Fantasy Review: 'Ritual of the Stone' by Rob Donovan

I love the premise here: every twelve years twelve people are chosen for a ritual; they wake one morning to find a coloured stone beside them, or under their pillow. They then have to travel to the capital, throw their stones into a waterfall and one will then be magically selected as a sacrificial victim, to appease something (or someone?) known as the Gloom. This is such an intriguing idea, especially given the variety of people chosen by the stones: a simpleton, a rapist and murderer, an elderly swordsman, a slave woman, a young girl, the king's only son... This is fascinating, not only for the question of how all this works, but also why? Why are things done this way? And what exactly will happen if the ritual fails? There are hints, but no clear answers. Of course, there's a lot more going on below the surface, with conspiracies and deception, and a plot to defeat the Gloom once and for all.

The first point of view character is Marybeth, one of the Order, a group which oversees the process of the ritual, magically empowered to ensure the compliance of the selected twelve. Then there's Rhact, an ordinary man in the village Marybeth is watching, whose daughter Janna is one of the chosen ones, and who isn't about to accept that without a fight. These two points of view give a very nice dual perspective on Marybeth: we see her first as a member of a group working to ensure that the country can continue peaceably by the sacrifice of a single person, a necessary evil that works for the good of all, while also hoping to put an end to the ritual altogether; but we also see her through Rhact's eyes as an evil witch, a terrifying person inflicting untold harm on families and communities. This is nicely done.

There’s also the king, Jacquard, who tries to rule generously and not be a ruthless tyrant, but finds himself at risk of rebellion by his warlords for weakness. His son Althalos is nicely drawn, too. The other characters are less than convincing. Some are complete caricatures, like the rapist or the slave woman's evil master or the simpleton. Some just lack depth. Everyone is either good or bad, with no in between at all. Not that bad means unspeakably evil, necessarily, sometimes it just means silly and feckless, but still, there are few shades of grey. Even when characters change over the course of the book, the switch is absolute: a totally evil person is redeemed to become a hero, while a good person is so overwhelmed by revenge that all normal human feeling is lost, and they become evil. This is less than subtle.

To my mind, the female characters seemed to have less active roles than the men. To start with, the women are largely wenches or nervous mothers or cowed daughters or silly bits of girls who squeal. Or else they are witches, or otherwise evil. There's Marybeth, for a start, ostensibly a very active character, and we see her doing some very courageous things. Why does she do them? Initially because of her father, and latterly because some random dude, more powerful than her, told her to. Doesn't she have a mind of her own? Fortunately, there are also quite a few moments where women stand up and take charge, sometimes to shocking effect, when the men can’t or won’t. For instance, Janna, Rhact's daughter, has a brave moment, doing what needs to be done when the travelling party is attacked by bandits. And I did like the female assassin. I’d happily read a whole book about her.

The world-building is rather good, and clearly a lot of thought has gone into the details. I like the three moons of different colours, which clearly have a big influence on everything, as well as inspiring the various religions. We’re in the standard pre-industrial pseudo-medieval world, with the usual patriarchal overtones, but there are some nice details too. For instance, a woman’s period is known as being visited by the red moon. The magic is largely unexplained, but there are some nice non-human things around, and the Gloom, when we finally get a good look at it, is suitably scary.

The writing style is serviceable rather than ornate, but it lacks polish. In some places clauses are written as if they were sentences, elsewhere sentences are shunted together. There are some anachronistic expressions used, such as the king spending 'quality time' with his son, and Rhact's son having 'teenage' moodiness (the concept of teenagers is very recent; in a pre-industrial age, thirteen-year-olds would be doing the work of an adult, with neither time nor energy for moods). I find these modern colloquialisms jarring, but that’s just me. There there was the horse who was 'saddled' in order to pull a wagon (harnessed would be a better word). Much of the backstory and descriptions of feelings, particularly surrounding the king, are told narratively, which keeps the tone flat. However, there are moments of eloquent description as well. A warning for those sensitive to such things: there’s some earthy language, and some fairly graphic acts of violence and other unpleasantness.

None of it matters too much, however, because the plot is an absolute cracker and gallops along in a breath-taking page-turning manner. The moment of the actual ritual, when the various conspiracies and secrets and deceits all clash together at once, is terrific. I had absolutely no idea what was going to happen, my eyes glued to the pages. After that it’s a mad dash to restore the realm to some kind of stability before everything falls apart, but there are plenty of unexpected and dramatic twists before the final confrontation, which also sets things up nicely for the next book. There were some confusing moments, not helped by the need to give names and backstories to all twelve of the stone-holders, as well as all the king’s knights. So many characters are easy to forget, and I would have liked a little reminder when each one reappeared. This was particularly troublesome at the ritual, when characters were described only as ‘the boy’ or ‘two men’ or ‘the elderly woman’. I’m still not quite sure who was on whose side. And who exactly was that random dude who sent Marybeth off on her little quest?

This is a fun and imaginative story, not subtle but well thought out, with plenty of action and some nicely moving moments too, written in an easy style, marred only by some flatness in the writing and some over-the-top cartoonish characterisations amongst the walk-on parts. For those who aren’t concerned about that, I recommend this book, but for me it was enough to keep it to three stars.

Sci-Fi Review: 'Hollow World' by Michael J Sullivan

This is a break away from fantasy for the author, but not very far. It’s technically science fiction - a guy builds a time machine in his Detroit garage, and after a diagnosis of terminal cancer he decides he has nothing to lose by trying it out. He sets things up for a jump two hundred years into the future, where, if he’s really lucky and survives the jump at all, there may be a cure. But - oops, slight miscalculation, and here we are two thousand years on. There’s a certain amount of arm-waving about quantum this and that, but the sciencey bits are not what this is all about. To be honest, it felt a lot like a portal story, where an ordinary joe from the present day finds himself in - well, alternate universe, past, future, whatever. So I’d say it’s as much fantasy as science fiction.

The future the author draws for the reader is an interesting one. Humans have abandoned the surface of the planet altogether after a series of ecological disasters destabilised everything, and now live in the Hollow World of the title, giant caverns using advanced technology to recreate a pseudo-earth environment. Given the ability to create pretty much everything they need, people fill their days with art, or entertainment, travelling through portals or - well, whatever they want to do. They are also immortal, and virtually everyone is build to a universal genderless pattern, the only way to distinguish one individual from another being a chip embedded in one shoulder. Again, there’s a certain amount of arm-waving over the science, but it worked perfectly well for me.

If the science isn’t a big part of the story, the author brings his traditional strengths to bear - compelling characters and an action-packed roller-coaster of a ride that leaves you on the edge of your seat. There are murders and mysterious people who are trying to kill our hero, a renegade setting himself up as a cult leader, a conspiracy and finally a big world-ending threat that has to be tackled head on because the clock is ticking... There were moments when I had to put the book down momentarily to remind myself to breathe.

As for the characters, there’s only one who matters - Pax, the genderless future-person, one of millions of identical people, who nevertheless turns out to be very much an individual. You wouldn’t think it possible for a clone (and that’s essentially what he is) to be differentiated from his/her/its compatriots, but Pax is one of those characters who just leaps off the page, larger than life and quite unforgettable. Because he’s neither male nor female, almost everything he does, or rather the way he does it, calls into question our own attitudes to the two genders. Just writing this paragraph underlines the difficulty - I’ve resorted to called Pax ‘he’ by default, and he Pax isn’t either he or she. It’s a testament to Mr Sullivan’s writing skill that he (definitely a he! even without the famous moustache, now sadly consigned to history) side-steps the issue so deftly. I don’t think he ever uses a gendered pronoun for any of the Hollow World residents. I’ll admit to not being too sure about Pax to start with (we do like to put everyone in boxes, and you just can’t with Pax), but by the mid-point Pax was definitely my favourite character.

The rest of the characters, even our time travelling hero himself, Ellis, seem a bit grey and dull by comparison. His pal Warren is something of a caricature, his wife Peggy never gets a chance to shine, and few of the Hollow World residents stand out (Sol, maybe, and the AI vox Alva, with an honourable mention for the Geomancers - I loved their yay! a crisis! attitude). It’s not at all that they’re poorly drawn (they’re mostly great characters and in other circumstances I’d be raving about them), they only seem slightly flat by comparison with Pax, who is the true hero star of the show.

The real joy of ‘Hollow World’ is the many themes that weave through every page of it. Themes like gender, the purpose of religion, what God is, traditionalism versus modernism, immortality, individualism, the nature of insanity, the meaning of love and a thousand more. It may sound churlish to complain, because too much SFF writing these days is lightweight, but in some ways there are almost too many layers of meaning here, too many themes crammed in. Then there were points where a character would declaim at some length about a certain philosophy, which is perhaps an unsubtle approach. But the author never beats us over the head with his own take on it. He simply allows his characters to express their own point of view and leaves it up to the reader to make up his/her (aargh!) mind.

This is a clever and thought-provoking story, with loads of interesting ideas, some adrenalin-pumping action and plenty of humour. It took a little while to get going (the real world is always duller than an imaginary one), and some of Warren’s diatribes sagged a bit, but overall an entertaining read with Pax being one of my favourite characters of the year. A good four stars.

Mystery Review: 'The Cuckoo's Calling' by Robert Galbraith (aka J K Rowling)

Well, well, well. J K Rowling has balls after all, publishing under a pseudonym and gathering some good reviews and typical mid-list debut author sales rankings along the way, until she was accidentally outed. Maybe next time she'll self-publish and keep her identity a secret until she's ready to reveal it.

I was never much attracted to ‘The Casual Vacancy’ but murder mysteries are right up my alley. This one, set in London, features a superstar model who apparently jumps off a balcony to her death, but her brother is convinced she was murdered. Enter Cormoran Strike, an ex-soldier with a surprisingly classy and rich ex-girlfriend, and a not very successful private eye business. Robin Ellacott is his new temp, starry-eyed about her recent engagement.

