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Irenicon by Aidan Harte
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As all those who read these reviews will know, I’m a bear of little brain, frequently prone to error and misthinging. It’s a miracle I actually navigate from the start to the end of each day without killing myself or being killed by provoked authors, film directors or television producers. When books come in for review, I unpack them from their boxes and, in that order, copy their titles and authors into a list which then, somewhat arbitrarily, becomes the reading order. When I picked up this book and looked at the jacket, I wrote down Frenicon, taking the initial letter to be a gothic “f”. Imagine my surprise when later opening the book and finding the f to be an i. This does not exactly strike the right note (or letter for that matter) when it comes to communicating with the buying public.
So as to the review itself: Irenicon by Aidan Harte (Quercus/Jo Fletcher Books, 2012) is the first book in the Wave Trilogy and sees us flirting with genre boundaries. In broad definitional terms, we could be looking at an alternate history book which takes as its premise that Herod acted in time to kill the infant Jesus before he could be spirited out of harm’s way. This left the Virgin Mary with the task of introducing the elements of the Christianity that would otherwise have conquered the word of faith in the West. But without her son to show his divinity, the resulting belief system is rather different from the version we had in the fourteenth century when this book is set. Hence, if we take books like Pavane by Keith Roberts as our exemplars, this book is outside the definitional boundary because it does not accept the limits of the real world. It treats the supernatural as real. So for all it poses a classical “what if”, we’re actually pitched into a mediaeval Italian environment where a form of magic works. In broad narrative terms, the Concordian northern alliance is actively pursuing expansion into Europe, but is cautious of the independent city states to the south. To avoid vulnerability from the rear, it’s therefore using one of its twelve legions to suppress dissent.
The culture has been through a Re-Formation. Natural Philosophy has applied mathematics and observational physics to the real world. Initially ignored by the pervasive religion, a new breed of engineer arose and established sufficient power to be able to displace both religious power-brokers and the nobility. The result is theoretically a more meritocratic society, but one which proves equally open to abuse by a self-appointed elite. Underpinning the rise to power is the development of Wave technology. Essentially this uses water for military purposes. As a demonstration of its destructiveness, the engineers physically divide the southern city of Rasenna by creating a river. The waters of what’s later named the Irenicon smash through the city walls, devastate the central area, and become a permanent feature of the landscape. It would be just like any other river except that, surprisingly, it runs uphill and it’s also full of spirits which seem intent on grabbing any human who comes too close to the water. Death by drowning is the result. This city gives us the central metaphor for the book to explore.
Aidan Harte
Following its division, two feuding families assert control over their half. The Morellos rule the north, the Bardinis the south, albeit both are beholden to the Concord. The only person who might reunite the city is Contessa Sofia, the last surviving member of the Scaglieri family. When she reaches the age of seventeen, she could be allowed to become the ruler. Until then, she’s being trained in “leadership skills” by The Doctor, the head of the Bardini family. One day, Captain Giovanni, a young engineer from the Concord, arrives. He’s been sent to build a bridge across the river. The symbolism is transparent. This is a city divided against itself. Following the model of feuding clans, the socalisation process inducts the young into militias who develop fighting styles using banners designating their families and clan allegiances. The poor and emergent middle class are relatively powerless, depending on local “gangs” for protection. A bridge allowing all to move from one side to the other could end the feuds and reunite Rasenna. So those who are in power see the engineer as a threat. The poor see him as a figure of hope, a force for change.
Change management is challenging at the best of times. In a fourteenth century Italy, the first step is an undermining of the control of the two families and their retainers, quickly followed by the empowerment of the poor and middle class. In an ideal world, there would also be some degree of democratisation but that’s never going to be an easy sell to anyone who’s spent generations under the control of local families and clans. The book therefore explores a perennial problem where entrenched power structures confront the possibility of change. In modern times, we might be looking at the Troubles where relatively small groups of warring paramilitaries disputed which of the adjacent sovereign states should have the right of local control. As in the real world, so in this book, everything depends on the history and context for events. Aidan Harte nicely introduces illuminating insights into the process which Re-Formed the northern part of Italy and consolidated power in the engineers. How and why the science as magic (or vice versa) came into being is deliberately left unspoken. It’s going to be necessary to carve out positions for science and faith, and then support dialogue to understand the relationship and potential synergy between the belief and knowledge-based systems.
