picked up later. There are ‘drones’ (robot things) which are deployed in a variety of plot-facilitating ways. Then there’s the literal world-building - when a new building is required, a bucket of special goop is ‘programmed’ with an architectural plan and away it goes. It beats scaffolding and uncouth building workers, anyway. Even the ‘ships’ used for inter-planetary travel are largely undescribed and unexplained. Then there are ‘psychics’ with all sorts of powers - elemental, levitation and teleportation, as well as actual psychic (mind-reading, sort of) abilities - all of which seems suspiciously fantasy. No quest, no secret heir to the kingdom, and definitely no magic swords, but there is a heroine with mysterious unexplained powers. There are monsters and at least one traditional fantasy beast, too.

Whatever you call it, the setup is much the same. Cass is still the stranger from Earth with the weird unexplained abilities which are so useful in unlocking the abandoned planet Muina, if they don’t get her killed her first. The inter-planetary politics and resettlement are taking centre stage now, but the psychic military, the Setari, are still back and forth on missions to fight monsters. And we finally have a Big Bad - the particularly creepy humanoid monsters who are both intelligent and organised. And hell-bent on destruction and mayhem, not to mention capturing Cass. So the race is on to find out what is going on, and a way to fight back.

The tension ramps up nicely to the grand confrontation, and much of the book has rather a heavy background tone. Cass and friends are doing various fluffy things (going shopping, eating out, socialising) while waiting for the Big Bad (the Cruzatch) to turn up again and kidnap Cass for various evil purposes, destroy the known world, kill all the nice friends and generally carry out their villainous plans. The good guys, meanwhile, are more or less floundering round trying to guess what awful thing might be coming up next, with no greater ambition than just - well, surviving. Their only plan seems to be - let’s blow stuff up and see if that helps. Or throw Cass at something to see what happens (which has been going on throughout, really).

This part of the book stretches the diary format to its absolute limits. It worked well earlier on, I think, to get the reader right under Cass’s skin, and was a very effective way of getting across her sense of isolation and differentness. It really doesn’t work so well for big battle scenes, because the reader knows immediately that Cass survived, or she wouldn’t be writing her diary afterwards. So the big confrontation is effectively told in abbreviated summary form (‘and then I... and then we...’), which loses a lot of the tension. There is also the problem that the romance has been settled, and while it's a lot of fun going through the are-they-no-surely-not phase with friends, it was actually more fun when they were kept apart and Cass secretly had the hots for him. Or at least, it was more tense. A large part of the atmosphere in the first two books revolved around the very strict military protocols wrapped around everything Cass did and the stiffly correct attitude of the Setari, which kept her so heart-rendingly alone. Now that she's sleeping with one of the Setari and is (largely) friends with the rest, things get a little warm and fuzzy and group-hug-y.

One aspect is unchanged, however; everything still hinges on Cass and her strange set of abilities as 'touchstone', the key to revealing the past, what went wrong to cause the planet Muina to be abandoned, and (indirectly) the present and future too. It's surprising how often these talents drive the plot by revealing key information or making some unfeasibly difficult task possible, but while this is very convenient, it never feels like deus ex machina, since Cass has had these abilities from the start and has simply learned to use them (or to use them better, perhaps). Plus they frequently go wrong or out of control or twist off in unexpected ways. The author is very good at following the appropriate logic for these developments, so that when Cass has one of her frequent brushes with death, she is 'grounded' for a while afterwards, even when it might have been more dramatic to have her present at some incident or other, instead of hearing about it second hand. Nice, too, to see Cass herself using her talents directly to fight her own battles (sometimes literally), instead of being a passive tool to be manipulated. The moment when, in the midst of mayhem, she decides to visualise into reality a battle-winning device of awesome proportions is simply epic.