A straightforward genre book of this type, presumably the first of a series, succeeds or fails largely on the strength of the main character, and to be honest I can’t work out whether Cormoran Strike works or not. On the one hand, he has all the typical hallmarks of his type - ex-military police, invalided out of the army, now down on his luck, girlfriend’s thrown him out, hounded for debts and sleeping in the office. So far, so standard. Yet beneath the bluff exterior, he’s a painstaking and intelligent detective, methodically tracking down potential witnesses, interviewing them with tedious thoroughness and carefully writing up his notes every night. Despite sleeping in the office and living on pot noodles and Chinese takeaways, he manages to shower every day and do his laundry, even the ironing. It’s as if the author couldn’t quite bring herself to make him a complete slob.

The big question for me, is why exactly was he down on his luck and in debt in the first place? He’s had a good (ie well-paid) job in the army, and presumably now has a reasonable pension from being blown up on active duty. He’s clearly very good at what he does, he has friends, plus an endless supply of useful contacts for information or computer hacking skills, he doesn’t routinely drink to excess or gamble or indulge in other expensive habits. He’s had a very posh (ie rich) girlfriend with whom he lived for a number of years, so he’s not even had to put a roof over his head. So why is he in debt? Maybe this will be revealed later, but for now it makes little sense.

His sidekick, Robin, is less of a mystery. She’s moved to London to be closer to her fiance, so while she’s clearly overqualified and far too inventive to be a low-rent temp, she was supposed to be only passing through on the way to better things. She is conveniently good at computer searches and play-acting, though. There’s probably much more backstory to be revealed about her, but for now the little we know is enough. And, like Strike, she’s a likeable character. The other characters are a mixed collection of the rich and famous, or the tail-end of society, all of them nicely delineated and very believable.

The plot follows the usual pattern: as Strike interviews one person after another, little clues are revealed about the victim, her lifestyle, her friends and relationships, and ultimately the truth about the night she died. This is handled in a fairly predictable, not to say pedestrian, way. The interviews are long in themselves, and when interspersed with chatter about what people are eating and drinking (‘Another one?’; ‘Yeah, I’ll have a lager, thanks.’; Strike went to the bar and ordered... zzz) they seem interminable and banal. But the murder mystery itself I found intriguing. It sucked me in exactly the way it was supposed to: so who did she phone up? and why did the woman downstairs hear talking? and who were those guys running away? I liked it.

I do have some grumbles though. Someone should point out to the author that jumping from one point of view character to another without warning is seriously disruptive. There are only two main characters with points of view, Strike and Robin, but the view hops from one to the other without any indication. Every time I came across this I stopped, said ‘what just happened?’ and had to go back and reread. It’s an annoyance. The other big annoyance are those long, convoluted sentences with several sub-clauses in them. Here’s a random example:

“He behaved, in Lucy’s terms, well throughout the rest of the party, devoting himself in the main to defusing brewing arguments between various overexcited children, then barricading himself behind a trestle table covered in jelly and ice cream, thus avoiding the intrusive interest of the prowling mothers.”

Many, many times I ground to a halt, losing the thread, and had to reread. Yet another annoyance: the intrusive name-dropping. Do we really need to know that Strike drinks Doom Bar beer, that the victim’s laptop was a Dell, the exact brand of cigarette smoked? Then there’s the mention of ‘the election’ and references to Gordon Brown. None of this seems to have any relevance to the plot [* but see below], and only serves to ensure that the story will very quickly seem dated. None of these are mistakes, exactly, but they do disturb the flow when reading. But there are moments in the second half when the writing is right on the nose. Here’s the description of the victim’s mother:

“The dying woman wore a thick ivory-coloured bed jacket and reclined, dwarfed by her carved wooden bed, on many white pillows. No trace of Lady Bristow’s youthful prettiness remained. The raw bones of the skeleton were clearly delineated now, beneath fine skin that was shiny and flaking. Her eyes were sunken, filmy and dim, and her wispy hair, fine as a baby’s, was grey against large expanses of pink scalp. Her emaciated arms lay limp on top of the covers, a catheter protruded. Her death was an almost palpable presence in the room, as though it stood waiting patiently, politely, behind the curtains.”

On the whole, though, everything about the book works well enough without ever being mind-blowing. The murder grabbed me right from the start and each little reveal kept me turning the pages for the next. The ending is carefully thought out, with every loose end neatly tied up and everything logical (although stretching credibility, but that’s par for the course in the genre). Did I guess the identity of the murderer? No, I had no clue at all, even though the motive was fairly obvious. So full marks for the sleight of hand. The methodical detective and his implausibly creative secretary are a nicely likeable pair, and I’ll certainly look out for the next in the series. Four stars.

[*] It’s interesting, in view of the revelation that nominal author Robert Galbraith is actually J K Rowling, to consider the role of the press in the story, specifically the paparazzi who are described as buzzing like flies in the book’s opening, and are ever-present in the lives of the rich, famous and beautiful people who make up most of the principal characters. In particular, the phone hacking of the victim herself affects her actions and, in retrospect, makes it very difficult for the police to work out what she did on the last day of her life and, ultimately, why she was killed. The reference to ‘the election’ dates the story to 2010, a point when the initial scandal about the hacking of royalty and celebrities (including Rowling) had died down without action taken. It was only in mid-2011, when it was revealed that the mobile phone of a child murder victim had been hacked, that public opinion was sufficiently incensed to trigger the usual round of inquiries and commissions and more serious police investigations, leading eventually to arrests. Rowling herself was one of those who gave evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. So it may be that ‘The Cuckoo’s Calling’ is just one long diatribe about press intrusion. Still a nice piece of work, though.

Fantasy Review: 'Emperor of Thorns' by Mark Lawrence

It's a strange thing, but I had 'Prince of Thorns' sitting on my Kindle for a full year before I got round to reading it. I'd read the reviews, I knew something of what it was about, I knew it would be good, but I kept putting it off. Part of me felt: well, it's probably not as good as the rumours have it, I'll only be disappointed so no point in rushing. Eventually, when not just the second but the third book in the trilogy was imminent, I grudgingly made the time for it. And it blew me away. The second part, 'King of Thorns', was a spottier affair with some creakiness, but I loved it despite those weaknesses. And here I am with the final part of the story, and I already know it really is final. The author has said there will be no more.

A brief recap, with spoilers for books 1 and 2: Jorg is still king of the tiny mountain kingdom of Renar, but since his defeat of the Prince of Arrow, he's acquired several more kingdoms. He's married to Miana, an alliance which secured the help of his maternal kin in the battle against Arrow. This book has moved on a year or two, and Miana is now pregnant. The primary timeline is the journey to Vyene, the seat of the emperor, for the four-yearly congression where the petty kings and their ever-shifting allegiances try to agree on a new emperor. To vote on the matter, no less. I really like the idea of electing an emperor in a world of swords and castles and constant border wars. You’d think it would be settled on the battlefield, and to some extent it is (that’s how Jorg acquired some of his votes, after all), but in the end everyone gets together and negotiates. The secondary timeline carries on with the flashback sequence from book 2, with Jorg ambling about at the behest of the 'ghost in the machine', Fexler Brews (is that an anagram?), and grubbing around in the almost-but-not-quite-functional left-overs of the long-ago Builders’ world. There are other occasional flashbacks tossed out here and there, as appropriate. And instead of the strained device of Katherine's diary, we get the journey of Chella, the necromancer.

For almost half the book, I was just a little disappointed. Many of the complaints I had about the second book are here again: the disjointed timeline that hops about, the seemingly random traveling through the landscape. The writing is not exactly lacklustre, the author is too adept for that, but it's very repetitious in places. I'd like a pound for everyone who spat, or for every time giving birth was described as squeezing out a baby. Meh. But then suddenly everything cranks up a gear and we're back with lots of glorious Jorgness and all's right with the world again.

Jorg is a much more mature person now, although still prone to outbreaks of kill-everything temper. But he's beginning to think more carefully about the consequences of his actions, and when he goes walkabout, he takes care to leave the rest of the crew behind out of harm's way. When he does kill he has a reason for it (although yes, sometimes it's pure revenge), and he takes care to leave the minimum of blameworthy mess behind him. He has more than just himself and his fellow road-brothers to consider - there's the imminent arrival of his firstborn, and that’s an interesting challenge for him and no mistake. How will Jorg take to fatherhood, given his dire relationship with his own father?

None of the other characters quite rise to three-dimensional roundedness. He still has his sidekicks, Makin, Rike, Marten and so on, who have developed a solidity through familiarity, and a variety of lesser characters pass through his life, but they are no more than momentary glimpses. That's appropriate, however, since this is entirely Jorg's story, told in the first person, so we see these people as he sees them and when he moves on, they're gone. This being our world in some future time (a thousand or more years in the future), it's disappointing how much cultural baggage seems to have been carried along. The Catholic church, the African man who was an ex-slave, the Muslim Arab world - given the enormity of the 'Day of a Thousand Suns', the apocalyptic event a thousand or so years ago, and the number of people who must have died, and the turmoil since, it's astonishing that any cultural norms survived unscathed. A thousand years is a very long time.

A word about women in Jorg's world. It's striking that all the dynamic characters are men. Men run most of the petty kingdoms, and beyond that there are few women even mentioned. Just occasionally a woman turns up where a man might be expected (a female Pope? Really? Even a thousand years from now? Did hell freeze over in the interim?), but generally speaking the female characters are an insignificant part of the plot. The men run kingdoms or wave swords about, but the women, not so much. Miana, a truly strong, proactive female, is only there as a single strike get-out-of-jail-free card in book 2, and to produce the son and heir in book 3. There is a moment at the very end where Miana is the blindingly obvious choice for one specific role, but no, Makin is chosen instead. Disappointing. Katherine does better, at least having an agenda of her own (even if I wasn’t always clear why she did certain things), but she is also sexual fantasy and motivation for Jorg, and her magic, cool as it is, is not much more than a convenient plot device. I would have loved her to do something truly worthwhile in the big finale, but no, she seems to have just as little purpose in this book as in book 2. And Chella? More sexual fantasy and plot device. As for the female Pope, I'm not sure whether that was a random gender-neutral choice, or whether Lawrence is actually making a point about organised religion here, but whatever the reason for it, I loved how Jorg dealt with her. Way to go, Jorg!

