Mystery Review: 'The Woman Before Me' by Ruth Dugdall

A simple premise: after her own baby dies, Rose Wilks becomes friendly with Emma, a fellow new mum whose own baby, Luke, was born at the same time. When a cigarette starts a fire which kills Luke, Rose is convicted of manslaughter. The story picks up several years later, when Rose is due for a parole hearing, and has to convince probation officer Cate that she should be released.

That bald summary doesn't begin to do justice to the story, of course. Most of it is written in the first person by Rose herself, in the form of a sort of lengthy letter/journal addressed to her boyfriend Jason, and this part of the book is utterly compelling. Rose's history, how she came to the point of being accused of killing Luke, and her personality are fascinating. The big question is whether she is telling the truth when she claims to be innocent. It's clear that she's a disturbed and manipulative person, intelligent and not uneducated, but with some seriously odd ways. She does very well in prison, for instance, keeping on the right side of the prison officers and yet easily dominating or intimidating other inmates.

The other part of the book, about Cate the probation officer, is much less interesting. It's a necessary counterpoint to Rose, I suppose, to show someone apparently successful and powerful, who is actually very fragile - something of a mess, basically. It was also useful for plot purposes, since she has to ask questions of all the main characters. I didn't find Cate very believable or well-rounded, and it was always a disappointment to turn the page to find it was a Cate chapter. This may have been partly because Cate's sections were written in the third person, with the inevitable distancing effect (at least compared to the intimacy of Rose's sections).

The ending, and the reveal of exactly what happened when Luke died, is not actually a surprise (or at least, I guessed it ages before), but nevertheless there are enough twists along the way to keep things bubbling along. I found this an absorbing read, and a real page-turner. It's only the dull Cate chapters that keep it to four stars.

Fantasy Review: 'The Prophecy' by Jeffrey M Poole

This is Book 1 of the Bakkian Chronicles, which is, naturally, a trilogy. The premise is a simple one: Steve Miller learns that he has inherited a mansion from his little-known grandparents. When he and his wife Sarah go to investigate, they find themselves stepping through a portal into a strange new world, one where griffins, dragons and magic exist.

Now, I like the idea of a portal. It's a simple and effective trick to set straightforward modern-day people in a fantasy world. The reader finds it easy to identify with Steve and Sarah, with no need to understand complicated backstories for them, the fantasy world can be explained step-by-step by the clueless newbies asking questions or simply walking into trouble, and there's an immediate set of problems to be solved - survival, first and foremost, and ultimately a return to the home world. Plus, portals are compelling by their very nature. Who could not read Narnia, and then look at their own wardrobe and think... if only?

The trouble with portals, however, is that they've been done to death, and it's increasingly hard to put an original spin on it. The hapless arrivals blunder around getting into and out of trouble, and eventually get drawn into whatever big event is going on in the fantasy world. What's new to say? The twist here is that the protagonists are a happily married couple, and hurray for that, something which is all too rare in fantasy. Problem is, Steve and Sarah are just too nice. They rarely so much as disagree, and when they do, it's over in a flash and they're high-fiving or hugging. There's altogether too much enthusiasm for their newfound world, in fact. They are lovely people, in the real world sense, and I would be delighted to have them as neighbours or workmates or friends, but for my taste fictional characters need a bit more bite to make them interesting.

Another problem I had is with grandma and grandpa. You would think, wouldn't you, that if you planned to leave your house to your unknown grandson, knowing that sooner or later he would blunder unwittingly through the magic portal and all too probably be eaten by a griffon, that a hint or two on health and safety issues, and how to get back might be in order? Unless the family feud is so serious that the griffon-eating is actually the intention... BAD grandma and grandpa.

Up to the halfway point, I struggled to find the spark in this book. But with the appearance of Kahvel the dragon, things begin to pick up and the book finds its proper tone - lighthearted and humorous, with Steve's infectious enthusiasm finally winning me over. The macho contest between dragon and man was a highlight, and the expedition with the dragon and five soldiers turned into a very entertaining romp. The battle with the guur was very satisfactory (I hate bugs too). Although I have to say, the idea of a dragon of Kahvel's size sneaking up on anyone without being noticed stretches credibility somewhat.

This book will never win any prizes for originality or depth, and it has no literary pretensions. The writing style is basic, characterisation is flat and the point of view head-hops with dizzying speed. It fails to provide any unexpected plot twists, and there's not as much humour as I might have expected, in the early parts at least. And having criticised it to death, I have to say that, actually, I rather enjoyed it. If there were few stand-out pluses, there was nothing that really grated, either. It's incredibly readable, with a certain charm and plenty of lively action in the second half, and that was more than enough to keep me turning the pages. For those who enjoy a straightforward traditional easy to read fantasy, this would certainly fit the bill. It doesn't quite make it to four stars, but it's a good three stars.

Mystery Review: 'Gently In The Sun' by Alan Hunter

This is the sixth in a very long series of murder mysteries featuring the middle aged Inspector George Gently, all written in the fifties and sixties. This one is back by the seaside, in a small and not very interesting village baking in a heatwave (cue lots of comments along the lines of 'what a scorcher' and frying eggs on the pavement). A beautiful young woman visitor is found murdered on the beach beside the fishing boats. The locals can make nothing of it, and Gently is summoned from Scotland Yard to solve the case.

Books of this type depend on one of three factors to give them legs. Either the mystery itself is ingenious, or the setting is evocative, or the detective is interesting enough to carry the story. The mystery here is neither clever nor (frankly) very interesting. The best murder mysteries give the reader enough information to work out the solution for themselves, but here there are three obvious suspects with motives yet the identity of the perpetrator and the actual motive are such that they can't really be deduced. There were one or two aspects that might be guessed at, but that's it.