This is the final part of the trilogy, and I hugely enjoyed the first two parts, so it’s not exactly a big surprise that I loved this one too. Of course, it’s not perfect (what is?). The problem with keeping track of the vast array of characters is even greater this time round, and apart from the Big Bad they all seem to be rather nice, pleasant people. Even the few set up as hostile turn out to be gruff and suspicious rather than outright nasty, in the end. And who'd have thought so many of them would be breath-takingly beautiful, intelligent people? From being entirely alone on a strange planet, Cass ends up friends with pretty much everyone, which is slightly implausible. The complexities of a society of umpteen million people are fairly comprehensively airbrushed away into one homogenous mass (although I guess the ubiquitous interface would eliminate a lot of differences). The rather different society on Nuri was interesting, and I would have liked to know more about it. I also found it strange that so much of life on Tare and Muina was similar to Earth; there was really no effort to make these worlds truly alien, apart from a few minor details tossed in here and there. And anyone looking for explanations for every little mystery will be disappointed, since much remained unanswered or vague.

In the end, though, none of that mattered. I loved Cass's shift over the course of the trilogy from schoolgirl thinking only about romance and exams, to the saviour of worlds and the focus of inter-planetary law-making. And she makes the transition without fuss - the occasional totally justified hissy-fit excepted - and without losing her essential nature or her sense of humour. Much of what she goes through is pretty horrible but she bears it with quiet fortitude and oodles of common sense. One of my favourite fictional characters. Five stars.

My Other Blog: Weekly Update

Here are the reviews added to Fantasy Review Barn, my shared blog, by my very prolific fellow bloggers Nathan and Anachronist for the past week or so which might interest you:

Historical Fantasy Review: Cardinal’s Blades by Pierre Pevel (Les Lames du Cardinal 01)

Fantasy Review: 'The Dread Hammer' by Linda Nagata

Paranormal Romance Review: 'Dragon Bound' (Elder Races 01) by Thea Harrison

Sci-fi Review: 'Shards of Honour' by Lois McMaster Bujold

Mini Fantasy Review: 'The Mister Trophy' by Frank Tuttle

Nathan also has an ongoing project to reread the entire Discworld canon in sequence.

You can find the blog here. Naturally, all my reviews will continue to be posted here and on Goodreads, and my other ramblings will be posted exclusively here. All my fantasy and sci-fi reviews will also be posted on Fantasy Review Barn.

Sci-Fi Review: 'Lab Rat One' by Andrea K Höst

I loved ‘Stray’, the first part of the Touchstone trilogy, so I moved straight onto part two. And wouldn’t you just know it, the one time I don’t need a ‘Previously on...’ type recap because it’s all fresh in my mind, there one is at the front of the book. And again there’s a glossary and list of characters at the back. If only all authors were so considerate. The previous book had no cliffhanger ending, but there wasn’t much resolution, either - just an acceptance by main character Cass that, having stepped accidentally through some kind of wormhole-type ‘gate’ from Earth and finding herself on a different planet altogether, there’s not going to be a happy ever after any time soon, and doing her bit to help out the locals with their problems in the meantime is not such a bad thing. So at first, the story continues in much the same way, with Cass being carted about on missions, tested and trained, and treated very much like the lab rat she designated herself early on. So for anyone who disliked that aspect of the first book, this is more of the same.

Fortunately, we haven’t yet seen the full extent of Cass’s unique set of abilities, so even a routine test can suddenly turn into a frantic scramble for survival or an ooh-aah moment. The opening up of the abandoned planet of Muina through Cass’s talents is fascinating. We also see more in this book of the other societies descended from the abandoned planet of Muina (where Cass first arrived), so there is a certain amount of inter-planetary posturing going on, which is quite fun. And Cass becomes a media star! But much of the action centres around the Setari (psychic ninja space soldiers, basically), who are defending Tare, their home planet, from the creepy and highly variable Ionoth which leak through from - well, wherever they come from (I’m hazy about the ‘spaces’ and ‘pillars’ and whatever it was that happened). In book one, the Setari mostly treated Cass as a piece of military equipment, useful but not particularly interesting, and she had to fight to get them to see her as anything other than an object. This time round, they are much more aware of her as a person, and she is beginning to build relationships with some of them, and assert herself as a person.

Partly this is because she can speak the language better, so she is able to express herself with more subtlety, and display her wonderful sense of humour. I very much like the way the author has handled the language differences, so that Cass gradually becomes more fluent over the course of the books, although lapsing sometimes when under stress. I have no idea whether the early efforts are an accurate simulation of how a native English speaker would adapt to a new language, but it seemed pretty convincing to me. I found it totally believable that the Tarens would not appreciate how intelligent she is, when her only communications are halting baby sentences with bad grammar.