There are various aspects of the plot which come together beautifully as the book develops. One is the straightforward political story - the fractured empire with the unremitting squabbling for supremacy amongst those who see themselves as entitled to claim the emperor’s throne. Then there is the slowly revealed world left behind by the Builders, with their high-tech gizmos, some of which have survived intact, even though their original functions may have been long forgotten. There’s a cool game observant readers can play - spotting which modern device is actually masquerading as an unfathomably mysterious Builder artifact. Finally, there is magic - inadvertently released into the world by a Builder-created catastrophe and over time spinning increasingly out of control, so that even the dead walk again, led by the mysterious Dead King.

Then there’s the ending. There are several shifts before things come to a final stop, and some are as expected, and some are predictable in one way or another, and some are moments where I thought: ah, yes, I see where this is going. Except that it didn't. And then a final switch that I didn't see coming at all, but it is utterly brilliant and entirely fitting. Ever since I finished reading, the story has been swirling round in my head. I go to sleep thinking about it. I wake up thinking about it. It’s rare for a book to get under my skin quite so much. Partly that’s due to the towering personality of Jorg himself, both boy and man. Whether you love him or hate him, he’s totally unforgettable. Partly, too, it’s the unusual combination of medieval-style fantasy plus magic, with the still fuctioning technology of the Builders playing a very active role in events. And partly, of course, it’s the author’s spare writing style and uncompromising approach to telling the story. It may have offended some readers, but it is entirely in keeping with Jorg’s personality.

I'm not going to attempt to describe what these books are 'about'. Everyone who reads them will have a different take on it. For me, it was Jorg's sheer bloody-mindedness which struck a chord. If someone told him he couldn't do something, his usual response was: just watch me. Something in me just loves that about him. Yes, he was a mess, an evil bastard who slaughtered his way to the top without remorse. Yet there were occasional hints about the normal well-meaning person he might have been if life had treated him better. There’s a flashback to a point when he’s about ten or so, and to earn the respect of his road brothers he volunteers to spy out the thieving possibilities of an abbey by joining as an orphan. He’s set to work with the other orphans:

“It turns out there’s a certain satisfaction in digging. Levering your dinner from the ground, lifting the soil and pulling fine hard potatoes from it, thinking of them roasted, mashed, fried in oil, it’s all good. Especially if it wasn’t you who had to tend and weed the field for the previous six months. Labour like that empties the mind and lets new thoughts wander in from unsuspected corners. And in the moments of rest, when we orphans faced each other, mud-cheeked, leaning on our forks, there’s a camaraderie that builds without you knowing it. By the end of the day I think the big lad, David, could have called me an idiot a second time and survived.”

I don’t think it gives away too much to say that Jorg’s time at the abbey doesn’t end well (it’s a flashback, after all), but for me this scene is the most poignant in the whole trilogy.

For those who hated the first book because of the way Jorg is - his propensity to kill, rape and otherwise cause havoc wherever he goes - you might like to know that this book puts his behaviour in a different perspective. Yes, he's done some terrible things, and he does a few more in this book, but in the end his willingness to cross lines and think the unthinkable, his determination, his inability to compromise and his desire to put himself on the emperor's throne whatever the cost are exactly what's needed to take the final step to mend the Broken Empire. It had to be done, and it took a long time for the right person to come along. If Jorg is an extreme example of humankind, it's because he needed to be.

This book, indeed the whole series, isn’t perfect. Nothing is. It is lumpy in places, and slow in others, and sometimes Jorg is too over-the-top for words. But it’s also sharply funny and slyly clever, and written in an incisive, focused style that makes a refreshing change from a lot of rambling fantasy. And that’s another question - is it even fantasy at all, since it veers so close to science fiction? To my mind, it transcends genre classifications altogether, and enters the realm of greatness. Whatever you call it, it’s a masterpiece of in-depth character analysis, with an ingeniously interwoven setting and a mind-blowing and absolutely right ending. A fine piece of writing. Five stars.

Fantasy Review: 'King of Thorns' by Mark Lawrence

Ah, that difficult middle book of the trilogy! The one that carries all the baggage of the first without the freshness, while also setting up the climax of the third without being able to resolve the big questions. All too often it feels like drifting - there’s motion of a sort, but it’s slow or undirected. There’s an element of that here. What seems like the main plot, the massive army of the Prince of Arrows camped at Jorg’s gate, seems to play second fiddle to the flashback story which feels like nothing so much as a road trip. If it had a magic gizmo to be found or a Big Bad to defeat, we could call it a quest, but actually it just feels like ambling through the scenery. Look, a circus. And some Vikings. Here’s a swamp, and some ghosts, and ooh! zombies! And now let’s visit the family. Wait, now we’ve got a sort of murder mystery. It’s all a bit choppy. Of course, even a road trip is brilliant fun with Jorg.

To recap: the fourteen-year-old who grabbed a throne as part of his revenge plot in book 1 is now eighteen, getting married and simultaneously facing up to the massive army of the would-be emperor, the Prince of Arrows. Interspersed with that are flashbacks starting four years earlier, filling in some of the missing four years. As if that wasn’t enough, there are also snippets from the journal of Katherine, Jorg’s step-aunt, for whom he has the hots, which are also flashbacks and also reveal crucial information just when the author wants to. And on top of all that is possibly the most outrageous device ever for witholding information from the reader - the memory box. This is an ingenious twist on the old bump on the head amnesia trick; Jorg has done something so terrible that the memory of it has been taken from his mind and put into a box. So we get little reveals trickled out over the whole course of the book as Jorg almost-but-not-quite opens the box.

I have to be honest and say that I found these different threads confusing. In ‘Prince of Thorns’, there was a now plot and a four-years-ago plot, and the two wove together very well. Here, the multiple timelines meant that more than once I had a wait-I-thought-he-was-dead moment, and had to think quite carefully to work it out. It’s very disconcerting to grieve over the death of a character one moment only to have him appear alive and well a few pages later. Sometimes it felt like there was a page or three missing. At one point, Katherine turns up with the Brothers - why? How did that happen? And the calculated dribbling of those reveals felt quite contrived, especially the big one at the end, which borders on cheating.

The background to this world continues to open up in intriguing ways. When I read 'Prince', there was still room for a tiny sliver of doubt about this post-apocalyptic world, that perhaps it might be some parallel but freakishly similar world to our own, almost the same but not quite. Not any longer. Even in a universe of infinite possibilities, there can surely only be one world which has 'American Pie' in it. We get to see some of the Builders’ devices, and find out what the Tall Tower really is (or was, perhaps). I have to say, I’m not sure that I buy into the idea that such things could last a thousand years unscathed. I assume the Builders’ heyday was a little after our own, with technology just a bit more advanced.

Jorg has matured somewhat, which is hardly surprising. In the earlier parts, when he’s still around fourteen or so, he still has his let’s-just-do-this attitude, where he listens carefully to advice (“This is a bad idea, Jorg”) and then cheerfully ignores it. He’s still reckless and careless of his own (or anyone else’s) welfare. But by the latest time shown here (when he’s eighteen), he is definitely on top of his game, showing an astonishing degree of forward planning, and becoming quite philosophical to boot. He deals unexpectedly gently with his bride, Miana, and while he’s never exactly sentimental, he’s certainly less cavalier with his friends.

I have to say that Miana is one of my all time favourite fantasy princesses. She smart and resourceful and apparently just as likely to take the spectacular one-shot chance as Jorg, and she probably has the funniest lines in the book. Katherine, on the other hand - not sure what to make of her. I’m not at all sure what Jorg sees in her, except that she’s unattainable and therefore he’s determined to get her. Meh. The rest of the characters - I have to confess that I found the Brothers fairly undistinguishable. It’s not that they don’t have differences, it’s more that I can never remember which one is which. Plus Jorg sheds them like dandruff; no point getting attached to a character that could be dead two pages further on. Of the others, I liked Uncle Robert and Makin and Gog and the big guy (Gorgoth?). And the Vikings - gotta love the Vikings.

With book 1, I had very little to grumble about, and this review seems like a catalogue of complaints by contrast. Doesn’t matter. Jorg’s wild journey to the emperor’s throne is as compelling as ever. Lawrence has a wonderfully vivid writing style which makes even the craziest moments pop out into stark 3D relief, so that images linger unforgettably. In the cave with Ferrakind and Gog. The ghost in the basement. Miana and the ruby. The swamp. And the dog - ye gods, the dog. I’m sitting here trying not to cry just thinking about it. I rarely find books that have such emotional depth, and there’s also an intellectual depth, if I could only tear myself away from the racing story for a second to ponder it. I like Lawrence’s economical way with words, too; he never uses twenty or even ten words where four will do, but every one chosen with surgical precision.

I know not everyone approves of Jorg’s style. He’s basically a villain, a lying, cheating scumbag, and there’s a wonderful contrast here with the heroic Prince Orrin of Arrow, the honourable selfless leader that everyone likes. His meeting with Jorg early in the book is heart-rending. But this is not a story of heroes, and I loved watching Jorg’s progress. Yes, he cheats, he’s prepared to do whatever it takes to win, but he’s smart, he’s endlessly creative, he’s wickedly funny and he never hesitates to put his own life on the line. This book isn’t quite as smooth as the first book, but it’s still an astonishing performance. Five stars. And now on to ‘Emperor’...

Fantasy Review: 'Prince of Thorns' by Mark Lawrence

I’m late to this particular party and no mistake. Not just fashionably late, but so late that the lights are out, everyone’s moved on, even the next party’s winding down and the champagne’s on ice for the one after that. Which is a convoluted way of saying that the third part of the trilogy is upon us and here I am just getting round to reading the debut. And what a debut it is. When this was released in 2011 it caused a furore. Jorg, the lead character, was too young, too misogynistic, too murderously violent, too heartless, too psychopathic, quite simply too unredeemable. Maybe so, but he is also utterly compelling. Jorg is surely one of the great characters of fantasy, and his story grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go for an instant.

