Review: 'The Drowned World' by J G Ballard

When I first got my Kindle a year ago, and before I got side-tracked by fantasy (thank you George R R Martin!), I set out to read the top 100 sci-fi books I found on an internet list somewhere. Fortunately for my bank balance, very few of them were then available for the Kindle, but this was one of the ones I downloaded, which has been waiting patiently in my 'to read' folder ever since.

This was first published in 1962, and has held up pretty well, on the whole. This is largely because it's far more on the fiction end of the spectrum than the science; in fact, it's really speculative fiction, I would say. The science is all a bit arm-wavy - the atmosphere is no longer protecting the earth from the full power of the sun, overwhelming the planet with heat and radiation, melting the ice caps and hurling the planet back into a steamy Triassic jungle populated with giant prehistoric-style plants and reptiles. And all this within a generation or two. But the reasons are beside the point. Ballard is much more interested in the psychological effects on humans of this sudden regression to an earlier age, and speculates that the mind will, if allowed, also regress, dredging up shared tribal memories.

This leads to some frankly weird behaviour on the part of virtually all the characters, as they fall into a passive dream-like state, or insanity (or perhaps both). There is a curious disconnect between the lassitude experienced by many of them (partly because of the overwhelming heat, and partly the need to feel the resonance of the distant past), and the bursts of frenetic activity. The protagonist, in particular, spends much of his time lying about, half-asleep and half-awake, too exhausted to move, and at one point is supposedly close to death, yet when the plot requires it he can climb fifteen stories, or clamber all over a boat, or run through deep silt. So a great deal of suspension of disbelief is required.

But realism is not the point. The book is an examination into ideas of consciousness and deep-rooted memories, and the plot, with its bizarre but still strangely wooden characters, is no more than a vehicle for that. And the long, beautifully drawn descriptions of the newly created (and still evolving) environment are exquisite. The suffocating heat, the exotic plant-life, the giant iguanas and snakes, the silted-up city streets with their abandoned buildings and cars, mostly deep under water (the drowned world of the title) - all of these come to life in an astonishingly effective manner. Three stars.

Review: 'The Stone Dragon' by Tom Kepler

Interesting book, most unusual. I could say that it features an orphaned young man, talking dragons, mages, bucolic country inns, stolen swords and a talking garden gnome, and it would all be true but it would give entirely the wrong impression. This seems like a cute coming of age story, and parts of it are exactly that, but it has far more backbone than that implies.

Firstly, the magic. The mages are not your average thunderbolt-hurling wizards. One of them  is someone who simply gathers magic around him, without any intervention on his part. And two are dream-mages, who are perfectly ordinary while awake, but have almost god-like powers while dreaming. Glimmer, the central character, is of this type, and how he learns to live with his abilities is the heart of the story.

More importantly, the author makes the point that magic is everywhere, in us, and around us, and at the core of everything. More specifically, he deals with the issue of how the human mind deals with magic (or fails to deal with it, sometimes). The dream sequences are (perhaps inevitably) the most interesting part of the book, and we feel Glimmer's own awe and fear at his dream-mage experiences. There are also other beings with magical abilities, and a general sense of all-pervading magic overlaying everything, whereever people are open-minded enough to allow for the possibility.

The real problem with this is that Glimmer is capable of almost anything, without any limitations. Even given that his abilities are unusually strong (another dream-mage is clearly less talented), magic without boundaries is really not particularly interesting. Time after time, people (or animals, or artifacts) simply appear where they are needed, or a way is miraculously found to achieve the seemingly impossible. There are events close to the end which come perilously close to deus ex machina.

The author has a suitably poetic writing style which works very well most of the time, although sometimes it gets a little overwrought, and (particularly latterly) tends to obscure what is actually happening. Sometimes (in the dreams, for instance) this is understandable, and there is always enough information given later to work things out, but still, there were several places where I had no idea what the hell was going on, and would have appreciated more clarity.

Plotwise - well, what plot? This is not really a coherent story, rather a series of tenuously linked episodes set against the backdrop of Glimmer growing up. This reduced the tension at several points, and made the book easy to put down, although each episode in itself was quite page-turningly dramatic. There are moments, too, when everything fell into place with perfect rightness - the unexpected appearance of DeVasier, for instance, made me laugh out loud at the sheer awesomeness of it.

Glimmer is a likeable character. In fact, almost all the characters are likeable in a realistic way and even the exceptions are understandably complex and believable. If I have a complaint, it is that almost everyone is simply too nice. Well - magic at work, I suppose. The dragons, of course, steal the show.

On the whole, I enjoyed this. There were times when it was just too twee and I thought - this is (essentially) a talking garden gnome riding a fox, here - and times when the magic just became too easy. I'm also quite confident that a lot of the themes of mind and consciousness were way over my head. But there were wonderfully lyrical passages too that were a joy to read. Four stars.

Review: 'Death in the Winter Garden' by Karen Lowe

This is the second murder mystery by this author featuring the gardening heroine (and amateur sleuth) Fern and her detective love interest Drummond. Both books have the same gentle charm, and this one is even more enjoyable to read than the first. It follows the well-established Agatha Christie formula where the first murder arrives in short order, a large array of suspects walks on and off stage, and our amateur detective leaps from clue to clue like a gazelle, leaving the local plod looking heavy-footed. Nothing wrong with that, of course.

The unique approach here is that the central character is a garden designer, so we also get a great deal of botanical information along the way. Whether you find this interesting is a matter of taste (I enjoyed it, although it is reminiscent of 'Rosemary and Thyme'). The background here is well drawn, and all the characters and their quirks are nicely believable. The on/off romance between Fern and Drummond is also quite credible. As a murder mystery, there were no great surprises in any of the revelations, but that's not really a problem. It's much better to spot the murderer right from the start than to be faced with a totally unexpected resolution.

Some criticisms: the botanical details, while interesting, tended to arrive in mini info-dumps. Also, the ending seemed a bit rushed, with various dangling loose ends being tied up with neat little bows (some of them I had completely forgotten about!). And for someone struggling to get a business off the ground, Fern certainly eats well (the cookery subtext is almost as large in this book as the horticulture). All that roast lamb and steak and cinnamon puddings - mmm, yummy. Although - a quick bowl of lentil soup? In my experience home made soup tends to take hours of chopping and simmering. Maybe she prepared a pot earlier.

But these are minor niggles. This is a quick, enjoyable read, something to while away a few hours on a dark, wet winter's day, curled up in front of the fire with hot soup (lentil, maybe?). I hope the author writes lots more books like this. Four stars.