I like Cass very much. She’s exactly the sort of person I would love to have for a friend - smart, self-deprecating, sensible and very, very funny (in a totally non-vicious way). Her observations of Taren life and the people around her are wonderful. And I have to confess to having the hots for Ruuel (the love interest), which is so not me. My taste in men was formed by Woody Allen (cute and funny) or Robert Redford (roguish in a dishevelled but handsome way), and perfectly honed, impossibly fit and laconic-bordering-on-terse types don’t do much for me. But Ruuel? Mmmm, yes. There’s a certain amount of angsting going on Cass’s head about him, but it’s very funny. She rates men on the Orlando Bloom-meter, and when one of the Setari registers a 7, she points out that Orlando Bloom himself registers a 7 on the Ruuel-meter. Did I mention how much I love Cass’s sense of humour? And for anyone concerned about the romance level, it's certainly higher than in the first book, but there’s still a lot more plot than angst.

This book is pure undiluted pleasure. I was slightly drunk on the enjoyment of it, and hey - no calories, no falling over and no hangover afterwards. Just a great big smile. Why isn’t every book like this? Twelve stars. At least. And now straight on to the third book...

Sci-Fi YA Review: 'Stray' by Andrea K Höst

I loved this book, loved, loved, loved it. It’s the first book in ages to keep me up until the wee small hours because I absolutely positively had to know what was coming next. Here’s the premise: almost-eighteen year old Cass is walking home from her suburban school one day after her last exam before graduation when - pop! - she finds herself in the middle of a not-Earth forest, with no way back. For a while, she is on her own, walking through this world with its odd mixture of Earth-like creatures (deer and otters) and other more alien types, surviving as best she can. She’s a pretty resourceful type, but even so it’s a marginal business. But luckily some super-ninja soldier types from a technologically advanced society turn up and rescue her, and after that things get seriously weird.

Cass is an unusual sort of heroine. She’s clearly intelligent, but she’s not the kick-ass type of female so beloved of the current sci-fi and fantasy scene. She seems quite passive, going along with everything that’s asked of her, even though she’s basically being used as a military tool, but then her new ‘friends’ don’t abuse or hurt her (at least, not intentionally!) and, frankly, I’m not at all sure what other options are open to her. Being useful and helpful (at least until you know your way round and have got a better grasp of the language) is just plain common sense. I loved the way that Cass gradually brought her hosts to see her as a person, with needs and feelings of her own, and not just a passive piece of kit (‘Military equipment doesn't salute’ she comments drily at one point).

The book is written in the first person in the form of a diary, which works very well to tell us what’s going on in Cass’s head. It also brilliantly conveys the sense of disorientation she frequently feels, and the ‘otherness’ of an Australian girl parachuted into a culture which has many similarities with Earth but is also scarily alien. Fortunately Cass has a great sense of humour, and sees the funny side of many of the peculiar situations she finds herself in. This is one of the great perks of portal-type stories, that the transported character can toss around all sorts of slang and in-jokes and cultural references: (‘I tried very unsuccessfully to explain Clint Eastwood, and then moved on to Johnny Depp, and now all of First Squad except Maze have sworn to find a path to Earth so they can watch Pirates of the Caribbean’).

As a piece of science fiction, this is fairly light on the sciencey bits. There’s nanotechnology, and a universal interface system (brain-embedded internet, basically), but the Ena (‘A dimension connected to the thoughts, memories, dreams and imagination of living beings’, it says in the glossary) which surrounds Cass’s new home, the monsters (Ionoths) living there and the psychic abilities of the Setari (the ninja soldiers) seem closer to fantasy to me. As with all the author’s work, there are plenty of deeper themes for those who like to look beneath the surface: about being an outsider, being treated with respect, duty versus freedom, the greater good versus the individual. Not to mention the pleasures and perils of a permanently wired-in internet.