Nor is the setting interesting. The author has already dealt with a seaside holiday setting in an earlier book ('Gently By The Shore') and this adds nothing new. The author describes the heatwave and the inevitable thunderstorm which follows in unconvincing purple prose. And the detective has become almost invisible, doing very little here except stand around while clues and information materialise in front of him. He does very little actual investigation, interviewing the obvious suspects while relying on 'intuition' to divine the truth of the matter. But at least he has stopped chewing peppermint creams, his only quirk now being to play with a pipe from time to time.

This series has never been very compelling. The plots are weak, the characterisation unconvincing and the writing might best be described as workmanlike. For me the charm has always been in the period details of post-war British life - the food, the clothing, the social distinctions and attitudes and so on. Sadly there is very little here of interest - some snippets of clothing, a reference to florins and a small coastal village which still has an active fishing trade. The only meal mentioned is salad and trifle, although a great deal of ice cream is consumed. Without the historical veneer, the story is exposed as a flimsy and insubstantial affair, with Gently inexplicably fascinated by one character while ignoring other possible leads, doing very little detective work until the solution is simply presented to him. I assume this is meant to be his unique characteristic as a detective, to simply stand and watch while the mystery unfolds itself before his eyes, but it really isn't a convincing technique. Two stars.

Fantasy Review: 'Lokant' by Charlotte E English

Warning: contains major spoilers for book 1 of the series, 'Draykon'.

I really enjoyed the first book of the Draykon series. It had interesting characters, an unusual world and magic system, and that just-one-more-chapter style that makes even such a long book flow past very easily. This one, the second in the series, picks up not long after its predecessor ended, and is largely concerned with the fall-out from events in that book. Eva and Tren are trying to work out just what is going on, Llandry's father is trying to find her, and Llandry herself - well, more on Llandry in a moment.

I was a bit hazy on the details of the story so far, but there's enough information given to get even the most casual reader up to speed without infodumping. The setting is quite complicated - a series of seven realms, some of which are in permanent daylight, some in permanent night, and one is half and half, comprise a 'middle' world, and there are upper and lower worlds as well, which in some way occupy the same space as the middle world, but are very different. We don't see quite as much of the enchanting light-filled upper and threatening lower worlds in this book, which is a shame. Their constantly changing aspects and bizarre life forms fascinate me.

As always, it's the characters who make or break a book for me, and there's a particularly fine collection of them here. Llandry and her parents were a highlight of the first book, but the stars here are Eva and Tren, who provide both romantic interest and comic relief, as well as much of the action. Eva was difficult to like in the first book, being a little too composed, too competent, too contained for sympathy, and Tren seemed like a minor character, but both of them blossom here, and are a delightful pair. An honourable mention, too, for Rheas, Llandry's grandfather, who combines stubborn eccentricity with family affection in a delightfully unusual way. There are several new characters, too, amongst the Lokants of the title, about which I will say no more, to avoid spoilers. As before, the odd creatures from the upper and lower worlds prove to have their own quirky charms, although we see less of them in this book.

OK, here comes the big spoiler from book 1: at the end of it, Llandry was transformed into a draykon (a dragon, basically), and her delight in her new form, the contrast with her timid and all too human self, and her relationship with Pensould, the draykon revived at the end of book 1, are wonderful to read. Both of them have adjustments to make which are clearly not easy for them. She shows at one point that she's capable of very draykon anger, while he becomes noticeably more human as the book progresses. I am very much looking forward to finding out the conclusion of their story in book 3, to see where on the draykon/human spectrum they end up, and whether they end up together or not.

The story opens out a great deal in this book, and many things which mystified me in book 1 are explained, such as the full importance of the strange 'istore' material which Llandry found, and something of Llandry's own nature and the significance of it. We learned a lot about Eva, too. I found the Lokants and their abilities a little too convenient, but the explanation for it, and the way it relates to the known forms of magic (the split into sorcery and summoning abilities, for instance) is very clever, and elegantly done.

The pace seemed to be quite slow for much of the time - there was a great deal of Eva and Tren researching, for instance, and a certain amount of sitting around while one of the Lokants explains the backstory - but things hot up dramatically at the end and suddenly there's the threat of full-scale war looming. And then, rather abruptly, it ends. I suppose that's the sign of an enjoyable book, when you're so absorbed that the end comes as a surprise. I liked the way that, despite the action (and actually, there's plenty), the book is largely about people and their relationships. Llandry and Pensould, Llandry and her parents, her parents and her grandfather, Eva and Tren - all of these relationships are believable, and most of the characters are likeable, in their various ways, even the grumpy Rheas and the unevolved Pensould. I loved that Tren and Eva have only the slightest qualm about their age difference (she's thirteen years older than him); the difficulty is far more subtle and more unusual than that.

If I have a grumble, it's that the names are difficult to remember - people have first names, surnames and diminutives; there are multiple names for places, too. And none of the names are meaningful (to me, that is), which makes them hard to remember. But I'm at last beginning to get the hang of the seven realms (the wonderful map helped here), the daylands and darklands, and the upper and lower worlds, which I found confusing initially. As the second book in the series, it naturally loses a little freshness and originality, but it gains in the greater depth in the characters and in revealing more of the overall story. I enjoyed this perhaps more than the first, and I'm very much looking forward to reading the conclusion. A good four stars.

Fantasy Review: 'Mark of the Dragon Queen' by Katie W Stewart

I rather enjoyed 'Treespeaker' by the same author, so I was more than willing to try this. It turns out to be very different. The setting is a fairly generic one - a small town ruled by a lord, with doctors and horse-drawn buggies and a stratified society, but also with wizardry and dragons. Magic is tightly controlled in this particular realm. The main character, Kira, is living a quiet life with her widowed father, a teacher, when he uses magic to save a child's life, breaking an oath and condemning himself to death. The story follows Kira's attempts to rescue him from his fate.

There is an interesting story in here, and the background was very intriguing. The use of magic, how and when it can be used, the crystals which somehow enable its use to be monitored, the way it operates elsewhere, the agreement with the dragons - all of this was rather nice, and I would have liked to know more. But for me things fell apart with the characters, particularly Kira.