This leaves me seriously impressed both by the quality of the ideas and the ingenuity with which they are explored in the text. In simplistic terms, it’s a coming-of-age story as Sofia chafes against the control of The Doctor and begins to form a relationship with Giovanni. But this is rather more substantial than the traditional amor vincit omnia fantasy plot as our two protagonists come into mutual obit but then have choices to make. I could make disparaging noises about the clichéd necessity for Sofia to develop “powers” by overcoming her fear, but this would be to miss the point. Returning for a moment to the religious context, Mary did not ask to become mother to Jesus. She was chosen and had to make the best of it. In short, Irenicon is completely fascinating, leaving us poised on a wholly unexpected note as a new temporary balance in the power structures is achieved.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Here’s an interview with Aidan Harte.
Magic and Loss by Nancy A Collins
Magic and Loss by Nancy Collins (Roc, 2013) is the third book in the Golgotham series and, since the spells which underpin the creation of these stories come in trilogies, this seems to draw all the threads together. Not that the series could not continue, of course. But, for now, we seem to have disposed of the major villain and his cohorts. So for those of you who have not previously encountered this series, a brief summary. Tate is the talented daughter of an immensely rich New York family but, as is required to set the romance ball rolling, she’s at odds with her parents. She wants to be a sculptor — not the common or garden worker of rock and stone — that would be so common. She’s into bending metal bars with her teeth and welding the results together into interesting shapes. This is not quite the type of activity up with which neighbours will put so she moves into Golgotham. This is the not quite ghetto where all the magic folk live. Here she can literally do her Vulcan act and no-one gives a rat’s ass. Naturally she establishes her studio in a house owned by Hexe, a member of the Kymerian royal family and master of right-hand magic — that’s the good variety. Sparks fly. As we come into this third book, Tate is now pregnant so this is the trigger for the final assault on the royal family’s hold on power.
Boss Marz, the local gang kingpin who was jailed in the last book, has now been released from jail on a technicality and is now back in Golgotham to reclaim his turf and take revenge on Tate and Hexe. If I was to jot down the plot outline on he back of an envelope, you would think it had potential. Naturally, Boss is just a front and, when a devious plan springs into action, Hexe is possessed and Tate, somewhat surprisingly, takes off back to her parents — obviously her hormones are affecting her ability to think straight. In the first two books, she was inseparable from her wizard man. Yet just because he attacks her, she runs away. I find this less than credible. Even more surprising is the reaction in the parental household. Her mother actually admits how she came to marry her father which is not very flattering, and the butler who has spent a lifetime in service, hands in his notice and comes back to Golgotham with his mistress. Except he turns out to have a thing for underground oracles and those rather loud shirts men wear to look cool on Hawaii’s beaches.
Nancy Collins with a dominant right eye
So the potential of the plot in enabling the possession of Hexe and doing all the usual dire things people do when they are bent on revenge starts off reasonably well. But it slowly breaks down as we get into both the relationship problems of Tate and Hexe, and the relationships of our lovers’ parents. Indeed, the family history is enlarged upon to include grandparents and a significant backstory based on a coincidental meeting between the two mothers before they respectively produced Tate and Hexe. It’s one of these small world plots where everyone either knows everyone or turns out to be related in some unexpected way. There’s also altogether too much information about Golgotham, its culture and its celebratory festival. Far be it for me to suggest this is mere padding. I suppose there are gangs of fans out there who suck up detail and admire the comprehensive way in which this “world” has been constructed. Sadly, I just got bored. In the earlier books, I was prepared to tolerate the romance which has been driving Tate’s evolution from a mere artist with a hammer and oxyacetylene welding kit, into a magician in her own right, able to animate her creations. This is actually quite a cool metaphor. Artists invest their creations with their love so it’s only right they should literally be able to bring them to life. Except, apart from an early flicker and a late rally, very little is made of her magical abilities in this book. She’s much more passive and less confident. It doesn’t feel right given what she’s been through. I would have expected her to show more grit when she’s actually got a lot of power to draw on.