Review: 'The Seekers of Fire' by Lynna Merrill

This is a debut work by a self-published author, the first part of a trilogy. The premise is not an original one - in a world infused with magic (or Magic, as the author has it, many such words being capitalised) which is for some unknown reason losing its power, a young woman must learn to control her own latent abilities. More interestingly, the magic (sorry, Magic) is being used to control fire in its various forms of both heat and light, and ultimately all forms of manufacture and agriculture, and thereby keep the entire population in subjection. There is also some kind of mind control in effect, and the whole setup tied into a religious cult based around a founding figure, called the Master.

The heroine, Linden, is probably intended as the conventional feisty, opinionated, independent type of female, and in the opening chapters that is exactly how she appears. In a difficult situation, with the population verging on rebellion because of the lack of fire, one of the fire-wielding Bers attempts to dominate the crowd by force, and Linden openly, although quite reasonably, defies him. Her reasons for doing this are not entirely convincing, but never mind, it's a rousing moment, which definitely has the reader rooting for her.

Unfortunately, Linden spends the rest of the book fainting and falling down and coming over all funny, and generally playing the weak and helpless female, needing rescue in the strong arms of the hero, who fortuitously appears in the nick of time. Now, later in the book it appears that there is actually a reason for all this, but somehow this is too late to save the character from the apparent role of useless wuss.

It has to be said that the hero, Rianor, is not averse to his own share of swooning and falling about, and the pair of them get themselves injured in more ways in a shorter space of time than I would have considered possible. So in between all the fainting and wooziness, there's a great deal of bandaging going on. They are both supposed to be interested in science (oops, Science), but frankly there wasn't much of this on display, and neither of them show the sort of observational skills one might expect from scientists.

One thing that drove me crazy with Linden is that no matter what anyone told her to do, she would invariably do the exact opposite. And there seemed to be no rational reason for it, either - she just 'had a feeling' or simply didn't want to be told. Sometimes I wanted to slap her. Having been rescued from her brave (if foolhardy) stance against the Bers by Rianor, a High Lord with undoubtedly more worldly experience than her, and agreed to become his apprentice, does she ever listen to him? Not a chance. I suppose this is designed to make her appear more feisty, but mostly it made her look silly, especially when her rebelliousness ended up getting them both into more trouble or injured (again).

One of the emerging themes of the book is that of insanity, and the possibility that those dealing with magic (sorry, Magic) are more prone to it. Much of the early part of the book (especially the escape through the secret passage (or rather Passage)) is written in a choppy, introspective style, so that there is a great deal about what Linden and Rianor are feeling and thinking and speculating, and numerous diversions into dream-like sequences or outbreaks of poetry. I found these very hard to follow. It was difficult to work out exactly what was happening, let alone why. At first I assumed this was just the author's style, but I suspect it was intended to show the effect of Magic on their minds. This might be very clever, but I would trade it any day for greater clarity of plot.

The best part of the book, for me, is the world-building. I couldn't read the map on my Kindle, so I don't know how much it helped, but most of the action is set in one city anyway. I loved the idea that the Magic-wielding Bers have manipulated society over the centuries to take control of almost every aspect of life, and that some parts of that process were only completed recently. The society is industrialised, to some extent, although it's not clear how advanced that is. Fire is supplied at fire-wells, or conveyed by pipes, like water (how, I wonder?). There are Factories and Mills and even elevators which are powered by Magic, but travel between cities is by horse-drawn carriage. I was taken aback, however, to read references to shopping bags and wire coat hangers, and even sports weights, which seem to suggest a very modern lifestyle, and the references to extreme diets seemed modern, too. I would have liked a little more description of the surroundings - streets, buildi ngs, clothes, furniture and so on, to help me visualise the setting.

The author is asking some truly interesting questions: where does science end and magic begin; and where does magic blend into religion? In my opinion, all fantasy authors should be addressing these questions, at least indirectly. The hints about the significance of insanity (and what is insanity anyway?), if the author chooses to follow this line of thought, would make the remaining two books in the series very interesting.

It is odd to reach the end and realise that only a couple of days have passed since the opening chapter. Despite all the falling down and bandaging and strange dreams, nothing much has actually happened. The escape through the Passage, in particular, seemed to go on forever, with very little achieved. Once Linden starts exploring Qynnsent, and especially once we meet some other members of Rianor's family, I found myself more absorbed and the pace seemed to pick up somewhat, although sadly I found the quite dull Jenne and Inni more interesting than our two heroes at this point. All that falling about wiped out any sympathy I might have had for them.

And just when it got interesting, there was a big info-dump of background, and the book stopped. Obviously, this is only part one of three, but still it would have been nice to have a bit more resolution than that. It may be that the complete trilogy will be a more satisfying read, and there is certainly a great deal of potential for some deeper themes to emerge. The world-building and the magic system are excellent and well thought out, and the decline of magic, while not an original idea, is still intriguingly implemented. Nevertheless, I am not particularly invested in any of the characters at the moment, and the uneven pacing and plot-obscuring writing style drag this down to three stars.

Review: 'Out Of Africa' by Isak Dinesen

'I had a farm in Africa...' It's a very famous opening line, and most people of a certain age will undoubtedly have seen the film and will therefore mentally hear it in Meryl Streep's distinctive accent. This is a little piece of history, like looking at the past through the wrong end of the telescope. Everything is clear and precise, but very far away, and as a way of life, it has gone for ever.

This is not a biography, more of an episodic type of memoir. The author tells us nothing of...more'I had a farm in Africa...' It's a very famous opening line, and most people of a certain age will undoubtedly have seen the film and will therefore mentally hear it in Meryl Streep's distinctive accent. This is a little piece of history, like looking at the past through the wrong end of the telescope. Everything is clear and precise, but very far away, and as a way of life, it has gone for ever.

This is not a biography, more of an episodic type of memoir. The author tells us nothing of her formative years, or of her post-Africa life. It is as if she simply came alive when she first moved to her farm, and after she left it, she ceased to exist. It is clear that she had a deep affinity with Africa, its people and wildlife, and in particular with her own little patch of land, so perhaps she felt that the rest of her life spent elsewhere was not important to her.

What she chooses to tell the reader is very selective. There was at one time a husband, but whether he actually owned the farm or it was in her name is not clear. He is mentioned in passing two or three times, and was clearly not a significant part of her life. Instead, she talks a great deal about the Natives (capitalised) who worked on the farm, the Masai on their reservation nearby, her Somali servant, the Indian businessmen in Nairobi and the lions and other animals out on the plains. These were her interests, the things which absorbed her time and energy, together with her coffee plantation (never very successful and eventually sold, reluctantly, when its losses became unsustainable).