Brief synopsis for the three people who don't know the premise: Jorg is the eldest son and heir to a petty king in a land of innumerable such petty kings, who spend their lives scrabbling to get to the top of the heap on the backs of others. The always out of reach prize: a winner-takes-all seat as top dog of the broken empire. Jorg's mother and younger brother were slaughtered by another king, and Jorg only survives because he was tossed into a thornbush and overlooked. When he learns that his father dealt with this assassination by making a pragmatic trade agreement and taking a second wife, he vows bloody revenge. His journey to achieve that revenge, told in flashback to the time of the murders, when he's nine/ten, and later, when he's thirteen/fourteen, is the story of this book.

The genius touch is that it's told in first person, from Jorg's point of view. So no matter how vicious and conscienceless and reckless he is, the reader can always understand what drives him at that particular moment. Even when he has no rational reason for his actions, when he seems to be randomly poking sticks at powerful and dangerous people just to see what happens, it's perfectly believable - the what-if curiosity of a boy pulling wings off butterflies, the reckless trail of destruction of an adolescent who doesn’t care about the consequences because he has no reason to care.

Many critics have said Jorg is too young to be the credible leader of a group of battle-scarred outlaws. I don't agree. Jorg has been raised from birth to be a leader of men, in an environment where children grow up fast, and besides, all the outlaws owed him their lives and freedom. They chose to follow him, and he was smart enough to give them whatever they needed to keep them happy enough to (ultimately) do what he wanted them to. Is he misogynistic? Well, duh - teenage boy, of course he's misogynistic, he's at an age when he sees every female as a walking tits-and-vagina. What thirteen year old boy wouldn't fill his life with guilt-free rape and pillage and mindless slaughter if he could just shed the cloak of civilisation?

Of course Jorg is psychopathic, but who can help sympathising with him after all that's been done to him? He's been at the receiving end of so much evil, even from his own father and uncle, that it's not surprising he's become evil himself. Frankly, I totally enjoyed some of his least glorious moments, the times when he couldn't win by any straightforward and honourable means, so he cheated. I cheered and punched the air at that brilliantly underhand fight with Galen in his father's throne room, for example. Because no matter how bad he is, I was rooting for him every step of the way.

The author doesn't go into much detail with the background. It's not clear to me whether this is our own world in a post-apocalyptic distant future or some parallel but eerily similar world, although it probably doesn't matter. The hints of long-lost technology, of magic and ghosts and demons, of (perhaps) post-nuclear mutations are fascinating, and I look forward to finding out more. There’s enough here to support the plot, although it takes some suspension of disbelief to accept that a post-advanced-technology world would descend into quite such a quaint medieval castles-and-swords scenario. But - whatever. It works for me.

If Jorg is drawn in vivid fluorescent colours, the supporting cast is painted in much more muted and murky shades, occasionally illuminated by a sharp flash of light. The outlaws could have had depth if they weren’t discarded one by one when their usefulness was spent, like a trail of autumn leaves littering the plot. Just when you get to know one, bang, he’s gone and with barely a second thought on Jorg’s part. Which is, of course, entirely in line with his personality at this point. Life is a game, and if you get too close to the playing pieces, you only get hurt. Use them however you have to and don’t waste time agonising over it.

The most interesting character to me was Jorg’s father, a king who never showed the slightest care for or interest in his eldest son and heir. That’s an unusual position to take, since the whole point of a hereditary monarchy is to nurture your offspring well enough to take over the running of the kingdom. I’m not sure how much of that was his own twisted personality and how much was outside influences affecting his judgment. Not sure I’m prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt, so let’s just say he’s a total bastard and be done with it.

There were one or two other places where I wondered about motivation. Katherine, for instance, was a bit of a puzzle. She dislikes Jorg because of Galen, yet she unaccountably decides to help him. Sounds suspiciously like ‘because the plot required it’ to me. Sometimes the magic seemed a little bit convenient too, but that's in the nature of magic so I can let it go. For those who like ghosts and monsters and necromancers and all-round creepy things, there's enough here for all tastes, flitting in and out of Jorg's life like glow-in-the-dark moths.

This is not a book for everyone. People seem to love it or hate it, and the very first chapter is as polarising as anything in the book. We first see Jorg and his pals joyously slaughtering the men of an entire village, scavenging the bodies for valuables and collecting the heads as macabre souvenirs. Then, just as cheerfully, they set about raping as many of the women as they can, before burning the village and all survivors. And it's not merely what they do, but the cheerful, joky way Jorg relates the tale that will either horrify or, frankly, amuse. I loved the humour, but obviously not everyone responds that way.

For those who find it reprehensible to portray a main character who is not merely unheroic but so wicked that he seems unredeemable I would say: this is exactly what fantasy is for, to explore the otherwise unthinkable. Not every book has to portray an Enid Blyton world view, where bad people get their come-uppance and good people always triumph in the end. Sometimes the story of one abnormally evil person, however it ends, is more illuminating than a hundred more balanced portrayals. This is an utterly compelling portrait of a young man growing up in a society which seems to reward the dishonourable. It will be fascinating to see where the author takes Jorg and how much wisdom he gains in maturity. And whether he even survives, of course. A brilliantly conceived and written book. Five stars.

Fantasy Novellas Review: 'The Dark Elf of Syron' by Laura Lond

This is a set of three novellas which combine to form one longer story. The first part, 'The Prisoner', is beautifully done, with a wonderfully mysterious and quite spine-chilling atmosphere. The second part, 'The Knight', is still very readable but loses a little of the atmosphere. The third part, 'The King', gets a bit bogged down in politics and loses traction a little, but ends on a fine note.

The three stories together form a complete whole, or perhaps I should say a potentially complete whole. The story arc is resolved with a satisfactory flourish (although with plenty of room for possible future development), but many elements seem quite skeletal. The characters, in particular, are not quite fully fleshed out. The world-building is very solid and well thought out, but the little glimpses we catch here and there of how things work are tantalising; more detail would have been welcome. I would have liked to know more about the religious system, for instance, and how the power of the light works in this world. I'm a big fan of not info-dumping the background, but this was a little too minimalist for my taste.

The main character, the elf, is quite compelling, although we weren't given much detail about him but the gradual reveal of who he is and his powers was masterfully done. However, although some development is expected, even in a piece as short as this, and it was always clear why he changed, I still didn't find his transformation entirely credible. Again, a little more time spent on fleshing out the character would have been good. Of the other characters, the good ones seem a little too good, sometimes, especially Lenora and Fredric. The king's mixed motives seemed believably human, although he was rather too stupid at the end. The prison warden, Captain Torren, I liked very much. This was an excellent portrayal of an honourable man caught in an extremely difficult situation, and trying to do the best he could.

It may be that the author intends to pad this out to novel length at some point, in which case undoubtedly the rather unfinished nature of this material will be irrelevant. Even if not, a final editing polish wouldn't go amiss; I didn't spot any errors, but there were a few slightly clunky lines which a little rewording would deal with. I cringed, for instance, when the elf said he would 'holler'. This may seem like a long list of criticisms, but it’s more a matter of frustration that the book was so short - I would have liked much more. Despite my grumbles, none of them affected my enjoyment of the book, which I found very readable. Four stars.

Fantasy Review: 'The Scars of Ambition' by Jason Letts

I really have no idea what to make of this. I don’t even know what genre it is. It comes complete with maps of an imaginary world, with two continents with places like the Cetaline Mountains, the Seasand Desert and the Boiling Sea. There’s magic and sword-waving tribes and dragons, of a sort. So it must be epic fantasy, right? But then it has electricity, planes and trains and mobile phones (cellphones), and some kind of internet. The early chapters are focused on a boardroom squabble between two energy companies, one based on gas power, the other on solar. So it’s a corporate thriller? Energy-punk? Cyber-punk? Search me.

The story focuses around the Bracken family - Lowell, the head of the gas energy company, his ex-wife Tris, and his three children, Sierra, being groomed to take over the company, Randall, a politician, and Taylor, just off to university. They are wealthy and respected, so life seems set fair, but of course there are storms brewing. No surprise there. I found it rather pleasant to see a family as the hub of a fantasy novel. Usually the protagonist is an orphan, or at the very least scarred by his or her dark past. But these seem like normal folks with normal problems - Sierra struggling to make her mark at work and dealing with an obnoxious co-worker, and Taylor showing off to his college pals and trying to get laid.

I confess to having some difficulty with the juxtaposition of seemingly modern people and situations, yet with traditional fantasy elements in the mix as well. Much of the story concerns office politics (and some actual politics, as well), which feels just like a contemporary work, but sometimes the transition to an outbreak of magic or some difference between the created world and the real world was too jarring for my taste. It’s very difficult to invent a world which has many aspects of modern life yet still feels believably ‘other’, and for me it didn’t quite work.

A couple of problems. One is credibility. The CEO of one power company makes an arrangement to visit the CEO of his opposite number, something that’s never happened before. That would be a huge deal, with all the senior executives present, and a metric ton of minders on all the doors, just in case of trouble. But no, he walks into the boardroom unannounced and overhears a secret conversation. No, I don’t think so. Let’s not even mention the daughter who decides on a whim to take a bag lady home to live with her, just because said bag lady has a cute little dragon. Or the son who finds himself in the midst of a cult that wants to drink his blood: 'Oh, all right then...'. Who signs a blood pact without even asking any questions, like - will I survive? And will there be hideous long-term consequences?

Then there’s one power company boss’s brilliant idea to send someone overseas to buy up essential components needed by the other power company. It has to be someone who can’t possibly be traced back to the company. I know, let’s send the boss’s ex-wife, Tris. You know, the one who's never been abroad and who's only skill is in growing and arranging flowers. Just the ticket for a critical and highly secret corporate mission, and no one will ever connect her to the company... so that's really going to work well. Not.

The other problem is the, at times, heavy-handed writing style.

‘But Lux produced a much more intriguing weapon from the back of his pants: a gun with the hammer positioned to come down on a pale green stone, which was lodged against a small three-pronged rack feeding little metal pebbles into the back of the tube.
“Oh my, that’s Florjium. You can only find it in Didjubus and it’s acidic,” [Tris] said. The man glanced at her, not comprehending. “When you hit that stone to shoot the metal bullets, the toxins from the stone also hurt you!” '

Florjium - oh my! From Didjubus, even. A couple of questions arise from that: how would Tris know so much about it? A flower or a strange plant she might recognise, but a rare mineral? And, even if she’s somehow an expert, all that explanation would be much better as exposition rather than clunky dialogue. Throughout the book, the writing style seems rather flat, and loses much of the tension from the action sequences.