The result is, I’m sad to say, a damp squib. I think this could have been a dark and tense novel, full of thriller potential and several set-piece fights or small battles. Instead, it allows the romance to slow everything down and lighten the tone. I know the urban fantasy subgenre is not supposed to stray into dark territory. It’s the equivalent of the cozy mystery as the opposite of noir or the hardboiled. So all the potential is dissipated with too much exposition and not enough sense of danger for our parents-to-be and, after a quick birth, the baby boy. This is a major disappointment. Although the first in the series was uninspiring, the second managed to produce a genuinely interesting plot idea. Magic and Loss slides back into the genuinely bad end of the fantasy market and, unless you are a fan of the first two, you should not trouble the bookseller to sell it to you.
For reviews of the other books in the series, see:
Left Hand Magic
Right Hand Magic
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Mage’s Blood by David Hair
Culturally, Mage’s Blood by David Hair (Jo Fletcher/Quercus, 2013) The Moontide Quartet 1, takes us into the high fantasy equivalent of Earth distilled down to the hegemonically inclined Europeans and the states on which the predators would wish to impose colonial or vassal status: for these purposes, simplified down to Arab and Indian nations. In the “West”, the early religion has been displaced by the worship of an individual who’s credited with the development of magical powers in three-hundred of his disciples. Depending on your point of view, you can either see this man as an analogue of Jesus or a peace-loving hippie. Having collected a large group of people we then have the darkly amusing threeway split between the mythology and the facts as recalled by two different people who were there. In the religiously and politically correct version, the entire group was surrounded by an army preparing to slaughter them as fanatics and terrorists. The leader then inspired the core of three-hundred believers who wiped out the armies around them and then went on to create the current empire. The oral history has the leader conducting a drug trial on his unsuspecting followers. Most died or became insane, but a group survived more or less intact. Two factions acquired supernatural powers. One group hewed to the “give peace a chance” philosophy of their leader. The second saw a route to military power and political dominance. The third seemed not to have acquired powers. They separated and have largely avoided fighting each other although the neutrality of the pacifists has been sorely tested by the atrocities perpetrated by the militarists.
In a sense, this might have remained a rather academic dispute, but some of these mages have lived for six-hundred years while discovering they can pass their magical abilities to their children (there’s a further interesting side effect which will make a pleasant surprise when you read it). For plotting purposes, we have the offspring of the whole blood feted as powerful, while the level of achievement declines depending on the ancestry. As in caucasian culture, we have fine distinctions based on half-blood, quadroon, octoroon, and so on. Perhaps the most populist of the fictional explorations of this theme have been in the Harry Potter series where bigotry and active discrimination bedevil relationships between the magicians themselves, and between the magicians and the muggles. Thematically, this book also has a short Hogwarts element where we see young magicians being trained in the different arts.
As world-building, we seem to have a rather interesting situation. On our world, we had a coherent land mass on which our species could begin its evolutionary rise to dominance. Movement of the tectonic plates then slowly produced the current distribution of land about the planet. Obviously, there are oceans stretching several thousand miles between continents. That’s why the human species is widely dispersed. As the configuration of the land changed, so our ancestors moved from one area to another to hunt and gather. It would be interesting to know whether this world followed a similar pattern of geological development given the closer proximity of the moon.
David Hair
If the moon is so close and the gravitational force it exerts is strong enough to produce the equivalent of a very low tide which lasts for two years, where does the water go? If it’s being drawn to a different part of the world, do we assume this part of the world is flooded for two years? The moon’s effect cannot be to cause immediate evaporation of the seas. So why does the part of the world we can see not flood at their equivalent period of high tide? Put it this way. The gap between these two continents is only some three-hundred miles and, at one period of time, the water level drops to the point where the mages can build a bridge on the not quite exposed sea bed, you would expect there to be a matching period when the sea inundates the low-lying land on both sides of the sea. Yet there are no dykes as in the Netherlands and no historical records of agriculture being cyclically disrupted by the arrival of large quantities of salt water. Then there’s the mystery of the moon that does not bark in the night. If this moon is so close it can have this effect on the fluid dynamics of the seas, why is the land so stable? I was expecting there to be fairly continuous seismic activity, yet there are no reports of tremors and earthquakes. The latest research suggests seismic activity is more likely in areas where the gravity field is weak. Higher gravity slows the frictional behaviour of the fault lines, i.e. if the area has higher gravity for longer periods of time, the tectonic plates are less likely to slip. So if the moon’s gravitational effect is producing wider variations in the subduction zones, you would expect more instability in some areas.