Now, there's no immutable law that says that every female main character in fantasy has to be feisty, resourceful, independent-minded and spirited. It's perfectly possible for a heroine (or hero, for that matter) to be timid, nervous, awkward, reclusive or shy, and still bravely do whatever the plot calls upon them to do. But what really doesn't work is stupidity, and Kira, it has to be said, is stupid. I thought at first she was just very young - everyone calls her 'child', and she acts like one, too. People treat her as if she's some delicate flower who has to be protected from the wind at all costs. Initially I guessed she was about six or so, but no - turns out she is actually fifteen. Even having lived a very sheltered life, she should be more sensible than she appears here.

First she is startled and falls over while escaping with her father, getting herself injured and causing him nobly to sacrifice himself so that she can be treated. Then she droops around doing nothing very much for several months, being looked after by helpful friends. Then when she thinks a former student of her father's, Arun, is going to rescue him, she decides to tag along. Why? What can she possibly hope to achieve? She has no skills, no magic, no artefacts which could conceivably make any difference, and she's so helpless, she's only likely to get in the way. As she does, in fact. When he (very sensibly) tells her to go home, she follows him anyway and manages to fall in the river. And so on. She isn't the only one making irrational decisions in this book (Arun is not without blame here, and Kira's father isn't always sensible either) but Kira is the worst. Being determined is an admirable quality, but not without a modicum of common sense.

The other characters are either good, kind people, or thoroughly bad people, with no in between, and sometimes without an obvious reason for being bad. The woman who is nasty to Kira, for instance, because her father has been sent to Verebor prison - why? In a small town, where Kira has grown up, there would surely be a great deal of sympathy for her situation, and people would rally round to help. It's designed to make the reader sympathise with her, perhaps, but it just seemed unrealistic to me.

This may seem very critical, but it's purely a personal reaction. There's a good story in here, and plenty of action. For those who don't mind a heroine who starts off rather limply and (I assume) becomes more self-sufficient later, this would work very well, and there are some interesting details to the magic system and background to be uncovered. I enjoyed the author's 'Treespeaker', a more unusual story than this, so it's not the author's writing style that's the problem here, but purely the extreme wetness of the main character which grates on me. I got about a third of the way through before giving up. One star for a DNF.

Fantasy Review: 'And All The Stars' by Andrea K Höst

I don't read many young adult books, but I do read everything by Andrea K Höst, so this was a must for me. It's the author's first venture into post-apocalypse fantasy, and it begins, literally, after the apocalypse - the very instant after, as main character Madeleine finds herself amidst rubble from a disintegrated underground station. Rubble and dust, in fact, vast amounts of dust which coat everything, including Madeleine herself. And as she makes her escape through the ruined station, she encounters the base of the Spire, a black spike, which has instantaneously risen into the Sydney skyline, along with numerous others all around the world.

The early chapters of the book show a world divided in two - those who, like our heroine, have been exposed to the strange dust and begin to develop patches of colour on their bodies and unusual powers, and those who have not yet been contaminated. People know by instinct that the dust is something to avoid. One of the iconic moments of the book for me is the vivid image of Madeleine emerging from the train tunnel and climbing onto the platform of the next station down to escape, coated from head to foot in the mysterious dust, while passengers on a stopped train, staying safely enclosed beyond reach of the dust, peer through the windows at her in horrified pity.

As with all books of this type, survival is the first priority, and this part of the book is fairly conventional. Madeleine meets other survivors of the contamination, they begin to organise themselves, and use their ingenuity to avoid being hunted down. Naturally, there are constant threats and near-misses, but the gang is smart, and finds some pretty imaginative ways to hide and to provision themselves. Some of this is predictable and some is very ingenious, but although the plot burbles along quite nicely, it all felt slightly ho-hum. I think this is probably because it's YA, and quite an extreme YA book at that. All the main characters were teenagers, without a single older person (bar one in his twenties, later on), and the hide and survive plot made it seem almost like an Enid Blyton adventure - the Famous Five, only with romantic angst and a bit of sex thrown in. Although the characters were all interesting enough in their way, the uniformity of age made it a little flat for me.

But then, just past the two thirds point, there's a moment which changes everything, one of those magical OMG moments when your perception simply shifts sideways to open up the story in innumerable different ways. I love it when an author manages to do that to me. The ending is less magical and more prosaic, but still an enjoyable page-turner, and the epilogue - well, I'm never keen on epilogues, but that's just me. I can see the need for it here, however.

I was worried at one point that this was going to be a disappointment to me, but in the end the strong opening and that wonderful twist saved the day, and left me mulling over all the implications. I never fully engaged with the characters or the romantic entanglements early on, but eventually there was a great deal of depth to the story, and some of the issues raised buzzed round in my head for days. I liked, too, that the characters weren't the standard issue beautiful people who leaped into perfectly honed action when called upon. These were relatively ordinary people with odd combinations of talent and weakness. Problems were solved by intelligence, common sense and teamwork, rather than brute force. Nor was everyone uniformly heterosexual. An interesting and thought-provoking, if slightly uneven, effort. Four stars.

Fantasy Review: 'The Cloud Roads' by Martha Wells

Many works of fantasy tell epic tales without a single non-human character in them. Most have largely human casts with a sprinkling of non-humans thrown in for effect - a few elves or dwarves or demons. But here we have a world, it seems, with no humans in it at all. The main character, Moon, is a Raksura, a shapeshifter - a humanoid in one form, and a somewhat reptilian winged creature in the other. His family was killed long ago, leaving him to survive amongst the ‘groundlings’, a variety of humanoid species (or races, perhaps), by hiding what he is, and in fact not even knowing exactly what he is, until he finally meets up with other Raksura. How he adapts to his new way of life forms the body of the story.