None of this would matter if the plot worked, but for me it just didn't hang together. A lot of things happen to the various characters, but it all seems fairly random and none of it makes much sense. Everything that happens to Tris, for instance - why? Why do the people she interacts with treat her that way? Why is Taylor (the teenage son) of any interest to the blood-drinking cult? It makes no sense. I need to understand people’s motivations to really get swept up in the story, but here I was constantly saying: huh? Why would he/she do that?

The main characters all seem rather passive, too, simply going along with whatever is happening around them, and surrendering far too easily in the early parts of the book. Some of it was just plain dull to me - the corporate skullduggery, the teenage boy at college, the political machinations... I don't read fantasy for that stuff. Now, there are moments where things get interesting, with hints of magic or the little dragon, the hooded man and the weird cult, and a cool sword fight in the boardroom (yay for swordfights! if there has to be a boardroom then let’s have swordfights in there) - intriguing things that kept me reading to find out more about them. Frankly, I could have done with a lot more of that. And there was plenty of action going on, with suitably villainous villains doing villainous things to our heroes. If the villainous villains seemed a bit on the moustache-twirling end of the spectrum for my taste, there are plenty of readers who like their fantasy black and white, with no messy grey ambiguity to muddy the waters.

As the story plays out, several of the characters change from passivity to taking charge of their lives, and this is absolutely fine. It’s just a pity that in most cases the means for them to do this is simply dropped into their laps. Taylor and Tris simply reversed into their situations, without a single coherent thought, it seems to me, and even Sierra’s moment of decision happens by chance. Only Lowell decides to take measures to make his own good fortune.

On the plus side, this is a highly original blend of traditional fantasy with modern technology, and I applaud the author for the attempt. I like the idea of basing a story around a family, and the fundamental message is a good one, if portrayed a little heavy-handedly. There are some imaginative touches which work well, and if it wasn't really my cup of tea, there are many readers who enjoy this kind of straightforward tale of basically good people trying to make the world a better place (and get rich or laid at the same time). Two stars, and a small cheer for the swordfights; all corporate mergers and takeovers should be decided by the CEOs personally using swords, in my opinion.

Fantasy Short Story Review: 'The Bone Knife' by Intisar Khanani

I’m a huge fan of the author, having given five stars to both ‘Thorn’ and ‘Sunbolt’, so this was a must-have for me. It’s a charming little short story, a prequel to a future novel, with all the author’s trademarks: great characters, a well-defined setting and an intriguing plot, beautifully written, creating an altogether beguiling experience.

Rae is the eldest of three sisters, who live with their parents. No, the main character isn’t an orphan, isn’t mistreated and actually has a great relationship with her siblings and parents, a refreshing change from so much fantasy. But Niya, the middle sister, has a secret: a talent for magic, which she uses in delightfully domestic ways, enhancing the bread or the stitches in the curtains. But in this world, magic-users are obliged to be trained as mages and serve the king, so Niya has to keep her ability hidden. Into this placid setting comes potential trouble, a man wanting to buy horses. He just happens to be a faerie...

It’s difficult in a short story to create characters who have any real depth, but the author carries this off with aplomb. Rae, the girl with a clubfoot, sneered at and ignored by the villagers, is also intelligent and resourceful. The rest of the family have their own distinctive personalities. But the star of the show is the faerie, a creature both frightening and eerily compelling at the same time, and very much ‘other’, something not human. He steals every scene he’s in, frankly, and I hope we see more of him in the full-length novel.

My only quibble with the story is that the villagers seem to be rather different from Rae and her family. In short, they are somewhat lacking in common sense, and I’m not sure why they are so overtly hostile towards the faerie, when Rae’s father is quite happy to do business with him. It may be that there’s some reason behind that, which isn’t being made clear, but it struck me as odd. It’s a very small point, however.

I really enjoyed this, but be warned: it is very short, and stopped at 47% on my Kindle, the rest being taken up with samples of the author’s other works. A good four stars.

Paranormal Thriller: 'Reviver' by Seth Patrick

Such a tricky one to categorise: a real genre-bender. There are shades of sci-fi, but it’s a flimsy connection - no squids in space and it’s (more or less) present day. It might be called fantasy, but there are no truly fantastical elements like magic or dragons or demons. It’s sorta, kinda paranormal - yes, let’s go with that. A paranormal police procedural action thriller...

This is a fascinating premise: certain people have the ability to revive the recently dead and talk to them. The effects only last a short time, but it's enough to allow loved ones the opportunity to say goodbye, or to allow a murder victim to name their killer. The hero here, Jonah, is one such reviver, working with the police to catch villains or, in some cases, to exonerate the most likely suspect. It sounds all good, right? But of course, there's a catch. The act of revival takes a toll, mentally and physically, on those performing it, and sometimes strange things happen. Cue dramatic music...

This is a real curate's egg of a book. Some parts, especially the actual revivals, are absolutely terrific - emotionally engaging, dramatic and oh so spooky, and quite unpredictable (to me, anyway). Other parts I found a total drag. After a great opening chapter, the author feels the need to dump the entire backstory of revivals, and various characters, on our heads. This means, sometimes, entire chapters of dry exposition. Sorry, but I just don't need to know that much, and definitely not all in one go. If parts of the backstory are relevant to the here and now, then dribble it out in small quantities at an appropriate time.

The characters - well, the author has tried his damnedest to give everyone a suitably affecting background so as to make them sympathetic, and to some extent that works because it's relevant to the story. Jonah's history, for instance, led directly to his becoming a reviver, and moreover a certain type of reviver which becomes crucial later in the story (not wanting to give too much away here), so I can accept that. But somehow it never quite worked for me. I never really cared much about any of them. The main problem, though, is way too many characters. There must be dozens of named characters here, and I just can't keep that many straight in my head. Towards the end, several dramatic reappearances were spoiled for me because I was saying: who?

Towards the end, the plot devolves into standard formulaic thriller territory. You know the sort of thing: people suddenly turn up waving weapons of one sort or another, or behaving in increasingly extreme ways, culminating in the giant oh-my-god-we're-all-going-to-die palaver that goes on and on, getting increasingly over the top. And of course, people inevitably stop to explain things to each other, or rush back into the burning building/line of fire/whatever to rescue people they don't even like very much. Unbelievably silly, in fact. I know it's pretty much what everyone expects from this kind of story, but personally I'd much rather the characters behaved sensibly and stayed within their realm of expertise.

Overall, an intriguing premise ripe with possibilities which the author explores quite thoroughly, let down by too much exposition and a way too melodramatic and long-drawn-out finale for my taste. Recommended for fans of all-action high-adrenalin summer-blockbuster-style drama, with a little horror thrown in. Four stars for the spine-chilling revivals, two stars for the info-dumps and three stars for the ending, averaging out at three stars.

Fantasy Romance Review: 'The Conspiracy' by Erica Dakin

This is the second in the 'Theft and Sorcery' series. I really enjoyed the first book, 'The Ritual', and this one is even better. It's not serious or grimdark or heavy or profound, but it is a whole lot of fun. It wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea, let's get that straight right from the start; there's a fair amount of graphic sex, although nothing kinky or disturbing to my eyes, and there's swearing of a similarly earthy nature, so anyone who's bothered by that should steer clear.

Although this book is essentially a stand-alone, it is directly connected to the first book, but set some sixty years later. The two main characters in 'The Ritual', Rin and Zash, turn up again here in a minor role. Being half-elves themselves, a sixty year gap makes them still young and active, not pensioners. The main leads, Sita, the first person point of view, and Kai, both half-elves, are new characters here. Last time, Rin was the thief and Zash a sorcerer, but this time both Kai and Sita are thieves, and Kai is also a sorcerer, a nice twist. The two meet while both are trying to burgle the royal palace, the joke being that Sita actually lives there, but she is being trained on the queen's instructions in various nefarious pursuits, as well as forms of combat.

This is a romance, first and foremost, but that doesn't mean that the fantasy element is perfunctory. The world-building has ramped up somewhat from the first book, where it felt decidedly sketchy. This time, the author fleshes out the political element, and a conspiracy by the various high magistrates (kind of like dukes, ruling a domain of their own) to assassinate the queen. Sita is part of a group sent off with the heir to the throne, Tio; his role is to make a royal tour of the kingdom and cosy up to the magistrates, and hers is to uncover evidence of the conspiracy. As they travel through the countryside, there is some interesting detail of the economic strengths of each one. It isn't very complicated - the coast has fish, the mountains have mines, the warm south has vineyards - but it serves to make the world feel more fleshed out and realistic.

The other aspect that I found interesting is the three races - elf, human and half-elf. In the previous book, elves ran everything, humans filled the equivalent of the middle classes and half-elves were mostly slaves. The end of the story saw a change, with the incoming queen giving all the half-elves citizenship. In this book, we find (unsurprisingly) that not everyone is happy with that situation (hence the assassination plot), and that things are a lot more complicated than they seem. Since elves have low fertility, humans breed like the proverbial rabbits (contraception seems to be unheard of) and half-elves are infertile, there's a lot of potential for sexual exploitation. Male elves in this world are horny devils, and have a thing for human women, hence the numbers of half-elves. This book explores some of the uneasy relationships between the races.

The plot rattles along beautifully. There's plenty of action, some truly dramatic moments and a scary twist at the end - one of those phew-we're-all-safe-oh-no! moments. And yes, of course there's a happy ever after at the end (this is a romance, after all), but there were quite a few heart-stopping, page-turning, gotta-keep-reading incidents along the way. The magic is nothing unusual - muttered incantations, hand-waviness, almost anything goes, although the user gets tired so there is a price to pay. I liked some of Kai's illusions, though; the coloured light thingies sounded lovely. So as a fantasy, this holds up very well.