Ah but, wait a moment. This is high fantasy and so the world-building doesn’t have to match currently scientific thinking. A fantasy author is free to establish his or her own “ground” rules for how stuff like gravity works, particularly if mages can defy gravity to fly carpets and boats. The only things required are that the way the world works is coherently described (if not explained) and the magic system must not be capricious, i.e. it must be subject to predefined rules which produce known strengths and weaknesses. On this basis, I’m pleased to announce this is in the top three fantasy books I’ve read this year. Ignoring all the previous issues, this fantasy has two strengths.
The first is the characterisation. Over the fairly considerable length of the book, we meet a significant cast of characters, but even the relatively minor are given a chance to make their mark. In a sense, this reflects the overall theme of the book which is that, no matter how powerful individual mages may be, the future of the world ultimately depends on the less powerful or, in magical terms, those individuals who have never developed magical powers. Someone always has to do the work or fight in armies when called upon to do so. Hence, we have three major narrative arcs. One features one of the original three-hundred who leads the Peace Faction and foresees the need to produce children. He therefore buys a fertile wife with no magical power. Snatched away from her home, the man she would have married follows to seek revenge. The second shows us three youngsters who get caught up in a political situation because one incautiously speculates that a magical artifact may be hidden in their area. This flirts with YA tropes but just stays on the right side of the line albeit that the “hero” is relatively underpowered and naive. The final arc features two powerful individuals who spy for the dominant militarists. Through them, we get to see the inner working of the empire’s leadership — not a pretty sight.
The second strength is the lack of sentimentality in the plot. Too often fantasy stories deal with simplistic black-and-white characters in replays of mediaeval, Wild West or more modern military scenarios. The good, the bad and, occasionally, the ugly draw weapons appropriate for the level of technology and have-at-it until only the good and, occasionally, the ugly are left standing. In this plot, we have every shade on the way from black to white with expediency shading the response of individuals in each situation. This eschews the tendency of the good to be paradigms of virtue who are always courageous, living their lives according to a higher moral code. The majority in this book are “complicated” with no saints and only one or two irredeemably bad. It’s also refreshing to see even the most powerful come unstuck. This can be because of vanity, paranoia or a blind chance. Wishful thinking and misplaced affection also have their parts to play. In short, this book feels like a slice of real life albeit transposed to a fantasy setting.
Accepting the need for some infodumping to introduce the magic system as we go along, this is a bravura piece of writing and, even though not the most original when it comes to individual plot elements, the overall effect is spectacular. Mage’s Blood is strongly recommended. I see Book Two in The Moontide Quartet is already published in the UK. Hopefully a copy will come my way soon.
For a review of the sequel, see The Scarlet Tides.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Monsters of the Earth by David Drake
Monsters of the Earth by David Drake (Tor, 2013) Books of the Elements 3, sees us following the story of this fictitious version of Rome. With our heroes returned to a placid life of decadent luxury “by local standards” after saving the multiverse from Atlantean destruction, we’re treated to another round of historical drudgery with the first third of the book traipsing round the households and going on a shopping trip to get us in the mood for some exciting fantasy action. For those of you who want to get the full flavour of life in “those times”, this is an indispensable part of the book. In structural terms, it confirms the imminent arrival of another cataclysmic threat. Yes, two large crystalline beasts, somewhat along the lines of caterpillar vacuum cleaners, are going to emerge from the earth and scour the surface until there’s no life left. No-one will care what happens next because there will be no-one around to care.
Our self-deprecating hero who prefers not to think of himself as the greatest magician of his age, feels under pressure to save the world (again). There’s just one problem. He has absolutely no idea how to do it. All he knows is that once released, these worms are unstoppable until they either run out of surface to consume, or they are stopped. Note the slight paradox there. His vision tells him the worms of doom have already been activated and so are unstoppable, yet they are not yet into scouring mode and so are stoppable. Or something. If you still care enough, you can read this to split the hairs and come up with the answers which revolve around this book of magic. It seems whoever holds the book may have some say in the doom thing. So, not surprisingly, the plot has two major expeditions to recover said tome. Yes, there are two magicians who want the book. Well, there are actually three magicians, not counting the hero, the tree whisperer and the griffin wrangler, but only two of them are book collectors. There’s a nonhuman magician as well but she’s only along for the ride and, for those of you counting, there’s also a demon with magical powers who gets dragged around and told what to do (life can be tough when you’re an imprisoned demon).