It's not easy to create a whole new species which feels believably 'other', and yet at the same time has enough recognisable human characteristics to be likeable, but the author does a brilliant job of it here. The Raksura are a social species, like ants or wasps, building colonies around a fertile queen, and with various different castes to fulfil the various roles. Queens, their consorts (fertile males) and warriors have wings, while the Arbora (drones or workers) are smaller and wingless. Yet in many ways a Raksura colony is very like hua man village. They bake bread and cook their vegetables, wear clothes and jewelry, fall in love and have sex at will, read and write, and so on. They also have mentors - historians and archivists who also have shamanistic powers.

The other species are just as well thought out, with an array of sentient beings of various shapes and sizes and temperaments, the Fell being the bad guys in the neighbourhood, being set, it appears at first sight, on destroying pretty much every settlement they can get their hands (or claws) on. They too are winged reptilian beasties and the Raksura can take them on, en masse, but the Fell currently have the upper hand. Wells doesn't go into much unnecessary detail with the world she has created, simply describing this valley or that range of hills or lake as needed, but there are numerous ruins scattered about which tell of civilisations long gone. I don't know whether these become important later in the series, but in this book they are simply there, structures and decorations crumbling into the forgotten black hole of unrecorded history. There are current civilisations, too, sometimes created in the ruins of the old, or in one case literally on top of it, where a species of sentient winged beetles has built a hive above a disintegrating city. I also loved the idea of floating islands, chunks of land which simply drift along on the air currents.

For all their non-humanness, the characters are incredibly real. Moon, in particular, is a wonderful mixture of shyness and suspicion and aggression, perfectly in line with his nature and upbringing, or lack of it. I was intrigued by the behaviours that came to him by instinct - his hostility when challenged, for instance, and the willingness to fight, which was common to all the Raksura, from the queens downwards. Despite the Raksura way of life, which necessitates a large number of characters, there were many whose individual personalities made them stand out - Chime, Stone, Flower, Pearl and Jade, for instance. The names sound odd, perhaps, but then it must be difficult to dream up names for all the children when they arrive in clutches of five at a time. It was hard to keep all the Raksura straight, though, especially the numerous warriors, hunters, teachers and so on, which made it more difficult to care when one was injured. And the Fell, despite the bestial nature of some of their castes, which seemed to do little beyond killing and eating pretty much anything, were given depth and reasons for some, at least, of their behaviour. It's always good to find villains whose objectives are purposeful and reasoned, rather than simply being evil for the sake of it.

This is not a book of epic scope, involving vast armies and the future of empires, but those who enjoy action will find plenty to satisfy here. The problems at Indigo Cloud Court, their pursuit by the Fell and their attempts to escape and form a new, safer colony provide numerous conflicts, both aerial and grounded. It's hard to describe aerial combat well and I occasionally got lost in the details, but it didn't matter. I liked that both the Raksura and the Fell turned to ingenious and creative methods to attack and defeat their enemies, rather than simple brute force or magic. There is magic in this world, but it's innate and low-key rather than dramatic, and it felt completely right to me. The ending leaves open enough loose threads for future books in the series, while tidying up this one nicely and bringing Moon's relationship with Jade to a very satisfactory point with a perfectly judged moment (which I won't spoil by describing).

I loved this book, absolutely loved it to pieces. It has all the characteristics I look for in my fantasy - characters I really care about who behave credibly, world-building that's original and well thought out, subtle magic and a plot which derives from these factors. There are themes of real depth for those of us who look for more than action in fantasy - about how you come to terms with who you are, for instance, and about fitting in, even when you're different. I found Moon's transition from outsider to someone who belongs, and his awkwardly prickly relationship with the Raksura, to be endlessly fascinating. The book was a real page turner right from the start, and as Moon and his fellow Raksura are hounded and attacked relentlessly and the pace picks up, I found it hard to put down. A great read. Five stars. And now I'm terrified to read the next book in the series; it can't possibly be as good, can it?

My Other Blog: Weekly Roundup

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

Fantasy: 'Gardens of the Moon' by Steven Erikson

Fantasy: 'The Six-Gun Tarot' by R S Belcher

Fantasy: 'Eric' by Terry Pratchett

Steampunk: 'A Conspiracy of Alchemists' by Liesel Schwartz

The Pratchett review is part of Nathan's 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 here. All my fantasy and sci-fi reviews will also be posted on Fantasy Review Barn.

Announcement

I shall be away travelling to New Zealand, taking in Australia and Thailand on the way, for the rest of February. All those long-haul flights should mean plenty of reading and reviews, but posting may be a little erratic, depending on technology and connectivity. However, my fellow bloggers Nathan and Anachronist will continue to post on a regular basis over at Fantasy Review Barn. Normal service will be resumed in March.

Mystery Review: 'Convictions' by Julie Morrigan

This starts out as a straightforward child abduction case, but quickly becomes something more complicated. Two sisters, aged twelve and eight, sneak out from Grandma’s house during an overnight stay to go to a concert. When they find they’re too late to catch a train or bus home, and have no money for a taxi, they accept a lift from an apparent good samaritan. The older daughter manages to escape but the younger vanishes. The family implodes during the police investigation, there’s a suspect but no evidence and no sign of the missing daughter. But then, strangely, the suspect confesses. The story then jumps forward several years...

The biggest problem for me is that all the characters are completely colourless, and never come to life. Even when they’re ranting and raving and falling apart, there’s no impact behind it, no emotional engagement. The facts of a child abduction, a guilt-ridden survivor, a cruel mother are not enough in themselves to arouse sympathy in the reader. After all, it's not an original idea, we've all read similar tales and seen them on TV. It needs something more from the author to make us feel for these characters. It doesn’t help that there is no real focus. Who is the book about? Is it Tina, the daughter who survives? Or is it Ruth, the police officer who stays with the case and the family over the years? And the story hops about from one character to another, never long enough or in enough depth to give any real insight into motivations.