This is another terrific piece of writing by one of my favourite authors. I was a little concerned about it being a YA book, but no need - there’s no love triangle, and the very small amount of angsting over boys is actually very funny. The only (minor) grumble I had was the sheer number of characters involved, a situation not helped by Cass’s early problems with the language, so that she spells names wrongly in the early parts of the book. But there’s a full list of characters at the back, plus a very useful glossary, which rather wonderfully explains all Cass’s Australia-speak and geekisms alongside the in-book terminology. This is very much the first book of the trilogy, so although there’s a mini-resolution, this doesn’t have the feel of a stand-alone book. Be prepared to invest in the whole trilogy (available as an omnibus), not to mention the fourth part, entitled ‘Gratuitous Epilogue’. Five stars.

Fantasy Review: 'The Tattered Banner' by Duncan M Hamilton

Soren is eighteen, trying to survive on the streets, when a theft gone wrong results in a street fight and a passing swordsman recognises some talent in him. He is taken to the Academy to learn to wield a rapier and be a gentleman. The early chapters are the usual street-boy-goes-to-posh-school affair, but fortunately Soren has the intelligence to keep his nose clean, so he’s not constantly getting into trouble. He also turns out to be something of a fighting phenomenon, not an unusual theme in fantasy, but nicely intriguing here. Is his ability a natural talent, or some kind of magic?

Fortunately, the author avoids getting too entrenched in schoolroom dramas and Soren is soon out and about wielding his rapier and discovering the extent of his extraordinary gift. These early battles are beautifully described, the highpoint of the book for me, and I loved every moment of each one (especially the belek). The romantic entanglement is slightly more clunky, but that fits with Soren’s rather self-effacing nature. The background scenery is lightly sketched, with more emphasis on architecture than geography, but it works fine, and the deep history - of empires and mage wars and other intriguing events - is no more than hints. I found it interesting that Ostia (Soren’s country) has outlawed magic, but still makes use of mage lights, while the barbarians still practice magic.

Soren is a likeable protagonist, making (mostly) sensible decisions. I liked his response to a trick played on him by a fellow student. His friends tell him his honour has been impugned and he must challenge the trickster to a duel, but Soren is reluctant; he is far more concerned with trying not to break the rules of the Academy and thereby get himself thrown out. Unlike his rich, titled friends, he is more focused on making a career for himself than on abstract concepts like honour, and he never forgets his origins. He seems to adapt surprisingly well to a life of protocol and diplomacy, but he’s clearly a smart cookie, so I can go along with that (and frankly, a socially inept character would be pretty tedious - I wanted Soren to succeed, not trip over his own feet). It has to be said, though, that he’s very gullible - although to be fair, it fits with his personality and previous life, since he’s too grateful for his reprieve from the streets to question things, and he has no understanding of political nuances.

The writing style is enjoyably literate, if rather wordy, but it works very well for a story like this, built around formality and protocol. The author has a habit of dumping information occasionally, but it’s small scale stuff and not obtrusive. There is some untidiness, repetition and excessive exposition, and the author might care to look up the difference between ‘discrete’ and ‘discreet’. The latter part of the book becomes a little episodic and the fights rather perfunctory, but Soren’s investigations into his abilities were still intriguing. The big reveal at the end is hardly a surprise, and the ending somewhat glib, but these are minor issues.

I really enjoyed this book and found it seductively easy to keep turning the pages - that just-one-more-chapter syndrome. It’s the first time I’ve read a story focused on the rapier as the weapon of choice, and I found it a refreshing change from the more usual broadswords and bows. I would have liked to know more about Soren’s abilities and the mage wars, but perhaps that will come in a later book. This is a somewhat flawed effort in many ways - the choppy ending, the not-quite-convincing romance and the sometimes too wordy style - but I found it a great read. A good four stars. And the belek was awesome.

Fantasy Review: 'Thief of Hope' by Cindy Young-Turner

Sydney is a nineteen year old orphan of unknown parentage, but she was brought up by Edgar who had the misfortune to be hanged four years before for working against the all-powerful Guild. She makes a living by picking pockets in the town of Last Hope. As always in these cases, I wonder why Edgar, who seemed like a nice enough chap, made no better provision for her, and how it is that there are no respectable jobs she could be doing, and how come she appears to have no other friends apart from a prostitute and a boyfriend who’d like to pimp her out. Luckily, just as she’s about to be hanged herself, she’s mysteriously taken off to the Wizard Tree and rescued by - surprise! - a wizard. And from there on, the story becomes a race to vanquish the evil Guild and their even more evil overlord Schrammig in order to put the king’s bastard son on the throne.