She seems to have treated her servants and farm workers very benevolently, setting up a school for the children, treating injuries and illnesses herself, although in a fairly haphazard fashion, or carting more serious cases off to hospital, and supervising (and adjudicating) their disputes. She was regarded by them as a combination of a local chieftain and the representative of law and order, almost like a demi-god, so they turned to her in any difficulty, seemingly confident of her ability to resolve all their problems. She regularly took the role of judge, applying a mixture of European and native rules to achieve an outcome which satisfied all sensibilities.

Nevertheless, she had an instinctive acceptance of white superiority, and a very pragmatic understanding of her workers as an economic resource. It was worth some effort to keep them well and contented, but there was no grief over a death or missing individual, or at least no more grief than when the hyenas got into the oxen shed. She observed them with the fascinated and curious eye of the naturalist, regarding them in exactly the same light as the wild beasts that roamed the plains - magnificent in their own way, but not her equals. She turned to her white friends for comfort or conversation or friendship.

The later chapters become even more episodic, being no more that a few paragraphs here and there - musings on wildlife, or an anecdote about someone she knew, sometimes second or third hand. These are not uninteresting, but so disjointed that any depth developed by the earlier chapters is lost. They emphasize, too, the impersonal nature of the whole book, for there is virtually nothing illuminating the author herself as a character. Right to the end, she remains shadowy.

The ending is rather a sad one, as she is forced by economic circumstances to sell the farm (it is bought by a builder for housing since it is conveniently close to the expanding city of Nairobi), and return to Europe. She finds the idea so intolerable that she effectively ignores it, even while her furniture is being sold around her. Eventually she finds herself surrounded by nothing but a few empty packing cases, but still she clings on. And then, passively, because the tickets have been booked, she allows herself to be sent back to Europe, leaving her chosen home behind. And so the book ends. The reader is left, rather sadly, to wonder how she got on and whether she ever got over a grief that was almost too deep for expression.Three stars.

Review: 'Ready Player One' by Ernest Cline

I loved every single word of this book. I actually read most of it with a silly grin on my face, even the seemingly boring info-dump bits that started off 'X was born in...' - it was just pure pleasure, especially the parts set in the OASIS (the avatar-populated artificial universe where most of the action takes place). I'm not even much of a geeky technophile - OK, I love computers, I'm a programmer by trade, and I confess to being one of the first people in the UK to own a Commodore 64, and I had a smartphone before the term was even invented, but I'm not a gamer in any way, shape or form. I recognised a few of the 80s games, hardware, music and film references, but most of them went right over my head. Didn't matter at all. The book is well enough written that anyone can play along. All the jargon and retro technology is explained along the way.

Plot? Well, there's a quest and a team of underdogs and an evil cheating group of corporate bastards and... well, that's about it, really. It just rolls along beautifully, and although there are no wildly unpredictable twists and turns, it never feels cliched. The lead characters are charmingly geeky and (initially) quite juvenile, and OK, they do seem to be incredibly good at everything game-related, but then that's the basic premise of the story, so it's hard to grumble about it. The author makes good use of the avatar vs real world persona problem - you just don't know anything about the people you meet inside the OASIS-verse, not gender, age, location, appearance - absolutely nothing beyond what they choose to show, and the reveals at the end are nicely done. Only one quibble here - the first person protagonist is initially the stereotypical geek, pasty-faced and overweight, but about halfway through he suddenly decides to get fit and ends up with a perfectly honed physique. I found it disappointing that the author didn't have the courage to leave him as he was. But it's a minor point.

The book would make a great movie. I actually wished I had a soundtrack to listen to (on 8-track tape, naturally) whenever a piece of music was mentioned, and it would be so much fun to actually see some of the OASIS-verse worlds. The final gate battle would be just awesome to watch on the big screen. But as a book - terrific. Five stars.

Review: 'Daughter of Smoke and Bone' by Laini Taylor

This is an amazing book, in lots of ways. It's way outside my comfort zone - I just don't do urban fantasy, angels and demons, seventeen year old female protagonists, or paranormal romance. And it was expensive, to boot. But the reviews were extraordinary, so I checked the free Kindle sample and yes, she can write, I get it.

The opening drew me in straight away, always a good sign. Karou is immediately interesting, with enough personality and mysterious history to be intriguing. And by the time the bizarre creatures who constitute the nearest she has to family are introduced, I was definitely hooked. What's not to like about a protagonist who has unlimited 'wishes' and uses them to turn her hair blue and give people she dislikes unbearable itches? And I just love the idea of being gifted fluency in a new language every birthday. I'm adding that to my Amazon wishlist immediately. Akiva, the abnormally beautiful angel, is well drawn, and people respond to him in perfectly believable ways: did you see that? is it...? it can't be, can it...? with no sleight of hand on the author's part. An angel walking around in Prague is a showstopper, exactly as you would expect.

The story builds incredibly well. There are a few passages of exposition towards the end which feel a little heavy, it depends too much on Karou's ignorance of her past (why? what's wrong with telling people the truth?) and some of the writing is perilously close to over the top, but somehow it works. Occasionally, after a particularly emotional part, I would think: the guy's an angel, for goodness sake, with fiery wings and smouldering eyes, it's completely ridiculous and I'm not even tempted to laugh. And it ought to feel cliche-ridden - the orphan brought up not knowing about her heritage, the forbidden love, the portals to another world, the impossibly beautiful people, the kickass heroine - yet somehow it all works. The writing is that good. I was swept up in the story from start to finish.

Some minor criticisms: the world building is not great. The earthly cities are fine - Prague, Marrakesh and the rest feel like places the author has been to, and she evokes them well, but the 'other' world doesn't quite come to life in the same way. It felt rather perfunctorily sketched, an outline drawing rather than a fully nuanced painting. And really, did it have to be so patriarchal? That was disappointing. I can't quite believe in the chimaera, either, or a thousand year war. But I can let that pass.

The climax was brilliantly done, even if not totally unexpected. But after I stopped reading, I felt curiously flat. It was a very emotional book, yet I didn't feel emotionally drained or desperate for the next volume. It's a terrific story, beautifully done at every level, and yet it lacked - well, something. There was no profundity to it, no meaningful themes (beyond the trite: war is bad, angels/chimaera are people too, if you treat people badly, sooner or later they bite back) and too few moments of depth beyond the emotional storms. It's like a well-made souffle - exquisitely light, a delicate work of art, but still mostly air. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but I prefer a book with a bit more to it (more spicy or chewy or tart or meaty, say, to continue the food analogy).  At bottom, it's just a love story: a beautiful, forbidden, death-defying one, an extraordinarily well-written one, but still just a story of two people on opposing sides who fell implausibly in love at first sight. I would love to give this five stars on writing quality alone, and when I've read the rest of the story I may do just that, but for now this is a very good four stars.