Another problem is that the settings are not terribly convincing. There’s no sense of place (apart from the odd use of ‘pet’ to suggest the north-east, and name-dropping one or two real locations), and the prison seems to be a terribly nice, cosy affair, less brutal than the average girls’ school, where the inmates fall out over a bar of chocolate. The police don’t seem very convincing, either. Right the way through, they fail to ask obvious questions and follow up on possibilities that would occur to any reasonably sensible person.

However, once the police manage to get themselves on track, the book beomes something of a page turner, although there's never any real tension. It's not just the prison inmates who are unusually nice here, even the child abductors are mild-mannered gentle souls, shocked by the occasional swear word and clearly incapable of actual violence, so despite the police flap, the reader feels no real fear that the abductees will ever be killed. This is revealed at an early stage, along with the abductors' motives, so the only real excitement comes from watching the police gradually circle in on the perpetrators.

And then it ends, just like that, leaving readers to imagine for themselves just what would become of the various characters, which isn't very satisfactory. On the whole, this is a readable little book with a few logic flaws, which suffers from trying to cover too many aspects of the story. I get the point of the prison story, another instance of a vulnerable youngster falling under the influence of a strong character, just like the obedient young people of the church, but it felt like an unnecessary distraction. The story would have been stronger, I think, if it had focused solely on one side or another. This just about scrapes three stars.

Romance Review: 'Deirde and Desire' by M C Beaton (Marion Chesney)

This is the third of the six book series of Regency romances by the author of the Agatha Raisin murder mysteries. They are, of course, no more than fluff, mildly entertaining yarns of misunderstandings and infatuations and cross-purposes and secret elopements, leading to the inevitable happy ever after at the end, but enjoyable enough to while away a few hours.

The plot is much as before: the Squire is impoverished again, despite having married off his two eldest daughters to wealthy husbands, so he decides to set up a marriage for the third daughter, Deirdre, with Lord Harry Desire, a young man who stands to inherit a fortune, but only if he marries. Unfortunately for this beautiful plan, Deirdre is in love with the ne’er-do-well from a neighbouring estate, and so the merry-go-round begins. The trouble with books like this is that they stand or fall on the strength of the characters, since the plot is essentially a formula. Deirdre, sadly, is almost as silly as her older sisters were in the two previous books. It’s a pity the author can’t find a way to reconcile naivety and immaturity with just a modicum of common sense, because it seems so implausible that any reasonably intelligent young man would want to marry anyone who does quite so many silly things. Luckily, Our Hero is not just intelligent, but perceptive enough to detect the many good qualities of the heroine, buried as they are beneath so much seeming stupidity.

Once the plot gets properly underway, things build nicely to the usual unravelling of all the misunderstandings. There are a few genuinely amusing moments, a certain amount of farce and a rather likeable hero, even if the heroine never really seems to deserve him. As with the previous books, it’s the man who has to show initiative and common sense, while the woman runs around being childish, and this pattern is becoming repetitive. The conclusion was enjoyable enough to merit three stars but I’m not sure I’ll continue with the series after this.

Fantasy Review: 'The Black Prism' by Brent Weeks

This is one of those authors I’ve been meaning to catch up with for ages, and this finally got to the top of my to-read pile. The opening is snappy - short chapters, lots of action, plenty of background detail that just about stops short of info-dump and a magic system that has me hooked right from the start, even if I don’t quite ‘get’ it yet.

But only a few chapters in, and already there are irritants. One of them is Kip. On the one hand, hurray for a main character who’s not super-handsome, super-intelligent, super-powerful, that’s fine. But he really is stupid, sometimes. And all the oh-no-he’s-going-to-die drama - no, actually, he’s not, he’s a main character, he’s going to escape by the skin of teeth. Again. And yet again... this is tiresome. Then there’s Gavin. He’s so powerful he can do a dozen impossible things before breakfast, and that’s just not interesting. And there’s the author’s habit of switching tense for a sentence or two. It’s intended (I think) to indicate internal thought, but with no other marker to differentiate it, it’s just confusing.

But the pace is fast, there’s lots of things going on and the magic system, with its use of colour to create physical artifacts, is unusual and interesting. There was a sticky patch of super-implausibility (Gavin, his long-lost son and the rebel king all meet at the same hick town at the same time, purely by happenstance? Really?) that almost had me abandoning the book altogether. And then there's a Shocking Twist which even I, who gets surprised when farmboys turn out to be the heir to the kingdom, saw coming. And later there's another Shocking Twist which is only marginally more unexpected.

The book could have done with another thorough edit. It's not full of typos, but it feels quite rough in places and there are some big 'what?' moments. An example: Gavin learns that he has a son called Kip in a very early chapter, and he even muses a little on Kip. But when he actually meets him and hears that his name is Kip, it doesn't register. Only when Kip's mother is mentioned does he have his can-this-be-my-son moment. This sort of thing is just untidy, and it’s far from the only example. On pacing, the author has clearly read The Rules of Fantasy, especially the parts that say Thou Shalt have a Fight in every Chapter, and Thou Shalt end every Chapter on a Cliffhanger, but not, apparently, the one that goes Thou Shalt not take too much notice of these Rules, lest Thou seriously annoy Thy Readers, for Verily such tricks soon grow Tedious and make Thy Readers roll their eyes.

Kip the ‘natural’ son remained an irritant, and Karris wasn't much better. Honestly, authors, can we please retire this tired old cliche of bastard children causing huge angsting and grief? This is fantasy, there are worse things around than the odd child conceived out of wedlock (like global wars, and out-of-control mages). And Karris... yes, let's talk about Karris. Authors, a strong female character is not simply one who is physically strong, has extraordinary abilities, is the only woman in a man's job. It means a character who is not defined by her gender OR by her relationship with a man. Karris may be the first woman in the Blackguard, may be the fastest drafter (colour-magic user) in the universe, but what drove her to that? She was betrayed and abandoned by a man. She goes to pieces around her man. She learns about the bastard child, conceived while they were betrothed, and she falls apart. Please. This doesn't make her interesting, it makes her tedious.