This is the fantasy equivalent of easy-listening music - charming, comfortable and conventional. Wizards are nice people (apart from the evil wizard, of course) who can do pretty much anything the plot requires without apparent effort, while not being able to do anything which would make life too easy. The bad guy is an appropriately nasty character (we know this because he has a scar; oh yes, and he drags people off to be hanged, as well). There's the Guild which has monopolised all business and is, it seems, very unpleasant. There’s a nice friendly ex-knight and a grumpy monk and a surprisingly ladylike wizardess, who is determined to go off to war, but cries as soon as anyone gets hurt. There's a hereditary monarchy with male primogeniture. There's an organised religion which has a single capitalised god, churches, abbeys and monks who wear brown robes. There are towns which appear to be almost entirely populated by thieves and prostitutes, and are filled with markets and taverns. Vast amounts of stew are consumed. So far, so traditional.

Our heroine, Sydney, is an odd mixture of feistiness and timidity, who seems to go along with the vanquishing scheme because that way at least she gets fed regularly. Well, I can see how that might be an attraction if you’ve lived on the streets. Her only problem is that she's easily distracted. No sooner is she given a task to do by her new friends than she finds some other urgent errand to do first, and then another, and then... A bit of a loose cannon, really. Willem, the king's bastard son, is exactly the sort of strong, upright character you'd expect. He strides around making promises of treating everyone fairly when he’s king, and says 'I give you my word' or 'Trust me' and people believe him. There are a lot of things taken on trust here. The most interesting character to me was Vadnae, the rather prissy wizardess, constantly dismayed by mud and rain. I was also interested in the mysterious Tuatha (elves, basically), who were a small but important part of the story.

As the plot gets going, Sydney and pals are chased hither and thither, escaping by the skin of their teeth from the bad guys always half a step behind (I wasn’t quite sure how they managed to do that, but never mind). Each time they escape, they stop and talk things through. Whenever they meet potential allies, they stop and talk things through again, explaining just how nasty the bad guy is, and how awful life is under the Guild, without ever filling in the details of what, exactly, they do that's so bad (apart from randomly hanging people, that is). But it must be pretty bad, because people are starving as a result and living in vermin-infested hovels and so on.

I had some logic issues. Why exactly is Willem trying to kickstart his revolution by rousing the downtrodden hovel residents of Last Hope anyway? Wouldn't it be simpler and easier just to drum up an army from his supporters? This is, after all, the traditional way to get yourself onto a disputed throne. And if you manage to drum up a bigger army than your rival, yay, you win! Plus, aspiring kings don't go off alone with pick-pockets, they tend to have hefty bodyguards around them at all times, as a precaution against assassins. So I had trouble with the whole idea of Willem crawling through the tunnels below Last Hope in the first place. All it needed was one startled local to put a dagger through him and - game over. And why exactly was Anaria making stew in the middle of the night? And why the agonising over the risks of trekking through the Wastes, when Rolf had obviously just made that journey safely? Confusing.

The writing style is clean to the point of terseness. I would have preferred just a little more description here and there, to flesh out the scenery a little more. One thing that I found irritating: the author rarely uses 'he said', 'she said'. Instead, characters do something - tap a finger, toss their hair, quirk an eyebrow - and then speak. I understand the logic of not overusing 'said', but I find it less intrusive than all this restless action. These comments are not criticisms, rather personal preferences that occasionally intruded on my enjoyment of the story.

Eventually we meet the mysterious Tuatha and from then onwards the book becomes a bit of a page-turner. Whenever magic is involved - the strange marble, the very spooky shadow creatures, Sydney’s dreams - I found myself totally engrossed. I never quite understood why Sydney was so important to everyone, but I guess it doesn’t really matter. The magic was very convenient at times, so that whenever Sydney got into trouble (which she did quite often, usually after saying airily ‘Don’t worry, I can deal with X’), a helpful wizard or magic marble or some such would miraculously rescue her. Sometimes she got other people into trouble, too (usually after saying airily ‘Don’t worry, I’ll keep you safe’). But despite all that it was good, exciting stuff.