Review: 'That Summer In Ischia' by Penny Feeny

This is a pleasant enough little book. The story is fairly slight - two friends filling a post-university hiatus with a cosy little job in Italy, and the after-effects when things go wrong. There is a bit of a mystery to resolve, but it wouldn't exactly tax the little grey cells of Hercules Poirot.

The characters are OK, without ever being very memorable. There are a few moments when they behave oddly, but on the whole they are believable, if uninteresting. The two settings, Liverpool and Italy, are well drawn and evocative. I know Liverpool quite well and that part certainly rang true, and the Italian parts seemed convincing enough to me too. Mind you, is there really so much street crime in Italy? It seems no one can move without being mugged. I doubt the tourist board will be promoting this book.

The plot was quite creaky in places. When Allie goes to Italy to seek out her father and is instantly accepted by the current generation at the villa where her mother worked, you can almost hear the author's thoughts: hmm, that was too easy, need some conflict there, and perhaps dreaming up the whole business of the withered arm to generate tension. And since the plot needs Allie to meet up with the policeman involved in the case from her mother's time, suddenly she is mugged (of course), hauled off to the police station and sent off for the night to a retired colleague now running a tourist operation. Oh look, it's Enzo. Well gosh, never saw that one coming.

The ending seemed a bit flat to me. The 'mystery' of what happened to Mimmo is resolved by Allie saying: well, I think it must have happened like this. Not that it was a big surprise, of course, I expect everyone worked it out several chapters before, but still, a bit more drama might have helped. And the astonishing reveal about Allie's father - well, huge surprise (not). And then we drift into an epilogue which summarises what happened to everyone, by way of some slightly forced business with old friends. All rather contrived. I don't know anything about the author, but the whole book has the feel of a formula, a sort of 'writing by numbers' effort, with just the right amount of tension here and partial reveal there and a carefully balanced mix of characters.

I don't mean this to sound too harsh. It's a professional piece of work, with no glaring problems, and some parts were excellent - the little descriptive flourishes, for instance, and the two older women, Liddy and Helena, who were the nearest this to fully rounded characters. Jake's story was also well done, cleverly revealed in tiny doses along the way, although, again, some contrivance was needed to get the final stage into the open. It's a perfectly readable book, although I have to confess that I never got totally absorbed in it, finding it all to easy to set aside. Basically, I never cared much about any of the characters, I never got invested in the story and it was almost a relief to get it finished. So that makes it three stars, a competent effort that would pass muster for light holiday reading, especially if you were going to Italy. Or Liverpool, maybe.

Review: 'Skein of Lament' by Chris Wooding

This is the seond part of 'The Braided Path' trilogy. Despite having read the first part relatively recently, I had forgotten quite a lot of it, and although Wooding reminds the reader of most of the salient points, there were still a few places where I was confused.

The author's world-building is awesome. This is not a word I use lightly, but nothing else quite covers it. Everything about Saramyr and its neighbouring territories - history, mythology, races, cultures, natural history, geography - is defined in infinitely layered and nuanced detail. Sometimes an almost throwaway line gives me a frisson of total pleasure - the flight of a bird, the noise of an insect, a rock formation, a character's tattoos, the way food is eaten. It's all there, all thought about and carefully dropped here and there for best effect, creating a world which truly feels 'other', almost alien.

I particularly liked the three moons, all different, which occasionally come into conjunction causing sudden moonstorms, followed by drifts of tiny ice crystals. I have no idea whether that is feasible in real-world physics, but it's extraordinarily evocative. And the moons are relevant to the plot, even. I love a fully worked out secondary world, and so many fantasy writers make do with some cobbled together mishmash of recognisable environments - medieval Europe, or Roman Empire, or whatever. That's OK, just a little disappointing (and lazy, maybe). Authors, this is how it should be done. My only criticism - could have done with a better map, showing all the places mentioned, and in hi-res.

The characters, on the other hand, don't work quite so well. It's not that they're uninteresting, for some of them - Saran, Tsata, Lucia, for instance - are intriguing enough, and Asara is downright creepy. Nor are they fantasy cliches. But somehow, it's as if Wooding has drawn up a laundrylist of defining characteristics (Mishani: small, delicate, ankle-length hair, reserved, diplomat) and they never acquire much depth beyond that. Apart from Kaiku learning to control her powers, there's not much growth in evidence, although Kaiku's relationship with Tsata is nicely developed. This makes them, on the whole, unengaging and hard to care much about. And maybe it's just me, but the male characters seem to have marginally more depth than the female ones.

Plotwise, there's no slow build-up or scene setting - it's straight into the action, which never lets up. Almost, there is too much action, really, and it seems as if Our Heroes can barely put their noses outside the door without finding themselves in yet another life-threatening encounter. So perhaps a little contrived in places. There are numerous different points of view, and the story hops from one to the other like a demented frog, including to minor characters, but at least this avoids tortuous tricks to reveal incidents we couldn't otherwise have seen. Along the way, there are several totally breath-taking shocks and twists - one in particular which completely blew my mind. And yet (like all the best such moments) it was completely predictable, if only I'd been paying proper attention. Clever author.

The climax brilliantly pulls all the different plot-threads together in a very satisfying way. All the various characters were needed to achieve the resolution, and it was done without any sleight of hand. Very neat. There were a number of blood-and-guts encounters, rather too many for my taste - I'm not over-fond of all that hewing, hacking, gutting, bone-crunching and disembowelling. Oh, and let's not forget the skinning. Nice people, the Weavers. But in between the episodes of slaughter were the really interesting (to me) parts - the time spent 'in the weave', the other-dimensional place where the Weavers and certain others can do - well, whatever it is they do. Is it magic? Or just something unexplained? Who knows, but it's a terrific concept, and definitely the best part of the story. And now everything is set up for the ultimate confrontation on a grand scale. A good four stars.

Review: 'Flatland' by Edwin A Abbott

This is proof, I suppose, that not all classic texts survive the passage of time unscathed. The concept of a two-dimensional world, and an inhabitant trying to get to grips with the idea of three dimensions, is a brilliant one, and much of the book rather elegantly takes a side swipe at Victorian culture, which is a bonus (and often very funny). I am not sure just how educational it is - it seems rather a lengthy work for the amount of information conveyed.