Fortunately, things do eventually settle down into a more readable and less irritating story. The whole magic setup is nicely worked out to the last detail, and if it makes drafters incredibly powerful, there are subtleties in there which are quite brilliant. For instance, drafters use light in one of the colours to create physical artefacts, but what they can create and how the object can be used is entirely a matter for the individual, defined not just by their degree of ability but also by their imagination and intelligence. A smart drafter, even one of below average capability, can use their power in inventive and original ways, a great asset in war. There are also some nice details in other aspects of the author’s world. For example, it’s not polite to address a slave by name unless the slave has previously revealed it to you.

There’s a really interesting backstory lurking behind all the dramatic action and not-quite-believable characters, the story of the war between the two brothers, their family and the relationship with Karris’s family, and when the author focuses more on that and less on the Prism showing off his superpowers, the book actually rolls along very well. In time, I even became interested, up to a point, in Kip and, to a somewhat lower point, in Liv, the disgraced general’s daughter. The prisoner in the dungeon is also a great story, and I wish he’s been a bigger part of things (although to be fair there isn’t a lot to say about a man permanently locked away from the world).

But then, just when I was getting interested and the story was starting to fly, Kip goes off and does something totally stupid. Again. Now, I’ve given this book a good go, I’ve got two thirds of the way through and there’s stuff in here I really enjoy - the magic system is awesome, and the family history is intriguing. But... I really have very little tolerance for a book which substitutes relentless action and carefully contrived plot twists for character depth, believable motivation and emotional engagement. Lots of people love this book, so I accept that I’m in a small minority here, but I’m giving up on it. One star for a DNF.

Paranormal Review: '2012: Midnight At Spanish Garden' by Alma Alexander

One of the pleasures of reviewing books on a blog is that from time to time an author will suggest you read their book, and as a result a little gem drops into your lap completely out of the blue, something that you would never, ever have found by yourself. This is one such book. It’s rather a shame, actually, that the paranormal aspect will cause it to fall into a genre black hole, because it truly deserves a wider audience. Yes, it’s paranormal fantasy, and perhaps it’s technically urban, too, but it’s not a romance, and there are no vampires or werewolves. It’s about people, and the choices they make, and it’s much closer to literary fiction than fantasy.

The premise is a simple one. Five friends from university days hold a reunion twenty years later on the eve of the predicted Mayan calendar apocalypse. During the evening, all five of them are mysteriously shown an alternate life and get to choose which one to stay in: the current life or the alternate. The five alternate histories are, in certain ways, like short stories, but they are all compelling and they fit perfectly into the overall story arc without feeling forced. There are some odd pacing choices - the earlier episodes are noticeably longer than the later ones, which puts them right on the edge of starting to drag. Quincey’s alternate history in particular was both slow and overly schmaltzy, and I really wanted to hurry things along to find out how she would choose. Fortunately, the author’s elegant writing style stops things from tipping over into overt sentimentality.

As the five step into their alternate existences, and decide which of the two lives they will choose, we learn a great deal about each of them, their personalities, the influences for good or bad on them, and their relationships. The choices are never easy, and in at least one case heart-wrenchingly difficult, but there are no right or wrong answers here, and this is not about correcting past mistakes. Rather, it’s about who you want to be, who you are and about being true to yourself, even if that means giving up something else along the way. These are profound questions, and I’m sure everyone who reads this will find themselves in contemplative mood afterwards.

The ending is deeply poignant, and yet perfectly fitting. This is a beautiful book, elegantly written, with wonderful and memorable characters, and a thought-provoking subtext. It is barely-there fantasy, and would fit comfortably into mainstream literature. If the author hadn’t suggested I try it, I would probably have passed over it as being ‘not my thing’, and I would have missed a treat. The only minor criticism is that some of the alternate lives are slightly idealised, but I enjoyed it so much I can overlook that. Five stars.

My Other Blog: Weekly Roundup

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

Fantasy: 'A Dance With Dragons' by George R R Martin

Steampunk: 'Agatha H and the Airship City' by Phil and Kaja Foglio

Fantasy: 'Between Two Thorns' by Emma Newman

Fantasy: 'Guards! Guards!' by Terry Pratchett

YA Horror Fantasy: 'The Monstrumologist' by Richard Yancey

The Pratchett review is part of Nathan's 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 here. All my fantasy and sci-fi reviews will also be posted on Fantasy Review Barn.

Fantasy Review: 'The Five Elements' by Scott Marlowe

I’m not at all sure how to categorise this. There are elements of steampunk, there’s alchemy, there’s a fairly standard form of elemental magic and there’s a fair dose of science in the mix as well. I don’t know whether it’s intended as YA, but the protagonists are fifteen and there’s nothing that would trouble a reader of that age, although some of the ‘experiments’ are a little gruesome. There’s an interesting premise - one of the main characters, Aaron, is a sorcerer’s apprentice, but unlike the usual such character, he’s a scientist, using logic and scientific knowledge to investigate effects related to his master’s work. Less radically, the second main character, Shanna, is apprenticed to a soap-maker, but on the side is also a thief and scavenger. Then there is the intriguing idea of the fifth element, in addition to the usual earth, air, fire and water.

The opening is a little wobbly. We see the two main characters in their environment, and they’re both very likeable, but some of the events seem a little forced. Would the ogre really toss the head sorcerer’s apprentice over the cliff-edge? Is there no justice system which would step in, this being (apparently) a well-ordered city? Would Shanna really be able to push the ogre over so easily? But even so, I liked the relationship between Shanna and Aaron.