David Drake
Anyway, back to the original two magicians: one has come up with a magnificent way of distracting the guardian of the cave where the pivotal book is kept. This involves the hero’s mother and, depending on your point of view, this should not happen to a dog let alone a dignified Roman matriarch. But it does, so we all have to get over it without cracking too many jokes at the end. This magician has good powers and can step straight through a mirror portal from his bedroom to the island where the cave is to be found. The second magician who has our hero as his passenger is moderately powerful, but it only extends to recruiting a crew to row a small(ish) boat to the island. Needless to say, he gets there too late. The third magician who has no interest in the book manages to move through interdimensional doors. He puts together a small army of big creatures called Ethiopes, and they trample backwards and forwards and across time in search of the Egg. Yes, I knew that would recapture your interest. We do eventually find out what the Egg is. I’ll leave it to you to decide whether it’s worth the wait.
To sum up, people who will later be of interest move around this alternate version of Rome for the first third of the book. A fancy piece of headgear is purchased at an exclusive store but has no real significance or importance later in the book. We meet four “captured” lizard men who agree to stay captured for quite some time. And then it’s off we go in the underwhelming quest as our group of regulars, all starting from different points, contrive to end up at the same place and time for the climactic ending with the wormy caterpillar things actually chewing up the landscape. If we were to take not less than one-hundred pages out of this volume, Monsters of the Earth would be a reasonable plot. As it is, this is a tediously boring read.
For reviews of other books by David Drake, see:
The Heretic with Tony Daniel
Night & Demons
Out of the Waters
The Road of Danger.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone
One of the more interesting opportunities arising from the nature of fantasy is the ability to reinvent contemporary issues as an extended parable or allegory. Of course, an author could just write about mages fighting dragons — a significant number of buying customers enjoy these books even though they are superficial narratives. Or the author could use the dragons as a metaphor for capitalists who acquire and horde gold and jewels in caves, breathing fire on anyone who trespasses into their private lives, while the mages are investigative journalists who expose the venal exploitation that allowed the accumulation and stockpiling of the wealth. If the mages’ spells go viral, the evil dragons are destroyed and their wealth is redistributed in Robin Hood style to all those who don’t have health insurance (or a similar fate visited on the poor by uncaring dragons).
So welcome to the world of Two Serpents Rise by Max Gladstone (Tor, 2013), the second book set in the world of the Craft Sequence. To understand what’s going on, we need to spend a moment thinking about our modern world and then dive into a little practical economics. One of the more spectacular achievements of capitalism has been the rise of brands as dominant forces in our culture. As cynicism has risen and the hold of religious figures on public consciousness has grown weaker, consumers worship at the shrines of the latest retail icons in all their manifestations. People give up a little bit of their soul to queue overnight in adverse weather conditions just so they can be the first people to own the latest model. Now the characters in a movie are sold as toys, appear in electronic games, promote the latest burger recipe, and are used to sell an apparently infinite range of different merchandise fitting the demographic of the movie’s audience. And that’s before we get to the novelisation of the movie and authorised sequels, the comics and graphic novel version, all the fan fiction, and the television animated series. The spirit of these characters becomes as culturally significant as minor gods in the days when pantheism was the norm.
Have you noticed how Apple and Samsung are fighting for domination of the world of smartphones and other gadgets, and how at a deeper level, Apple and Google in the form of Android are also fighting for domination of the world of operating systems within the smartphones? It’s a titanic struggle as major forces battle each other for the soul of the consumer market or to suck the spirit of currency from the consumers with ever greater efficiency.
Max Gladstone
Now the economics: in a perfect world, the basic essentials of life would be “free”. We need air to breathe, water to drink, food to eat, and so on. The public should have a right to an uninterrupted supply of these necessities. Well. . . hold on there a moment. In the days before urbanisation and the industrial revolution, the agricultural lifestyle had an abundance of free unpolluted air and running water in a nearby stream or river. But then those damn farmers upstream dumped their silage next to the stream and the downstreamers all died of cholera or typhoid or some other fatal disease. So there had to be intervention to prevent thoughtless farmers from killing off their neighbours. Now scale that up following the growth of cities. Who is to pay for building aqueducts and, later, pipes to bring water into every neighbourhood or individual households? Who builds the dams and maintains them? Who deals with the sewage and makes the water drinkable? When the water from the wells and rivers is no longer adequate, who invests to develop desalination technology? There’s a constant battle between the use of tax revenue and the pressure from capitalists to privatise the public utilities and create new business concerns like the water “industry”. As citizens we all want a plentiful supply of cheap and safe water but we resent having to pay to repair and replace the infrastructure that delivers it. So what would happen if free-market ideology was applied to the water supply and water barons emerged to gouge the public and allow all the poor to die because they could not afford to pay the charges? Would the state be strong enough to renationalise the water industry, build new pipelines and water processing plants, and restore public confidence?