However, the turgid and long-winded prose is alien to modern sensibilities. There are quite a few typos in my Kindle edition, too, which didn't help. In several places, it seemed to be referring to a diagram which was missing, although this too may be a deficiency of the ebook. Not bad, overall, and with some wonderful moments, but too ponderous to be completely enjoyable. Three stars.

Review: 'Replica' by Lexi Revellian

I very much enjoyed a previous book ('Remix') by this author, so this seemed like a good bet and I wasn't disappointed. The only difficult part is the initial premise: that a scientist has developed a method of cloning which produces a robotic-like copy under the control of the original, intended for military use, and decides his first human test subject will be his secretary Beth, whereupon things go slightly wrong - the copy is fully autonomous. Yeah, right. But the author addresses our scepticism: the process has already been extensively tested on animal subjects with the expected results. But why would the secretary agree to it? Because she's a meek little doormat. On the whole, it doesn't require much effort to go along with this.

Once you get past this point, the plot flows along in a totally logical and believable way. The scientist's boss sets out with a team of hitmen to capture, test and ultimately kill the replica, and the story follows her attempts to escape this fate. Because we see both sides, both hunters and prey, the tension is built up beautifully. There are narrow escapes and things going horribly wrong for both. The people the replica (Beth Two) meets all behave in credible ways - the officious security people who move her on, the doctor who disbelieves her story but doesn't try to hinder her, the friendly homeless people, the slight acquaintance she turns to in desperation who is so baby-befuddled that she asks no questions.

In the previous book, the characters had a certain eccentric charm, but the main characters here are less appealing. Beth One is - well, a doormat, and Beth Two, although she turns out to be moderately resourceful, is just a doormat scraping by in difficult circumstances, and I never found her very likeable. As for the male protagonist, Nick - look, I know the story is partly about his redemption from selfishness and arrogance, but I honestly don't see him being any different from Beth's obnoxious previous boyfriend. He hits on the woman he's supposed to be protecting when she's vulnerable, while simultaneously planning to kill her doppelganger. Yes, yes, I know he loves his son, and he's loyal to his friend, blah, blah, but a selfish jerk is still a selfish jerk. The other characters are better. I liked the Polish friend, and I loved the doctor caught up in the middle of a potentially lethal situation, spluttering in outrage - you just can't do that, this is Britain, we don't do things like that here! And the oily and cold-blooded boss is totally believable.

This is a well crafted book, and one of the most tightly plotted I've ever read. It's a real page turner almost right from the start, and a thoroughly enjoyable read. Four stars.

Review: 'The Book of Caradoc' by James Leigh

Strange book. I'm not at all sure what to make of it. The premise: after some unspecified global apocalypse (known as the Withering), the survivors in Britain have coalesced into numerous small, semi-autonomous farming and manufacturing communes, and larger administrative centres (or Authorities), which manage trading and defence, all of them harrassed by roving bands of raiders known as Metros. So far, so normal. The conceit of this particular book is that it purports to be a history of one particular war leader who was intrumental in dealing with the Metros and ushering in a more settled age of greater prosperity, compiled from the writings of those who knew him. I don't know how common a technique this is, but I've never read anything quite like it.

This author follows this idea through rather well. It really does read just like a history book much of the time, as written by a rather pedantic academic ("Caradoc arrived in Felixstowe around Whitsun. Riding by way of Puckeridge, he crossed the Chelmer at Waltham and Blackwater at Coggshall before halting for a few days in a fishing commune near Maldon..."). People the hero meets are introduced as "Colonel (now Chief Alderman) Fellowes" and so forth, there are few descriptions of people, and there are long paragraphs describing how the various settlements interacted or managed their affairs ("currencies of the larger Authorities were generally convertible at that time..."), while other aspects were glossed over as "being of no interest to most people today".

The supposed historian also jumps in from time to time to explain his knowledge, or speculate on Caradoc's motives, or simply to editorialise ("We think of the need for revenge as itself an emotion..."). This sounds quite dry, and some of it is, but there are also some gloriously funny episodes, such as when the great hero, whose battle successes have been detailed in reverent awe, suddenly makes what can only be described as an ill-advised second marriage (this at a time when he had no idea whether his first wife was still alive). The historian is almost squirming with embarrassment as he describes these events. Then there is the Hundred-And-One, an elite, self-appointed militia guarding Caradoc, whose elegantly out of control exploits are no more than synchronised slaughter.

The background of a society still adjusting and settling, still only barely on the edge of civilisation, is well done. There is an astonishing amount of detail tossed in about places - how they would have changed once civilisation collapsed, which were still usable and how they would have been adapted to the new era, clearly warmer than now. Rivers have changed their course, open areas have reverted to woodland, parts of southern England are described as desert, there are vineyards and locally grown tobacco. There are very detailed descriptions of some activities - snaring rabbits, for instance, or the work necessary to restore a water mill to functionality - while other aspects are glossed over. I found it difficult to reconcile the relatively primitive way of life in some of the communes, with the more sophisticated life in the Authorities (the obviously wealthy dilettantes of the Hundred-And-One, a woman described as a bluestocking, implying an academic life, an apparently inexhaustible supply of manpower for militia or rebuilding programs). We never find out just what the catastrophe was, but there is one chilling section where Caradoc rides through a previously built-up area still littered with bones. I'm not sure how non-Brits would deal with the laundry lists of placenames; I'm a Brit myself, and I found it difficult to follow. A good map would have been a big help.

As for the story - well, it reads like a history book, not a work of fiction at all. Apart from Caradoc himself, characters simply pass by, sometimes reappearing later, sometimes casually written out ("Pierson... having been killed on Sylt - crushed between the 'La Perle' and the Hoernum quayside"), often simply disappearing, and even the hero is only glimpsed second or third hand, as it were, so we never really get under his skin or develop any empathy for him. Of course, very little dialogue is taken verbatim from Caradoc himself, apart from a few key speeches, and the supposed historian guesses at his motives, so we never really understand how he came to be so famous. It seems to be as much a matter of luck as anything else. Many of his early encounters end surprisingly easily, a combination of chance and arrogance, and later his reputation (and arrogance again) cause people to capitulate without much of struggle. It all seems credibly implausible, if I can put it that way (just like real life).

It may sound strange, but I can't decide whether I liked it or not. I finished it, which is in its favour, I was never tempted to toss it aside, and I have written quite a lot about it, so it obviously got under my skin. On the other hand, there were none of the qualities I tend to look for in a book - interesting characters, great plot, resonant ending, well-written dialogue, emotional engagement. The writing style was literate but very dry, with long dull descriptive passages, a few mildly exciting parts, and the odd outbreak of near-farce. The editing was execrable - not typos and apostrophe abuse, nothing so ordinary, rather it felt as if the author had started a sentence and changed his mind mid-stream without cleaning up. Mostly the mangled result was interpretable, but it happened so frequently as to be very distracting. But on the whole, this was an interesting rather than absorbing book. An oddity, definitely - three stars.