Shortly after this, all hell breaks loose, and suddenly we’re hurled into a breathless rush of dramatic, page-turning action. Many books don’t reach this level of intensity before the finale, but here it works perfectly to rip the main characters out of their setting in the most natural way possible, while raising any number of questions about what is going on. Neatly sidestepping the conventional gang-on-a-quest setup, the two main characters are separated and have to make their own way through their post-apocalypse world, and end up on different sides, which is an interesting twist on things. And although there is a quest, Aaron and Shanna are simply sucked into someone else's plans. This part of the book, the events at Norwynne, is terrific.

From then onwards, the pace is rapid and there’s a dizzying array of twists and turns, to the point that I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen next, or who was a good guy and who was a villain, almost to the end. Virtually all the characters have depth and behave believably. Aaron in particular is a terrific character, both immature yet intelligent and enterprising, perfectly aligned with his age. I absolutely loved his ability to approach any problem in a logical, scientific way, and find a rational solution. This is so refreshing in fantasy, which all too often turns to magic at such moments. Shanna I found less interesting, a bit too sulky and short on initiative, and not always terribly bright. Amongst the other characters, the dwarf and the savant both stood out. The mysterious Ensel Rhe worked less well, I feel. His backstory seemed a little contrived to get the reader’s sympathy, and he had an all too convenient knack of turning up in the nick of time to effect a rescue (not always successfully, it has to be said). The magic system is fairly simplistic, but the rest of the world-building is fascinating, with an array of (I suppose) steampunk additives for flavour. I loved all the various machines, even if the descriptions sounded a bit hokum.

The book could do with a final polishing edit, with a few mistakes and clunky moments, but otherwise the writing is excellent, perfectly judged to carry the plot without being intrusive. I particularly liked the author’s economical descriptions, which convey a great deal of evocative information in the minimum number of words. There were a couple of places where a character jumped to the right answer rather easily, which felt a little convenient, but there was enough foreshadowing to get away with it. The ending is appropriately grandiose and with unexpectedly thoughtful undertones. The author is to be commended for not taking the easy way out at this point. Overall, I totally enjoyed this, and tore through it at high speed - that just-one-more-chapter syndrome. It’s an unusual, pacy story, with an unexpected plot-twist in almost every chapter, and great fun to read. Four stars.

My Other Blog: Weekly Roundup

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

Fantasy: 'Cold Magic' by Kate Elliott

Fantasy: 'Prince of Thorns' by Mark Lawrence

Fantasy: 'King of Thorns' by Mark Lawrence [second opinion added]

Urban/Cyberpunk: 'Keeping It Real' by Justina Robson

Fantasy: 'The Thief's Gamble' by Juliet E McKenna [with author's response here]

Steampunk: 'The Emperor's Edge' by Lindsay Buroker [second opinion added]

Urban/Paranormal Romance: 'Magic Slays' by Ilona Andrews

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 here. All my fantasy and sci-fi reviews will also be posted on Fantasy Review Barn.

Film Review: 'The Hobbit'

There must be a million reviews of ‘The Hobbit’ out there already - I’ve seen a few myself - and opinions are fairly mixed. Some say it’s great, no problem, and some say it’s a fun film, even if it’s not quite true to the book, and some say it’s a travesty. I don’t agree with any of those. It’s not great, it’s not a whole heap of fun, but it’s not a total travesty either.

It was always obvious that changes were going to have to be made from the book’s plot to accommodate the needs of cinema in the 21st century, and I’m not one of those who objects to the introduction of the pale orc to represent a visible Big Bad over the course of the three movies. I don’t object to some lengthening of the story, although possibly with a little effort it could just about have been squeezed into two films (she said sarcastically). I don’t much mind that Bilbo is something of a passenger for most of this film. I certainly don’t object to a sexed-up Thorin - who’d have thought, after seeing Gimli, that dwarves could be so attractive? But still, I found the film a disappointment, overall.
 
What I liked:

Gollum - Andy Serkis and the special effects/motion capture team stole the show (again). The whole ‘riddles in the dark’ episode was brilliant. Gandalf was, not surprisingly, terrific again, as were Galadriel, Elrond and Saruman. Their meeting at Rivendell was, I suppose, the famous council, which I thought could have been made a more important moment. And weren’t they supposed to drive the Necromancer out of Dol Guldur as a result? Not sure when that happened. I liked the whole of the Rivendell action, actually. The elves riding in as the dwarves closed ranks in suspicion was a good moment. The music was once more very effective. The dwarves singing in Bag End was the one moment of the film which sent shivers down my spine. That, and the dragon’s eye. I liked the goblin king as well. And Middle Earth (aka New Zealand) was spectacular, as always.

What I disliked:

Young Bilbo. Sorry, but Martin Freeman is and will forever be that nice Tim from ‘The Office’ (UK version) and hapless Arthur Dent from ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy’, roles which he was born to play. Bilbo? Not so much. He was a little too understated and human for my taste, although I may be in a minority of one on that point. The Shire was, somehow, not quite as effective as in ‘Lord of the Rings’, possibly because the director thought the audience knew all about it already. The Bag End interiors were very effective, but the exteriors lost something, I felt. Radagast the Brown - no, let’s not talk about that <shudder>.

The biggest problem for me was the endless over-the-top chased-by-orcs (or wargs or goblins or whatever) moments. I withdraw all my complaints about the Moria scenes in ‘Fellowship of the Ring’; the escape from the goblins’ lair was far worse and possibly the most ridiculous piece of cinema I’ve ever seen. And it went on and on and on. Then there were the mountain giants - how long can we cling on to a six-inch-wide ledge on a mountain engaged in battle with another mountain? Oh, indefinitely, obviously. And not a single dwarf is so much as bruised, apparently. And the pine trees? No, don’t get me started on the pine trees. And then we have to have the dramatic confrontation between the sexed-up Thorin Oakenshield (with his oaken shield, naturally) and the created Big Bad, and Bilbo’s heroic moment, and all that stuff beloved of Hollywood which wasn’t in the book and is only there because the story was split over multiple films, but we still need to have resolution for this part.