What about the romance side of things? Short answer - terrific. The relationship between Sita and Kai is perfectly believable, the obstacles (an essential component of any romance) were realistic, even the instant attraction is nicely done. I have to say that Kai is one of the most charming heroes I've ever encountered, with none of the smug arrogance that so often characterises the male lead these days. There were moments when Sita was pushing him away and I was muttering: look, if you don't want him, dear, send him my way. You just don't find blokes as nice as that too often. I had slight issues with him turning out so well after the sort of experiences he'd had, but let's not quibble over that. The sex was well written without being over the top, and there were some moments of pure romance that were perfectly lovely (sigh...). One other aspect that struck me - even though our athletic heroes spent a lot of time screwing each other silly, and the early encounters were given in great detail, the author was restrained enough to skip much of the graphic description for the later episodes, so it never became overly repetitive.

I do have some issues with the morality question. In the first book, the main characters were thieves almost by necessity, since the alternative was slavery. Here, Kai is a thief from choice, and although he attempts to justify that (he only steals one or two items from those rich enough to afford it), it's still fairly questionable. More seriously, there is a point when our heroes decide to kill a number of guards in order to free a lot of slaves. The author doesn't avoid the issue, showing the characters' unease with the decision, but it still made me uncomfortable. The guards were, after all, just paid employees following their boss's orders, not the enemy in a war, and it seemed extreme to kill them. I would have liked it better if a more subtle way could have been found to free them. But it's a minor point.

This was a hugely enjoyable read that had me grinning from ear to ear at times, and was also an exciting page turner. It's not deep, and the characters fall neatly into the good or evil columns (no shades of grey here, moral ambiguities aside), but it's a lot of fun, and both the romance and fantasy elements work very well. Recommended for anyone who enjoys their fantasy entertaining and fast-paced, with a hefty dollop of sex thrown in. A good four stars.

[Edited to remove spoiler - oops!]

Fantasy Review: 'The Light of Kerrindryr' by H Anthe Davis

This could be the world's shortest review. I could just say: this book is piking awesome. Read it. The end.

Or I could tell you exactly why it’s so awesome (a much, much longer review). So let’s do that. Settle down, I’m going to ramble a bit so this may take some time.

I read a lot of debut fantasy, and there's no way to predict exactly what you might get. Even the sample isn't a good guide, because a promising opening can sometimes tail off disappointingly. Mostly, I find them to be varying shades of mediocre; imaginative but ploddingly written, or nicely executed but trite. Very occasionally, something truly exceptional turns up. I've been lucky enough to find a few such gems in the last year or two, and this one is right up there with the best of them. It has great characters, awesome world-building, an incisive writing style and a rapid-fire plot with a surprising twist on almost every page. There’s a slightly slow start with a deluge of hard-to-grasp detail, but once I got past that, the story sucked me in and never let go.

I have to mention the world-building first. There are two kinds of fantasy authors: one kind draws a squiggly-edged continent, adds several kingdoms, three rivers and a mountain range, decides how many gods are in the prevailing religion and - we’re done! On with the story! And then there are those who actually invent worlds. Some are so complex and layed and nuanced that they make our own world look simple. Tolkien invented entire languages for his. Others create architectural styles, clothing, flora and fauna, cultural variations, weaponry, even cutlery. I haven’t found invented cutlery in this book, but pretty much every other detail you could wish for has been thought about. You want to know where the highest rainfall is? [1] Which are the best grain-producing regions? Where the stables are in the army camp? How the ogres count? (Seriously; in base six, if you want to know, which gives the mathematical module in my brain a frisson of pure delight.) And yes, there are languages and fantasy’s second-best invented swearword. [2] The author has it all worked out, starting right at the beginning, with the creation. And the best part of it is that all this world-building isn’t slapped on like theatrical make-up. Instead, there are little snippets here and there, where the story needs it (or lightly brushed on, to continue the make-up analogy). The result feels extraordinarily real. I love it.

Cob, the main character, a slave in the Empire’s army, is frustrating in a lot of ways. He’s seventeen, possibly not the sharpest knife in the drawer, has been messed about with mentally for years (as all potentially rebellious slaves are), and his stubbornness level is set to eleven, at least. He believes absolutely everything he’s been told by his parents and, more recently, by his Empire masters, has a touching faith in their dogmatic religion, and did I mention how stubborn he is? So every time someone tries to help him or rescue him or intervene in any way, he reacts with a certain amount of negativity, shall we say. For much of the book he’s merely a pawn in other people’s machinations, reacting to events (mostly by saying no) and constantly trying to be normal, even when it’s obvious that he really isn’t. Even his escape from slavery is very much against his will (and isn’t that a wonderful break from tradition, a slave who doesn’t want to escape?). He absolutely wants to conform, to be a good Imperial citizen. You’d have to have a heart of stone not to ache for poor Cob, caught up in events way out of his league and finding out some truly heart-breaking things about his past. And the present, come to that. Or finding himself temporarily in the midst of a real family and being astonished that the children play around.

There are a number of other characters who also have point of view episodes, sometimes quite briefly as the plot requires, and this could have been a mess, hopping from one character to another. It works very well on the whole, although there were a few times when the rapid jumps from place to place felt a bit choppy. Fortunately, all the characters have depth, even the walk-on parts. Darilan and Sarovy, who both end up chasing after Cob, are wonderfully deep and nuanced characters, and just as tragic, in their different ways. Only Lark fell a bit flat for me; although she had her moments in the early parts of the story, she became not much more than baggage for a while, and I didn’t feel I got to know her well enough to get under her skin, so to speak. But I loved her pet goblin, Rian, who stole every scene he was in (even while fast asleep), while never saying much more than ‘Meep’ and ‘Ys’ (yes). And there are some peripheral characters that I would love to see more of, like the Archmagus and the Crimson General (although from a safe distance, perhaps).

The magic is fairly straightforward. There are mages who use sigils and runes and words and hand-waviness to create their spells, so there’s a fair amount of hurling of thunderbolts and the like going on. So far, so conventional. There are portals (yay for portals!), some permanent, some created on the fly. Some mages are also mentalists, able to probe into the minds of subjects, see their memories and moderate them. Mindwashing, it’s called, and the process and its after effects are truly unsettling. Almost everyone in the army, freesoldier or slave, is subjected to it at regular intervals, to keep them content by removing distressing experiences from their minds, with odd effects, but like any such capability it also becomes a means of keeping control.

The author’s world comes fully stocked with a range of interesting lifeforms, not just humans. There are ogres and skinchangers, goblins and some really creepy beings called eiyet. Creepy oozes out all over the place, actually, and there are moments of pure horror, in the Hitchcock sense of chills up the spine, rather than the more usual sense these days of grossness and spilled entrails. There are also magically enhanced - well, things, for want of a better word, about which I will say no more . There is a certain blurring of the distinction between alive and not-alive which gave me the heeby-jeebies, frankly.

The plot... look, if I say that the book’s about a slave who escapes and is chased across several countries by a bunch of people who mean him harm because of something powerful inside him, something he’s not even aware of, well, it sounds like a million other fantasy books, doesn’t it? So let’s not worry about the plot. In reality, it’s not at all trite, and everything fits together beautifully, the characters all behave perfectly believably and it’s anything but predictable. It’s absolutely the opposite of predictable, in fact. I just never knew what was coming next, not once.

Where the book excels for me is the way it deals with the spirit world, the shadow world, dreams and not-dreams, things which are beyond human understanding (to express it in a very pedestrian way). It’s very difficult to convey these sort of airy-fairy concepts effectively, but the author does it brilliantly here. I generally have real trouble visualising these non-world (and non-rational) experiences, but here I always knew what was happening, even if I didn’t always know why. The author’s writing style is a big help, with a precision of word-use that is a joy to read.

I've found it difficult to write this review. I enjoyed this book so much, and at a much deeper level than the usual run-of-the-mill fantasy, that it’s hard to express. It's not easy to write intelligibly about an experience which wound its tendrils around me and burrowed inside my mind. It’s still in my head, buzzing round and making me think about memory, and belief, and friendship, and good and evil and (worst of all) good intentions, and people who aren’t what you think they are, and who knows what else. There are parts that are unforgettable: Cob doing his thing in the tavern; Lark getting left behind by the shadowbloods; the wolf; Darilan's dagger and bracer; some of Cob's dreams (or not-dreams, maybe); Lerien; the crows; the thing that Weshker encountered; the teardrop pendants (and who would imagine that a modest piece of jewelry would be so scary?). The characters are unforgettable too, and I cared about all of them (well, OK, maybe not Annia!). The story is complex, subtle and many-layered, and yet I never felt out of my depth, never wondered what the hell people were doing, never had to go back and look up who a character was or what a reference meant. That’s an outstanding achievement in a genre that too often mistakes cryptic for clever. And - a bonus - there are outbreaks of humour at the most unexpected times.

You’re probably getting the picture by now. I liked it, quite a lot actually. Compelling characters, a fully-realised world, an action-packed plot that zooms along at a rate of knots and never feels in the least contrived, and a wonderful ending with plenty of emotional resonance. A beautifully conceived and written book with real depth. Highly recommended. Five stars.

[1] If you really want to know this sort of thing, I recommend the author’s website, which is amazing.

[2] The best is in Glenda Larke’s ‘Stormlords’ trilogy: ‘pedeshit’. But ‘pike/piking’ is close, very close. And then there’s ‘Morgwi’s balls’. Gotta love an author who can invent great swearwords. ETA: well, who'd a thunk it, apparently 'piking' isn't an invented swearword after all. It's been around since the 18th century, and is an integral part of the Planescape D&D setting. So now we know. Still think it's a cracking word, though.

Fantasy Review: 'Sunbolt' by Intisar Khanani

I discovered the author’s debut novel, ‘Thorn’, quite accidentally, one of those magical reads where you start on the sample and find yourself so swept up in the story you just can’t put it down. It was one of my best reads of last year, so I approached the author’s latest offering with trepidation. Can the next book possibly be as good? Quick answer - yes, it can. This is a novella, the first in a projected series of perhaps six altogether, a beautifully written piece which displays all the author’s trademark originality, terrific characters and an intriguing world.