Review: 'Spirit of Shehaios' by S A Rule

And so on to the final part of the 'Shaihen Heritage' trilogy. I am rather at a loss as to where the story is going at this point. The second book seemed to tie up a lot of loose ends with neat little bows, leaving a more or less stable situation, and there isn't an obvious big threat looming on the horizon. In addition, the most interesting character by far in the first two books was the mercurial Kierce, whereas the focus this time is a quartet of blank-slate characters - the painfully naive priest Aruath, the new king Sheldo, Caras's daughter Alsareth, and the son of a merescaii nobleman, Qintal. None of them enthuse me particularly.

The story is quite slow to get going this time. Book 2 opened with a major crisis, and everyone scrambling to react, but this one opens 10 years later, so there's a fair bit of backstory to be filled in, as well as several characters to be established, so it feels very leisurely. This is not necessarily a problem, but given the lack of an obvious threat, it seems a little like ambling around just passing the time until something happens. Qintal's sojourn in the southernmost reaches of the empire is a nice little look at some more of the world, but it doesn't appear to have a clear (plot-related) purpose, beyond establishing his character.

I am a little surprised at some of the distances involved. Qintal's journey to the southern outpost takes several months at sea, followed by 200 days by land - that's more than a year of travel. Assuming months and years are the same in this world, that's a very, very long journey. Yet from there Garro gets to Qivor and back in a couple of months, and Qintal gets himself back in a very timely fashion. I'm not quite clear where Qivor is, but I thought it was further north than that suggests, although later in the book it's proposed that a ship would sail down the east coast to reach Shehaios. Very odd. A bigger map might have helped. On the other hand, Alsareth is able to magically swap bodies to effectively teleport herself from Qivor to the minstrels' holding in Shehaios, just to spend the night with her lover. What a convenient plot device.

Fortunately it's not long before the fragile peace begins to crack, and all hell breaks loose. I'm not sure why it is, but this book is not quite as absorbing as the previous two. I find it much easier to set aside for a while. This is partly because it's set in Qivor, which I find much less interesting than Shehaios. It's just another city, and there's not much effort to paint in the backdrop, so it feels rather a nothingy sort of place. I'd like to know a bit more about it - the architecture, the street life, the way the inhabitants live, but there's not a lot to go on. Then there's the fact that most of the familiar faces from the first two books are either absent or very much in the background, apart from Caras, who was never my favourite anyway.

The main problem is Alsareth. I applaud the author for addressing the issue of a female magician, but she really is a dull character, too dull to sustain the story. She dithers and drifts, and then is irresistibly drawn to the enemy after a single glance (oh dear), after which she interferes with her father's sensible course of action because she's in lurve (oh dear, oh dear, oh dear). I'd like to slap her, but I don't think it would do any good. She's hopeless. Now, it turns out that she does have a cunning plan to convert the arrogant and fanatical Qintal to Shaihen values, but how much of this is devious political manoeuvring and how much is motivated by self-interest and lurve is unclear to me. I just don't like her much. Some of her interactions with Qintal had a certain spark, but beyond that she seemed rather flat. I felt that as the magician, she should be living in Shehaios instead of tinkering in her father's political world. Ditto Sheldo (who is the king, after all). In fact, I'm not quite sure why anyone from Shehaios is in Qivor (apart from Caras). Qintal himself turns out to be a much more interesting character, and the clash of cultures when the arrogant merescaii warrior strides into Shehaios is the best part of the book. More Shehaios and more Qintal would have improved things no end.

It's not that this is a bad book, at all. It is just the comparison with the first two that makes it seem weak. The first book had a light, fey touch (with dragons, unicorns and a phoenix), a terrific plot and lots of humour. The second book was much darker, but everything followed logically and the disintegration of the charismatic Kierce was fascinating. This book feels more lightweight. The setting is less interesting, the characters are mostly rather dull and the plot, while having a fair amount of action, feels trivial - tribal unrest in an Imperial city doesn't compare with a people fighting overwhelming odds in a desperate battle to keep themselves and their culture alive. We are on the wrong side now, as it were - this story is mostly told from the Imperial side, and we never quite develop the same sympathy for the downtrodden ascaii or the angry merescaii.

Even the magic is more perfunctory here, merely a convenient plot device. It is rather cool that Alsareth's magic is different from Kierce's - that seems logical to me - and I like that she sees people in colours, which explains why she's drawn to the passionate Qintal, whose energy transforms into particularly vivid colours. But the haziness of her ability to read minds also gives her less clarity as a character - she too is slightly fuzzy and wishy-washy. I am not at all clear why Kierce gave his cloak to Aruanth and his staff to Sheldo - maybe I missed something, but I didn't notice either an explanation or a purpose for this. Either way, this too would tend to diminish Alsareth's ability, I would have thought.

To be honest, the first two books worked very well as a duology. This one feels as if it was bolted on afterwards simply in order to tie up a loose end or two. I understand that there is a further trilogy in the pipeline, set many centuries after these events, so it may be that some of this book is actually setup for the later works - Aruath, in particular, may be important in some way, as the epilogue hints. Nevertheless, this is a perfectly readable story, and is, in many ways, very well crafted, with a number of events and characters from the earlier books turning out to be significant here. The author is brilliant at carrying these many threads from book to book. And the humour is back. I am torn between three and four stars, but I'll be generous.

[Edit: October 2012. It appears that the author has been swept into an outbreak of Real Life (tm). I can only hope that she will eventually get back to the writing. Fortunately, the first three Shehaios books remain available from Amazon.]

Review: 'Staff of Power' by S A Rule

Moving straight on from one book in a series to the next is a matter of both pleasure and trepidation. The pleasure comes from meeting old friends again in a familiar setting - another whole book about Shehaios! But it's a nervous moment too. Will it be different? Will things get worse? Or possibly much worse? Will some of those old friends, who survived against the odds last time, meet a different fate this time round?

Rule starts by recapping the previous book. First, by a brief overview, then by another look at the dramatic finale from a different point of view, and finally, by some background exposition. It's difficult to do this sort of thing well. I would love it if authors would take the Tolkien route, and put all the backstory in an introduction - it works for those who've read the book as well as newcomers - but it's old-fashioned, I suppose. Some authors sprinkle snippets throughout the book, some just expect you to remember and some (as here) spread it thickly upfront, which gets a bit heavy. Too much exposition too soon weighs down the book's opening, but Rule just about gets away with it.