I find this a very difficult review to write. On the one hand, I understand what the author was trying to achieve, and the book is technically impeccable. It pushes all the right buttons. But somehow I never quite felt the sort of emotional engagement that I’m sure was intended. Willem strides about making promises but we never see him in truly king-like mode, apart from a brief swordfight. Sydney herself too often makes bad decisions and ends up needing to be rescued. The question of who to trust was a major theme, yet everyone trusts Willem unreservedly, and Sydney too, for that matter. The children seemed to be there purely to create artificial tension and tug at the heartstrings. There were some great moments, and the ending was note-perfect, but all too often characters spoke in platitudes: ‘We can’t allow this to happen, we owe it to X to do this, I promise you he’ll pay for his crimes.’ Or this:“Willem gives me confidence, Erik. We should believe in him. And ourselves. It’s the only way we’re going to win.” Honestly, if I were a Last Hope resident, I’d need more than that to persuade me to take up my pitchfork against armed and trained soldiers.

For all that certain aspects didn’t quite work for me, this is an entertaining and fast-paced read, which I enjoyed a great deal, especially the Tuatha and the strange shadow beings. Recommended for those who like very traditional and uncomplicated fantasy. Three stars.

Fiction Review: 'And The Land Lay Still' by James Robertson

This is a meandering tale that weaves together numerous strands of personal stories with the last fifty years of Scottish history, both political and social. The first character we meet, Mike, is a photographer and the son of a famous (and rather better) photographer, and his story I found interesting. He’s a fairly passive person, almost seeming to be an outsider in his own life sometimes, and surprisingly mature in his early years. When he discovers that he is gay, there is none of the angst or shock or even horror that might be expected in the early seventies. He simply accepts it, and expects everyone else to accept it too. The minor characters pop up at significant moments is his life, or to underscore the political events of the day, and therefore feel fairly contrived. Jean, in particular, seems almost unreal, a semi-mystical figure acting as a catalyst both for Mike’s personal life (such as introducing him to a boyfriend) and also in the political spectrum, the focus for debate. Everyone seemed to gather around Jean, and her legendary, almost mythical, stories.

The second character, Don, is a Mr Everyman, a survivor of the war living a quiet life with his wife, whose sole purpose seems to be to illuminate aspects of the life of Jack, an odd character who survived the Japanese prisoner of war camps physically intact but mentally scarred.

Then we get to Peter (also Jimmy) Bond, Jack's nephew, recruited into the intelligence service to (essentially) spy on the nationalists. Peter is more interesting, perhaps, because we see him at a point in his life where neglectful alcoholism is catching up with him, and he's only barely connected with reality. But there's a macabre humour to it - when he starts having hallucinations, he's relieved to realise that one of them must be a ghost, and therefore there's no need to politely offer a drink.

Then it’s on to Ellen, growing up in a mining village in the fifties. Every time we switch character, I lose heart. This book is long, it’s largely about politics which to be fair has some interest, but not at this length, and frankly it’s unfocused and rambling. Any one part of the book, telling the story of one character in depth, would have made a good book and illuminated a shadowy part of recent history, but trying to do too much makes it feel as though it ought to be a textbook, not a work of fiction. I struggled on, as the story threads became more and more intertwined, or perhaps tangled is a better word for it. All these many characters are somehow mixed up together, in a way that only grandiose fiction can get away with.

This is not a bad book. Rather, it’s over-ambitious, and it commits the cardinal sin of an author who’s done a great deal of meticulous research - he wants to get every last bit of it into the book, every major political event, every well-loved TV program or film, every disaster, every social change. It almost felt as if he had a checklist and was ticking off events. There are at least half a dozen terrific stories in here if the author could have brought his eyes down from the stars and focused instead on just a few of these characters at a time. That way, they would have become memorable, fully-rounded people instead of mere ciphers, stand-ins for this or that aspect of the changing face of Scotland. This is non-fiction with a thin veneer of rambling storytelling. And yes, I get the point about the story never ending, trust the story and all that. Still it would have been nice to feel there actually was a proper, novel-sized story in here, something with a beginning, a middle and an end, rather than a series of vignettes. On the plus side, it’s well written and there’s some interesting detail about the Scottish political scene which I enjoyed learning about. So three stars for effort.