Hitomi is an orphan, struggling to survive on her wits - no, it’s not the most original scenario, but this is possibly the only aspect of the book which has that problem. This has to be one of the most unpredictable stories I've ever read, a new twist at every turn, and as the book is incredibly fast-paced, that means a breathtaking ride. There are one or two jarring moments, though. Just as the reader gets accustomed to one setting and its cast of characters, there’s an abrupt shift to a new location, a new villain, new challenges for Hitomi. But it’s all perfectly logical, and just served to keep me on my toes.

Hitomi is a lovely heroine - spirited, enterprising and imaginative, and never, ever prepared to be pushed aside. I loved the way in the early chapters she always did exactly what she wanted to do, regardless of whatever instructions she was given. Later, she shows her indomitable spirit, and never gives up, even when things look black. Some of the other characters were fascinating too - Val, in particular, but all of them had depth. I hope we find out more about the character left behind in the cells, too. I loved the way the author managed to fudge the question of who were the good guys and who were the villains. Things just aren’t that simple here.

One doesn’t expect much in the way of world-building from a novella, but there’s surely enough background here to fuel a full-sized trilogy at least. There are kingdoms and religions and races and magical capabilities and cultures, all beautifully defined and nuanced. The speed of the book was a real hindrance here, since every few pages I found myself saying: wait a moment, that’s interesting, I’d like to know more about that. Hitomi’s family history, her magic, Ghost and the secret society, Blackflame, the breathers, the mages... But no, the plot swept on relentlessly. Hopefully, with another five or so books to come, the author will be able to develop these aspects in more detail.

This is a wonderful book, with memorable characters, some great world-building, an action-packed plot that never lets up for a moment and a surprising twist every few pages. All this in a beautifully written novella format. Highly recommended. Five stars.

Fantasy Review: 'In Wilder Lands' by Jim Galford

And now for something completely different... or at least, new to me. Estin, the hero of this book, is a wildling, a kind of humanoid animal, one of whole variety of such animals superficially resembling actual animals (fox, bear, ferret, etc) but able to speak and act in many ways like humans. They live in packs in the woods, but their lifestyle is not unlike a kind of technology-free human existence. It's an uneasy juxtaposition. Estin has an enhanced sense of smell, he has fur, he climbs well with clawed paws, yet he walks on two legs most of the time, he talks and thinks and in many ways behaves in very unanimal-like ways. The wildlings are not anthropomorphised animals, they're a hard-to-define mixture of human and animal. I'm not sure whether I like it.

The story opens in a very traditional way. Estin was orphaned at a young age, his family slaughtered before his eyes, and since then he's scratched a precarious living stealing and scavenging on the city streets, and avoiding being captured by slavers. He's asked to undertake a difficult mission to settle some debts. So far, so very dull. But his accomplice is a gypsy girl with an agenda of her own and during the mission Estin encounters Feanne, another wilding, and the first he's seen in the city who isn't a slave. They escape together and Feanne takes Estin back to meet her rather bizarre pack.

None of this is original in plot terms. The orphan finding out about himself and his heritage is a trope almost as old as the genre. There's always room for a new spin on things, though, and the author's inventiveness is exemplary. The wildlings themselves are original enough to leave plenty of scope for revealing new and intriguing twists. The wildlings based on predators don't get along terribly well with the wildlings based on prey animals, for instance.

The use of magic is a bit random. It seems that they can do whatever the plot needs them to do. If there was any logical system to it, I never found it. The healing power is particularly convenient. An injured good guy can be healed almost without constraint (there are a few limitations, but not many). Even when dead, they can be coaxed back to life by healing their injuries and then cajoling the detached spirit back into the body (which doesn't always work, since the spirit has a mind of its own). Eventually the healer will get tired, but a lot of healing can be done before the batteries are flat (so to speak).

One aspect the author did rather well was the way different characters spoke in different ways. The gypsy girl had a very strong accent, and Soren the ferret-like character has a kind of speech which bounces uncontrollably just like he does. Then there is Finth the dwarf, who (again traditionally) fulfils the role of plucky comic relief. Humour is always welcome in a long, battle-heavy work of fantasy, but some of Finth's joke were a little too modern for my taste - I have difficulty suspending disbelief when a dwarf talks about rugrats, for instance.

The characters are quite nicely drawn. Even if they never quite came alive for me (the human/animal thing mentioned above) there was a lot of depth to many of the characters which I appreciated. There was also some interesting philosophy in there, between battles or skin-of-the-teeth escapes, especially between the various races (or species, I suppose). Estin himself isn't quite as riveting as he might be - again, he falls square into the traditional line of little person who becomes central to the plot. He isn't quite the long lost heir to the kingdom, but he does acquire a lot of abilities - warrior skills and magic - in a very short time. He's also way too restrained and honourable for my taste. I like a hero who has a few human (or wilding) weaknesses. Feanne, the complex and driven fox-type character, is, to my mind, far more interesting. Although she’s unstable and overly aggressive, with a tendency to fight to the death first and then (possibly, if she feels like it) ask questions later, this makes a refreshing change from subservient or the typical sort of warrior babe. I was disappointed when such a strong character fell apart emotionally half way through the book.

One grumble. Estin knows nothing of his heritage because he was orphaned (obviously). This means that he transgresses in some way or other every few pages, just from not knowing the rules. Yet no one ever seems to make allowance for him, or to explain properly what he's done wrong. It's all "Oh no, you shouldn't have done that!" and then maybe some pretty nasty repercussions. His training in the wildling group is all pretty cryptic too, so that when someone turns on him, he's not sure whether it's a genuine problem or a test of some sort. He is very patient about all this, but I would be seriously ticked off about these repeated tests and the lack of clear-cut explanations.

A minor grumble. There are quite a lot of little typos and such-like - 'taught' instead of 'taut', for example - and odd words missing or misplaced, which mar an otherwise professional piece of work. However, I've had the book sitting on my Kindle for over a year, however, so it's possible these have now been tidied up. There is a certain sloppiness in the writing, however, which only a ruthless rewrite would eliminate.

After the midpoint, the book becomes quite episodic, jumping from one situation to another unpredictably and abruptly. While I like to be surprised, this was a little too choppy for my taste. It also ran into the typical problem of the nobody-to-hero trajectory: Estin becomes very powerful, especially in his magic, and that becomes a bit of a get-out-of-jail-free card in numerous situations. I also disliked what I can only describe as a lot of soppiness over the children, and a great deal of artificially generated tension between Estin and Feanne. In fact, much of the later part of the book felt rather contrived, as if, having got the characters to a certain logical point within this book, the author needed to rearrange everything ready for the next volume. Either that or the author had a quota for fight scenes. Some of this is inevitable, but it felt to me very drawn out and stretched beyond sensible limits. A little tightening up here, eliminating the in-camp arguments altogether (oh no, not another leadership challenge...), and perhaps reducing the number of hooray-we’ve-escaped-oh-no-we-haven’t moments, would have been a great improvement.

This is an unusual and readable story, well written bar a few quirks. For those who enjoy action, there’s plenty here, with an array of traditional fantasy races (even halflings! don’t see many of those nowadays), as well as the wildlings, a whole zombie army, fae, dragons, elemental spirits of some sort and a really creepy mist thing. The magic is a pretty mixed bag, too. The ending lost the plot a little, with one melodramatic moment after another, without a respite or much detectable logic. There’s some depth to both world and characters, and the themes of family, race and slavery were well made, if a little heavy-handed. I found the mixing of animal and human characteristics problematic, it just didn't work for me. I'm equally happy with human or non-human characters in a book, but I found this to be an uneasy blend of the two. That's a personal preference, no more than that, and in other respects the book is excellent, but I can't give it more than three stars.

Paranormal Romance Review: 'The Binding Stone' by Lisa Gail Green

“My eyes snap open the moment I feel it. The magic is palpable. It tingles as it travels up and down my arms. I am not happy. Whoever dares disturb my century-long slumber will suffer my wrath.” So begins 'The Binding Stone', one of the most intriguing openings I've ever come across.

Leela is a Djinn (genie) awakened from sleep by an unwitting new Master, Jered. This is not the three wishes kind of genie, but a powerful enslaved Djinn, compelled to do whatever her Master of the day tells her to. Mostly what Masters want is sex, riches, sex, power, sex, revenge and sex. With a little light torture thrown in for light relief. Are humans really so horrible? But no, Jered isn't like that at all, and wants nothing except world peace. And sex, of course (well, duh; this is a romance, after all).

But Leela has a long history with fellow slave Djinns and some evil Masters who are bent on - well, see above. So the story becomes a merry-go-round of battling Masters and Djinns. It's all good exciting stuff. I really like the premise here - the story of the entrapped genie, but told from the genie's point of view. The backstory, the interactions of a thousand years earlier which resulted in the enslavement of the Djinni, is interwoven with the present day, so that the significance of certain events and characters gradually becomes clearer. This was quite neatly done, although I sometimes found the transitions between then and now rather jarring.

The plot is wonderfully convoluted, and I defy anyone to foresee all the twists and turns. There's a vast amount of people being captured and others rushing off to the rescue, in various combinations of characters, and to be honest I lost track sometimes of who was where, who was captured and who was rescuing them, who was definitely evil and who might be and who wasn't and who would be if they were free and who was but only because they'd been commanded to be, but I just let it wash over me, and kept turning the pages. It’s that kind of book. I didn’t always know what was going on, but I was confident the author had got it all worked out.

The characters worked well enough without being terribly real to me. Leela was the best portrayed, but then she is the sole point of view and the book is written in the first person, so that's not surprising. There were moments when her tragedy was very affecting. The other characters? Jered is a little too implausibly nice. Gabe makes a great sidekick. The bad guys are evil personified, and therefore entirely uninteresting (to me; I’m sure some people like that sort of thing). The child is a little too grown up for her age, but never mind. I rather liked Taj though, the ever so slightly camp Djinn. Maybe that's just because he had some of the best lines (I do like a bit of humour in my fantasy). The romance was a bit insta-lurve, but that's par for the course.