I suppose after the dramatic turn of events at the end of the previous book, and this being the middle book of a trilogy, it was inevitable that this one should spiral straight into a miserable state of affairs. All the characters are in difficulties, and sliding into hopelessness. Things feel fairly hopeless to the reader too. The naive Shaihen are pinned down under the heavy hand of the Imperial army, there are barbarous raiders along the borders and the Emperor has decreed that everyone must conform to his own choice of religion. Nice King Rainur is dead, and Kierce the magician is paying a high price for his own mistakes. A very high price - some scenes are quite horrifying to read.

One has to hope that the old adage holds true: things have to get worse before they can get better. But this is a lot worse, and for most of the book everything that can go wrong does. I have to say, there were places where I hesitated to turn the page, fearing the next outbreak of awfulness. It was all perfectly logical, following on from earlier events or resulting from the characters' own nature and decisions, but still, I don't much enjoy this kind of relentless grimness, it's not why I read fantasy. I don't like Bombadil-esque tweeness either, but I do look for something with just a hint of upbeatness about it. Fortunately, towards the end of the book things start to look up a little, and there are hints that expectations and ambitions are becoming more realistic, and the Shaihen may be able to make an accommodation with the occupying Imperial forces.

One of the main themes of this book, made more explicit than in the previous episode, is the difference between the Shaihen hippy-dippy spirit-of-the-people tolerance, the irrational violence of the ascaii raiders and the fanatical, if illogical and hypocritical, followers of Tay-Aien (a rather sensible sounding religion underneath, interpreted somewhat flexibly by its adherents). I feel the author draws all the various factions in extreme black and white, in order to underscore the good and bad points, and it comes across as rather heavy handed. I would have liked a little more grey on all sides, instead of what appears to be a simplistic Shaihen-good, others-bad dichotomy.

Nevertheless, the fairly basic magic system (the Lord High Magician, Kierce, has the power to read and manipulate minds, and thus create illusions) is used to excellent effect here. We saw a little of this in the first book, when Kierce finds nothing but incoherent fear and ignorance in ascaii Orlii's mind, and now this is multiplied manyfold when he mingles with the greater numbers of raiders. It's a very effective technique, putting the reader literally into the mind of various characters, and Kierce's disintegration is beautifully drawn and very believable and sad. Kierce's magic is a little convenient sometimes - it also allows him to heal potentially fatal injuries, and also to swap bodies, thereby leaping from place to place, neither of which seem to be quite consistent with the basic premise, but never mind. It allows the brilliant manipulation of Ravir, which creates some electrifying moments.

This book wasn't as enjoyable as the first, mainly because of the catalogue of downright depressing events which fills the first three quarters of it, and a somewhat darker, more edgy, tone. The plot isn't quite as absorbing, to me anyway, but it is still exceptionally well thought out, and the main characters, Kierce and Caras, and perhaps Cathva, become much more complex over the course of the book. I was less sure about the developments regarding Elani and Madred, which seemed a bit contrived, and the ending, especially the rather too simple and romantic resolution of Aruath's problem, didn't quite ring true. I'm not sure what to make of Aruanth. He has potential but I will reserve judgment until I have read the third book. Overall, very slightly disappointing compared to the first book, but middle books are often thus. Four stars.

Review: 'Cloak of Magic' by S A Rule

Some fantasy books sort of parachute you into the middle of the action, and hurl bits of information around in a whirlwind, and it can be several hundred pages before you begin to get your head above water (if you'll excuse the clashing metaphors) and work out at least some of what's going on. I hate that type of book, and fortunately this is quite the opposite. It starts slowly, with characters immersed in their world, and the background is released at a nice steady rate, so that it's not hard to keep up with what's going on. It's very pleasant to feel that you're at least a step or two ahead of some of the characters, anyway.

The world-building is rather good. Shahaios is a very believable and distinctive place, not so much because of any wildly original flora or fauna or climate (it feels vaguely European or perhaps Canadian to me, with forests, lakes, bears and deer, although there are unicorns, dragons and phoenixes too, to liven things up a little), but because of the carefully thought out social structure, which differentiates it from the standard sort of low-technology pseudo-medieval world. It feels a little utopian, but that's fine, this is fantasy. The evil Empire from beyond the mountains, on the other hand, is entirely conventional (it had a Romanesque feel to me). The magic is of the best type, too - simple but powerful, and with plenty of scope for development as the series continues.

Of the characters, Kierce is the most interesting by far. I liked the idea of the young man with unusual powers who uses them to win games and to get laid. Well, of course he does. So obvious. And when he reluctantly becomes the Lord High Magician, he discovers that politics is just another type of game. He also has a terrific sense of humour - I'm a sucker for a book that makes me laugh out loud. Caras is much less interesting - a worthy but dull (and very stupid) bloke. It's difficult to make such a character sympathetic, and I have to admit it took the entire book, but I did eventually get to that point. Orlii, the apparently mindless captive, is a wonderfully complex character, whose growth over the course of the book is entirely believable and deeply disturbing. Of the rest, although they are only lightly sketched out, and some need just a little more depth to make them truly shine, generally they succeed as rounded characters.

The plot, such as it is, relates the uneasy alliance between the militaristic Empire and the naive Shaihen, with their simple farming and hunting lifestyle, and built-in sense of equality and respect. They address everyone the same: first name for familiarity, or more respectfully as 'lord' or 'lady', from the barely adult farming girl, to the King himself, who is more of a 'first among equals' than a ruler. The political machinations associated with the arrival of the Empire's soldiers (after the King marries a daughter of the Emperor) are the usual sort of thing. It is the culture clash between the two very different lifestyles which provides most of the interest, and the author brilliantly conveys the near impossibility of either side trying to understand how the other's mind works. It's hard to elicit answers when you don't even know what questions to ask.

The widest gulf is in their belief systems. The Empire has a mish-mash of gods, with individuals believing in and worshipping their own selection from the available pantheon. Some are fanatical about their particular god, some are more pragmatic, and the gods themselves seem to require different responses from their adherents. And there are devils and demons and a hell, and a great deal of fear. The Shaihen, on the other hand, have no gods or demons, just a single magician, able to read and manipulate minds and tap into the spirit of the land and its people. Neither side really understands the other, and, most intriguingly, the Imperials, quite happy to believe in a myriad of invisible gods, are quite unable to believe in Kierce's magic. They assume it's just illusion, and if they see incontrovertable evidence, they shy away in fear from his 'sorcery'. It's a fascinating juxtaposition.