My Other Blog: Weekly Roundup

Here are the reviews added to Fantasy Review Barn, my shared blog, by my very prolific fellow bloggers Nathan and Anachronist for the past week (and a bit!) which might interest you:

Dark Fantasy Review: The Darkness That Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker

Fantasy Review: 'Black Powder War' by Naomi Novik

Fantasy Review: 'The Drowning City' by Amanda Downum

Nathan also has an ongoing project to reread the entire Discworld canon in sequence.

You can find the blog here. Naturally, all my reviews will continue to be posted here and on Goodreads, and my other ramblings will be posted exclusively here. All my fantasy and sci-fi reviews will also be posted on Fantasy Review Barn.

Fantasy Romance Review: 'The Ritual' by Erica Dakin

Two twin half-elf sisters, one a thief, one a sorceress, meet two twin half-elf brothers, one a thief, one a sorcerer... what are the odds? And there’s this instant attraction... Well, we can see where this is going, can’t we? Still, there are enough original twists here to give this a fresh spin. Elves are the rulers in this world, with humans as the underdogs, but the bottom of the heap are the half-elves, where those with magical ability are scooped up and trained and the rest are slaves or (at best) low ranking servants. They can’t set up in business or own property... which makes it tricky to live independent lives, except by thievery.

This was my first foray into fantasy romance, which in this case is romance with pointy ears. There is a plot, of sorts, involving stealing four items, one for each of the four elements - earth, air, fire and water - for someone or other, but really it doesn’t matter. It’s all just an excuse for smouldering glances over the campfire, sizzling accidental touches while hiding from dragons in caves, and a lot of heavy breathing. The first kiss is a quarter of the way into the book, and before the halfway point we’re into improbably athletic sex of the panting, thrusting, never-been-so-amazing variety. Elvish porn, if you like. And you know what? It’s a helluva lot of fun.

This isn’t a masterpiece of epoch-making literature, but then it has no pretensions to be anything other than entertainment. As fantasy, the world-building is sketchy, the plot isn’t terribly original and the magic is fairly conventional. There’s a lack of realistic detail in the background - the world has a few scattered towns and a lot of emptiness, and the characters simply amble through the scenery, always managing to find enough food and shelter. There appear to be no great threats out in the wilderness, apart from the beasties they themselves seek out as part of their quest. There always seems to be time for a quick roll in the hay. Or a slow one, for that matter. Followed by much, much more of the same. The setting isn’t the important factor, though. The characters have a lot of charm and the ‘romance’ is more plausibly done than some I’ve read, seeming quite natural for the circumstances. Even the obstacles keeping them apart seem reasonably believable. The author has a nicely unobtrusive writing style, and I didn’t spot any typos at all. I did wonder a bit about the morality of all that light-hearted stealing, but it didn’t seem like they had many other options so I’ll go along with it.

A minor grumble. I like a map with my fantasy, and there’s a very nice one here. So what’s the grumble? The map is at the BACK of the book, with no indication it’s there. Probably OK with a printed version, but in an ebook - please put the map at the front! Or a table of contents.

This is a fun book. It follows the conventions of romance, so yes, there’s that instant attraction thing, and there’s a lot of barely suppressed passion right from the start. The fantasy elements play second fiddle here and anyone looking for standard save-the-world fantasy should move right along, although the characters at least have credible motivations. The ending is just a tad too slick for my taste, but there are some good action moments along the way. The events at the monastery were exciting enough to keep me flipping through the pages, breathless to find out how it turns out. And how do our heroes celebrate afterwards? The usual way, that’s how. I have to confess that the constant humping gets a little bit repetitive after a while, and frankly if the male interest had been a vampire I wouldn’t have got through ten pages. But if you have a thing for hot elves (or half-elves, in this case) with a smattering of dragons thrown in, this is an entertaining read. I rarely give romancey type stuff more than three stars, but you know, I really enjoyed this, it’s better written than average and I have a soft spot for dragons (and sexy half-elves, apparently), so four stars it is.