A couple of grumbles. First, Djinn magic is almost infinitely powerful. You want to fly, or tunnel through solid metal, or be transported instantly, or be invisible? No problem (except when it might divert the plot, of course; then it's impossible). There seems to be very little cost to any of this (again, except when the plot requires it).

Secondly, I often found it difficult to work out exactly what was going on. Several scenes I had to reread to understand, and there were many, many times when a character would apparently switch sides in a heartbeat. Taj is here to kill you. No he isn't. Oh, it's Mira who's going to kill you. Apparently not. All these rapidfire oscillations were tricky to follow, I didn't always get the reason and it got tedious after a while. Probably if I'd slowed down a bit, I could have worked it out, I suppose.

A third grumble: Leela herself repeatedly came up with a cunning plan only for it to fall apart instantly. Oh dear, I should have thought of that, she wails. Many, many times. So ten out of ten for good intentions, none out of ten for forward planning.

What I liked very much was that the slave Djinni were obliged to follow their Master's commands exactly, but a clever Djinn could obey the literal meaning of the order while subversively not following the intended meaning. This led to some interesting and creative twists to the plot. It's a very nice idea, having a slave who is forced to obey but is constantly working to undermine his/her Master at every step, but without attracting a spectacularly unpleasant punishment.

I found this one difficult to rate. On the one hand, it's a cracking read full of page-turning drama. It doesn’t pay to think too deeply about it, but the author has a light touch and a sure hand, so it all flows beautifully. There’s some nice emotional resonance in the Djinni’s situation, too. On the other hand, the constant oh no we're doomed/hurray we're saved/oops we're really doomed/nope saved again cycling got tired really quickly. That and the anything goes magic kept it to three stars for me. But for anyone less picky than I am (which is most of the planet) I can highly recommend it.

DNF: 'Gently Go Man' by Alan Hunter

This is the eighth in the series of relaxed murder mysteries about genial detective George Gently, written in the later fifties and early sixties. I've enjoyed my previous forays into the series, as much for the authentic slices of post-war British life as for the murders themselves, which were always a bit ho-hum. But this is the first to lose me completely. Hunter has always fancied himself as a chronicler of regional accents and dialects, with (in my opinion) very limited success, and the last few books I read he happily stayed away from such dangerous distractions. But this time he plunges headfirst into a whole world of cultural slang, the bizarrely unreadable language of 'hip chicks', with their talk about squares and being cool. For example:

‘You wouldn’t dig it,’ said Maureen. ‘If you’re a square you’re a square. It’s nowhere jazz to a square. But Laurie was cool, he went after it. Shooting the ton, that sort of action. But like I say you wouldn’t dig it. So what’s the use me talking?’

Here’s another sample:

‘Throwing a curve,’ Deeming said. ‘That’s not lying, it’s trying it on, hoping it’s going to fit some place. You don’t like hipsters in Squaresville. You like to put the heat on them. So you make a deal out of Johnny and come pushing us around with it.’
‘And like we don’t stand for it,’ Bixley said, stepping up closer.
‘Cool it, Sid,’ Deeming said. ‘Pitching screws is for squares.’
‘He bugs me, this guy does,’ said Bixley. ‘Me, I could spread him on the wall.’
‘Dicky says cool it,’ Maureen said. ‘So cool it quick, you big ape.’

There are entire chapters of this sort of stuff and frankly, life's too short to wade through it. One star for a DNF.

Historical Fantasy Review: 'Enoch's Device' by Joseph Finley

The blurb says that “Enoch’s Device is a fast-paced medieval adventure steeped in history, mythology, and mysteries from a dark and magical past” and the only part I’d argue with is ‘fast-paced’. I found it rather a slow book overall, and although it’s not without plenty of action, there’s also a heavy dollop of the above-mentioned history and mythology. Long and detailed explanations, it has to be said, don’t exactly help the plot to skim along. The setting is Ireland, France and Moorish Spain in the year 997, with the threat of the coming apocalypse when the millennium ends, and a race to prevent disaster for Irish monks Ciarán and Dónall and French aristocrat Alais.

This is historical fantasy at its best - so deeply rooted in its period that to my inexpert eyes it seemed entirely authentic. The weaving together of historical data with biblical references, religious and pseudo-religious details (druids and the zodiac), mythological elements like the Fae and outright fantasy (demons and just a hint of dragons!) is masterfully done, with a wealth of detail, and I had very little idea which aspects were solid fact, which were inference or speculation, and which were invented wholesale. Whether it’s an Irish monastery, the streets of Paris, the rich farmlands of rural France or the Moorish city of Córdoba, the author paints a nuanced and believable picture. Sometimes I felt there was a little too much detail for the needs of the story, as if the author had to squeeze in every colourful bit of his research, but that’s a matter of personal preference.

Where the story really sagged, for me, was the vast amount of backstory that had to be revealed. Sometimes it seemed as if most of the interesting action had happened years before, and was told in flashback. My heart sank every time I came across a paragraph beginning: ‘It seemed as if it were only yesterday when...’ or similar. Despite the drama of these events, it’s still the past and therefore less interesting than the actual story (the journey of Ciarán and Dónall), which seemed very slow by comparison. Worse still, much of the backstory was told in a very dry, text-book style which I struggled to get through. For example:

“She had been born a child of Aquitaine, the richest province in Gaul. Her grandfather was the third William, called Towhead for the pale flaxen color of his hair. He was both count of Poitiers and duke of Aquitaine, and her grandmother was the daughter of Rollo, then duke of Normandy. Her father, Odo, was cousin to the fourth William, called Iron Arm, who had ruled Aquitaine for nearly thirty years. William Iron Arm had strengthened his alliances by marrying his sister to Hugh Capet, the late king of France and father of the current king, Robert, and by arranging his own marriage to Emma, daughter of the count of Blois, who was lord of neighboring Touraine. Alais’ mother, Adelais, too, had been bound in a political marriage— a gift from her father, the count of Toulouse, who was currying favor with the house of Poitiers.”

I’m sure this sort of stuff is endlessly fascinating to some readers, but I was (mentally) tapping my feet and muttering, ‘Yes, yes, but are these people important? Does the colour of his hair matter? And if not, can we get on with the story, please?’.

The characters are well-delineated and mostly believable, the only exception being Alais, the token female, whose role is merely to be rescued periodically, to act as plot device and to inspire and motivate Ciarán as the object of his desire. I wonder how many captivatingly beautiful women have to be captured/almost raped/burnt at the stake before this particular seam of fantasy clichés is finally worked out. Alais spends the book gasping in horror, clinging to Ciarán's hand, or standing frozen with terror as various sharp implements are hurled at her, so that the nearest man has to leap in front of her or drag her out of danger. And finally, the one useful role she seems destined to play is snatched away from her at the last minute. Bleargh. I hate these useless hand-wringing females. There’s a slightly unpleasant tone to the writing sometimes: one character was described as being fond of his wife ‘despite the fact that she had borne him no children’. I get that this is an era when women were subservient by law and custom (the nuns are required to be silent in church, for instance), but there’s no need for that attitude to spill over into authorial voice. As for the bad guys, they are out and out evil, which is par for the course if not particularly interesting.

Fortunately, the plot is nicely convoluted, and once the bulk of the backstory is got out of the way things go along swimmingly. There are puzzles for our heroes to solve, clues to follow, crypic utterances to interpret and symbols to speculate about. There's also a prophecied apocalypse to avoid, and a mysterious device (the 'Enoch's device' of the title) to be discovered, understood and (perhaps) deployed. It’s all hugely detailed and impressively academic-sounding. For example:

“There is a text, the Sefer Yetzirah— the Book of Creation— that tells how Abraham received a divine testimony of mystic lore. He lived long before Moses received the Torah, so he must have received something different. Abraham was the father of Jewish mysticism, much of which focuses on the origins of the many names of God, and the various combinations of sacred letters that make up those names, all in the quest to realize the one great name of God. That is the knowledge that many believe Abraham received. If this knowledge was embodied in a physical object, one theory is that it was a gemstone.”

There’s a lot of this sort of stuff, and it may all be complete tosh, but if so, it’s impressive sounding tosh and I found it quite easy to let it all slide by, mostly way over my head. Sometimes, it has to be said, the interpretations of all these not very obvious puzzles seems a bit glib (if it were that easy, how come no one else has worked it out?) but it still made a nice story as piece after piece fell into place, and our heroes are driven from place to place in their quest. As with the backstory, the interludes when the characters sit around interpreting and speculating and saying ‘Gosh, it must be...!’ (paraphrasing ever so slightly here) slow the pace down to glacial levels, but as the action gets more frantic and intense towards the end, the pauses are a welcome respite from the drama.

There were moments when the theological debate got quite interesting. Our Irish friends were very confident of the truth of their interpretations, which the more conventional priests saw as simple heresy. There is a moment when one of the priests makes a pronouncement about the apocalypse, and Ciarán immediately says 'How do you know that?' It's a good question, but the priest deflects it with an outraged 'How dare you presume to question me!' The voice of absolute authority putting down the ordinary person who has the temerity to say 'Yes but...'. I'm not sure whether the author is making a general point about organised religion, or illustrating the religious dogma of the day, or simply painting the character as a bad guy, but it struck a chord with me. In this particular case, the Irish interpretation of events is presumed to be the correct one purely because they are the protagonists in this particular story, but more than once I was wondering how exactly they could know particular facts. Some chains of logic seemed rather tenuous to me.

This is a long, intricate book, literate and full of convincing historical detail, with demons, magic swords, a prophecy, mad monks and a whole host of great fantasy elements to spice up the well-realised setting. It's a pity there's so much sitting around analysing texts between the battles and so much dry exposition, and for my taste the battles got a bit over the top towards the end. But hey, this is the apocalypse, after all, so it's allowed to be epic in scale. For those who are riveted by the tiny details of medieval life or enjoy puzzling over the hidden meanings in religious texts and zodiacal symbols, I highly recommend this book. Anyone who is prepared to put up with the explanations to get to the juicy battles with demons, it's still a great read. For anyone who, like me, would willingly sacrifice historical accuracy for a more evenly paced story, it doesn’t work quite so well. The action scenes are terrific, the long sections of exposition less so, and I would have liked a less insipid female lead character. Three stars.