At this point I should apologise. I don’t usually discuss the plot of a book at such length without spoiler warnings. But what’s done is done. I can do no more than recommend Twin Serpents Rise as a debate on the merits of free-market capitalism disguised as a fantasy with dry, fusty legal contracts cast as spells, and cohorts of lawyers and risk managers acting the parts of enforcers and soldiers in the wars between business concerns. I suppose the best way to describe Two Serpents Rise is a fictionalised version of a poison pill defence. Having grown in size and significance, the target corporation knows it cannot resist the takeover, so decides to leave an unwelcome surprise in the small print of the contract. It’s a great trick for the magicians to pull off. There’s only one downside. Millions of consumers will die as the world is remade and becomes a better place for the few who survive the cataclysm.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Wrath-Bearing Tree by James Enge
This review must perforce begin with thoughts about Jack Vance. Perhaps my age predisposes me to believe him one of the best genre writers of the last sixty years — I did grow up reading his books as they were published — but there’s more objective evidence of his enduring popularity with much of his work still in print (a rarity today for someone who rose to fame during the 1950s and 60s) and a recent anthology dedicated to him selling well (Songs of the Dying Earth edited by George R R Martin and Gardner Dozois). The anthology highlights one of Vance’s strength — the high fantasy story with a sense of humour. This is not comedy writing in the same vein as, say, Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett. Rather it’s more ironic or potentially sardonic in the situations explored and the attitudes exposed. This is a prequel to describing James Enge (the pseudonym of James M. Pfundstein) as subVancean in Wrath-Bearing Tree (Pyr, 2013), A Tournament of Shadows Book 2. This is not, you understand, a condemnation. Someone who writes in a comparable style is not, ipso facto, inferior in producing results. But it gives you a flavour of what the author intends, namely, an episodic travelogue across a hostile fantasy land with the option to smile if any of the jokes hit the spot for you. To clarify, this book is a form of expansion on Arthurian fiction insofar as the main protagonists are Merlin and his kin.
James Enge
The opening episode is one of these outstanding moments that settle the reader down with a contented smile, now more hopeful the rest of the book will follow at the same high level. Our “hero”, Morlock syr Theorn Ambrosius (a son produced by Merlin) has the misfortune to be at sea. For the record, he has a chronic problem with motion sickness. It’s therefore a mixed blessing for him when a local entrepreneur sinks the ship by bombarding it with the local equivalent of Greek fire. Once he gains the shore, he has the pleasure of fighting for his life. Normally, this would not be too challenging but, having lost his footwear while swimming, his feet are being cut to pieces on the rocky terrain. As the pages turn, however, it becomes clear the author has shot his bolt with the first episode and our meeting with Merlin’s daughter(s). Sadly, we slow down to a crawl. Indeed, this opening episode is almost completely free-standing. It gives us the title to the book and then is only rarely mentioned again. So we traipse after Morlock as he fantasises about having the courage to speak with Aloê Oaij only to find himself sent on a mission with her. Hurray for their mutual lust, or something.
The first half of the book therefore has the besotted Morlock not getting it on with the young woman. Then the ice is broken with some anatomically explicit sex, followed by a slightly unfortunate explanation for Aloê’s frigidity. It seems her family were under a spell so they saw nothing wrong with a cousin raping Aloê as a child but the spell was not strong enough to persuade them it was acceptable for said cousin to cool his penis in the evening bowl of gazpacho. Soup rape is beyond the pale, no matter what the strength of the spell, you understand. While not a direct example of the book’s humour, it points to the problem. The inclusion of such a dark element combined with explicit sex scenes, should predispose the reader to find this a dark fantasy. Yet the author’s actual intention is to make jokes, sometimes about sex or the results of sex. Indeed, the author is so desperate to insert humour into the book that, as an omniscient author, he interpolates comments intended to provoke a smile. He doesn’t trust his characters and the situations in which they find themselves to be amusing. He has to puff up his own wares. The result is an increasingly tedious read. When a barbarian and thief are briefly introduced to meet their doom, you get to see how hard the author is trying to milk every trope for a smile.