This is not a bad film, I suppose. Taken at face value, it’s a big budget, special effects heavy, typical piece of Hollywood-esque action, with the wargs substituting for cars in the chase sequences, and no explosions. For those who like that sort of thing, it’s a middle-of-the-road effort. As a portrayal of ‘The Hobbit’ - well, it was only ever loosely connected to the book.

Where it fails is in comparison with the three ‘Lord of the Rings’ films. There are glimpses of the greatness of those works in the Rivendell scenes, and some more thoughtful moments with the dwarves. But it otherwise fails to capture any echoes of the magic and the majesty of the greater work. It substitutes relentless action and chase sequences for genuine heart-stopping moments. The escapes are eye-rollingly bad, and there is too much effort expended on out-SFX-ing the predecessors. There are nods to the earlier films, but they are both self-concious and self-indulgent. Worse, it’s forgettable. I came out of the theatre a bare three and a half hours ago, and already there’s very little that sticks in my mind, good or bad.

I find it quite distressing to write this. I regard ‘The Lord of the Rings’ as a defining moment of my life (both the book and the film). I was overjoyed to see the Shire realised exactly as I’d imagined it, I shivered when the Moria orcs chittered and the Balrog appeared, Helm’s Deep was just awesome, Edoras was amazing and as for the Ride of the Rohirrim - I cried. I never believed anyone could reproduce it so perfectly. There were oddities and excesses, of course, but mostly it was unbelievably wonderful. But this - it’s just a film, as disposable as popcorn. Will I watch the rest of the series? Of course, and perhaps Peter Jackson can pull a rabbit out of his hat, but I’m not optimistic.

My Other Blog: Weekly Roundup

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

Fantasy: 'Pyramids' by Terry Pratchett

Urban Fantasy: 'Chasing Magic' by Stacia Kane

Fantasy: 'The Curse of Chalion' by Lois McMaster Bujold

Paranormal Romance: 'Kiss of Steel' by Bec McMaster

YA Fantasy: 'The Ring of Solomon' by Jonathan Stroud

The Pratchett review is part of Nathan's 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 here. All my fantasy and sci-fi reviews will also be posted on Fantasy Review Barn.

Fantasy Review: 'Pool of Souls' by Cheryl Landmark

I got off on the wrong foot with this one. The first thing that happens is that a man tries to steal the heroine's horse. Being telepathic, the horse warns her about this, but then goes on to say of the thief, "Oh, my, Caz, he's a handsome devil!" This strikes me as odd in so many ways. No, not the telepathic horse, actually - this is fantasy, after all - but the idea that a horse would have any concept of what would constitute a handsome man. And then there's a bantering exchange between the two humans, with enough comments about firm mouths and bold eyes to scream ROMANCE! And within a handful of chapters, our feisty heroine has needed to be rescued three times - from beasties, getting lost and randy men. So not a great start.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t get better. There’s nothing I like more than a spirited female protagonist, but although Caz certainly has spirit, she also has a quite unbelievable amount of luck. Having followed her brother in order to join up with the rebel army, and fortuitously gained valuable information about enemy movements, she is immediately allowed to see the army’s Commander in person. He takes her under his wing and gives her a job amongst his closest confidantes (with her own little tent next door to his - how sweet), helpfully explaining plotpoints to her and taking the time to reassure her when she gets nervous. Is this likely? The leader of an army heading into battle? I don’t think so.

Then there’s the magic. The army has a mage with it, and boy can he do some amazing stuff. Really, why do they need the army at all, when it seems the mage is powerful enough to take on the enemy all by himself. Now, it may be that things improve as the book goes on. Maybe people stop being improbably nice to Caz, maybe the mage turns out to have limitations, maybe Caz stops sniping pointlessly at the Designated Love Interest, maybe something actually happens, who knows. I loved the idea of animal telepathy, but the rest of it wasn’t for me. For those who like their fantasy rather gentle, with a soft centre, this might be right up your alley, but I gave up on it. One star for a DNF.

Mystery Review: 'Gently Through The Mill' by Alan Hunter

The fifth in the long series of George Gently detective novels, there are no radical departures here. A murder is committed in a small town mill, the local plods can make nothing of it and send for help. Gently arrives and in his quiet, understated style uncovers all the hidden secrets and solves the murder. As always, the charm is in the portrayal of English post-war life, captured as effortlessly as clicking a camera shutter. This was published in 1958, and the first few pages alone reveal a different world: hot cross buns made only for Good Friday, for instance, instead of appearing in the shops shortly after the Christmas decorations come down, and a stag party which is an annual affair and has nothing to do with weddings, being simply a male-only excuse to get plastered (so some similarities to the modern do, obviously).

Food is a big part of Gently’s daily life, and although the peppermint creams, the signature of the earlier books, rate only a single mention here, there are still plenty of edibles about. Gently likes a proper breakfast, with bacon, egg and kidney. Lunch might be onion soup, followed by ‘a very good sole with sauce tartare’, then apple charlotte. And cheese, of course. Another day it might be beefsteak pudding, followed by treacle tart and custard, with hot rum beforehand and a liqueur and cigar afterwards. A picnic lunch is cold chicken and salad, apple turnover, biscuits, cheese and fruit, and four thermoses of coffee. Good, solid working lunches, these. And given that the plot centres around a mill and the attached bakery, there are cakes and pastries abounding, too.

In between these energy-sapping meals, Gently sits about watching the likely suspects until their concocted stories quietly unravel. This is possibly the best of these books so far, since none of the revelations depend on Gently luckily finding himself in just the right place at the right time. He also makes a few mistakes in his investigations, which makes him seem much more humanly fallible. The villain turns out to be a very satisfying and plausible possibility, the local plods, while confident the murderer can’t possibly be a local man, are much more realistic in their protestations, and there are signs of depth in some of the minor characters, too. And thank goodness, there are no painful transcriptions of local dialect to contend with. This is not quite four stars, but it’s certainly a very good three stars.