The story builds well, becoming a real page turner. Partly this is due (aspiring authors take note) to Rule's neat little chapter titles. It's very trendy these days to name each chapter for a specific character (so you turn the page and think - oh no, not him again!), or else there are no titles at all beyond the rather dull 'Chapter 17', which makes it easy to put the book aside. But when you finish a chapter and the next one is called something intriguing ('Encounter with a dragon', for instance, or 'Kierce makes an entry') it's all too easy to think - hmm, well, just one more chapter then. The book is well written, with only a few small typos and some odd chunks of repetition in the middle.

The climax of the story is both inevitable and very moving. This is not a story of great wars or wizardly duels, although there are a few battles and magical outbreaks along the way. This is about people, and how they understand and misunderstand each other, how they try to do what others want of them or try to avoid it, how they deceive themselves and others. Mostly, it's about illusions, and what happens when they are stripped away. It's a terrific book, actually, well thought out and absorbing. It reads perfectly well as a stand-alone, although it's actually the first part of a trilogy. An enjoyable read. Four stars.

Review: 'Under the Stairs' by John G Stockmyer

The trouble with reading really wonderful fantasy is that for a while afterwards everything else seems incredibly meh. It's like eating a box of chocolates and then having to eat the cardboard box. This is probably an OK sort of book, but I just couldn't get through it. Premise: bloke buys an old house where strange things happen, discovers it's a portal to an alternate reality. The bloke and his modern world life are rather dull. The alternate reality is standard fantasy - there are mages and crystals and warring kingdoms and evil priests and a long-lost heir to the throne. Stop me if you've heard any of this before. There's also an Ethereal, a girl who has to be tortured to release some sort of power, which is (slightly) interesting. But none of it grabs me enough to keep reading. One star.

Review: 'Rings of Poseidon' by Mike Crowson

I daresay it's me, but I just couldn't read this. I think there's an interesting story in here somewhere, but it's buried under a mountain of uninteresting characters and unnecessary details about the more mundane aspects of their lives. Do we really need to know what they ate, what the sleeping arrangements were, or the precise transportation details? Short summary: it's an archaeological dig in the Orkneys, they find some jewelry, it connects them in some mystical way with events of the past. That's it.

Review: 'The Preacher's Bride' by Jody Hedlund

I'm not exactly in the target audience for this book. It's described as an 'inspirational historical romance', and I don't do romance, I don't do historical and I certainly don't do inspirational. So what on earth am I doing reading it? Well, the author, Jody Hedlund, writes a blog about her authorial and family life that I rather enjoy. She sounds like a nice lady, who writes in her spare time, while also home-schooling five young children. Presumably she doesn't chain them up in the cellar while she writes, so I daresay there's a tame husband in the picture too. I have nothing but admiration for those who manage to create something for themselves, as well as baking cookies, bandaging grazed knees and all the myriad other duties of motherhood.

That in itself isn't enough to make me rush out and buy her book, but I was fascinated to read the reviews, because they were almost uniformly glowing, and far too many to all be written by friends of the author. That was intriguing. So when I discovered that the Kindle version was a free download, I decided to find out for myself what it was like. It took me a while to get into it (did I mention it's not my usual type of thing?) but I was determined to give it a fair shot, so I kept going.

In historical terms, I have no idea how accurate it is. The Kindle version employs an irritating pseudo-archaic font with curly bits, and the text is sprinkled with 'twas' and 'besure' and 'mine own' and 'oft' and suchlike, which don't always sound totally convincing. I got very little sense of place - there are few descriptions of buildings or scenery or clothes, so I had to use my imagination a lot. I wasn't even sure if it was set in England for a while. But occasionally the author uses a term or describes an event (like the bread-making) which sounds completely authentic, so she's obviously done her research.

The romance is - well, the usual thing. Two people who absolutely positively don't even like each other, but after a series of trials find that they do, actually, quite a lot. The hero and heroine are a bit irritating to start with. Elizabeth is a curious mixture of determined assertiveness and maidenly helplessness. She's quite priggish with her sister, too, constantly nagging her virtuously to be more of a good person. John is quite gruff and snappy, but then he has just lost his wife, so perhaps that's only to be expected. He's supposed to be quite a charismatic character, but that never quite came across to me.

The inspirational part is not a problem. There's a lot of talk about doing God's work and submitting to the will of God, but that's very much in keeping with the setting. Maybe I'm cynical, but it surprised me just how often God's will turned out to coincide with exactly what a character wanted to do anyway.

I had some issues with the logistics of the plot. The initial premise that the local matrons would allow a baby to die rather than permit an unsuitable (read: not a virtuous person like us) wet-nurse seemed a bit of a stretch to me, and I couldn't totally buy into Elizabeth's excessive zeal to remedy the situation. And when she found the unsuitable Lucy, the matrons apparently do nothing about it. Then there is the evil Mr Foster. I know times were different then, but they were not quite lawless, and I find it difficult to believe that anyone, however rich or powerful, could get away with murder in broad daylight without any fear of retribution. In fact, the bad guys were far too bad altogether, and the good guys were a little too virtuous. Shades of grey are much more interesting and believable than outright black and white. But then, it's a book about Christians and persecution, so perhaps that's inevitable.

The other issue is that much of the tension in the romance part of the story hinges on the fact that the protagonists either misunderstand each other or deliberately refuse to talk to each other. Given that both of them are supposedly eloquent and persuasive speakers, it seems odd that they become so inarticulate with each other. The author makes a good attempt at explaining this away, but it remains a hindrance to credibility.

But despite these minor niggles, the story rattles along quite nicely and becomes a real page-turner. None of the minor characters have much real depth to them, although the shallow Catherine was more interesting than most. Elizabeth's suitor, Samual Muddle, is made into a cartoonishly ridiculous figure, but it seems to me that her dilemma would be given more pathos if he were less silly - a worthy but dull man, perhaps. However, the hero and heroine were quite well done, considering how difficult it can be to make such pious characters sympathetic (the villain is always easier to write, and to read about too!). There were some philosophical points in there, too, about who has the greatest right to interpret the word of God, and the effect on a highly structured society of working class people taking control of their own beliefs. Since the story is based (rather loosely) on the life of John Bunyan and his second wife Elizabeth, his ideas are bound to infuse the book. Some of the dialogue is apparently taken directly from his writings.

On the whole, the book was enjoyable enough and surprisingly readable - well, it surprised me. As a debut effort, it has some structural flaws, and the writing is sometimes a bit clunky, but the romance was nicely done, if a little overwrought at times, and the historical aspects were interesting. Three stars.