So, sadly, all the good work of the first book in this series is thrown away. I was really looking forward to this, but ended up bitterly disappointed. Even the inventive bits like the two-sisters-for-the-price-of one, are rather wasted as anachronisms and clichés abound to allow our mages to invent the propeller, first in pedal power and then to supply enough oomph for a hydrofoil. Magical versions of steampunk are tiresome. Even getting the generations of Merlinfolk together fails to spark interest. They argue and not very amusingly. So despite all the twists and turns on the way to the resolution of their mutual problem, Wrath-Bearing Tree is not worth the effort. Jack Vance will be cringing in his grave if he gets to read this in the afterlife.
For a review of the first in the series, see A Guile of Dragons.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Kindred and Wings by Philippa Ballantine
To understand this series, you need to imagine a world where reality and chaos interface. As a physical place, this is Conhaero. In a way, it only exists out of sufferance. In other circumstances, it would probably never have existed at all. Having come into existence it could have completely collapsed back into the melting pot from which its constituent elements were drawn. But a bargain was struck which enabled land to form and persist. For all that it frays around the edges with mountains becoming plains and then lakes as random probabilities change the lay of the land, enough of the emerging continent continues in relative stability so that beings may live inside or upon it, and not perish by falling into random holes or being sucked up into the sky. These are the creatures that have their genesis in the formless void. They have come on to the land through their own efforts. They are the kindred of the title. Everything was going along well for them until different races began to arrive through the void. One was the Vaerli. Like the kindred they made a pact, granting them the right to remain on conditions. But they had seers who foretold their downfall. There would be a harrowing. The puzzle the Vaerli had to solve was how to recover after the inevitable fall.
Kindred and Wings by Philippa Ballantine (Pyr, 2013) the second in the Shifted World series finds Finnbarr the Fox (a Manesto-Vaerli hybrid) now riding the dragon Wahirangi as he searches for Ysel, the brother he never knew he had. Talyn (a purebred Vaerli) lost her people and found nothing but pain working for the Caisah, the mortal man who was granted immortality during the process later called the Harrowing. She’s changed employer but still rides Syris, her nykur steed. Now she’s abandoned the process of killing to secure pieces of the puzzle from the Caisah, she has a different mission, this time for the Phage. She acquires a scroll and, according to the Phage, the only way in which it can be destroyed is by the flame of a dragon. Since the only person with a dragon to hand is Finnbarr, this is forcing her to resume her relationship with him. Her ability to edit her memory continues to be fallible and she still finds herself reliving moments with him. Meeting up with him again will be a challenge to her peace of mind. Byre, Talyn’s brother, is still with Pelanor and, having travelled into the past, is now more positively moving forward into the future where he may finally solve the puzzle.
Philippa Ballantine
Complicating matters further are the plans of Kelanim, the Caisah’s current mistress who’s being manipulated into removing the “curse” of immortality from the man she sleeps with. She hopes, if not truly believes, that as a mortal man, the Caisah will be able to love her. In his present state, he simply sees her as a Mayfly, transitorily passing through his life before dying. As they say in books, this is a tangled web but it represents a metaphor in which to explore a number of all too common human strengths and weaknesses. The problem with people who acquire power is the sense of entitlement it brings. They become defensive, looking for every possible way in which their position can be reinforced without any real sacrifice being necessary on their part. This often goes hand-in-hand with pride. They come to expect deference from others. If necessary, those in a subordinate position are expected to make the sacrifices their “leaders” should make. If one or two whipping boys fail to provide results, an arena full may bring better results. This is how the Caisah has ruled. Not only is he immortal but he also possesses such power, he’s effectively invulnerable as well. Yet there are still those who plot against him. Their treason cannot be tolerated. As a people, the Vaerli seem to have lost their ability to empathise with others. They felt themselves superior to other races and groups. This led to pride in their ability to organise the world according to their wishes.
In all this, there’s an underlying irony. The Vaerli have seers who can see their pride will lead to a fall. The puzzle is whether this is predestined or can be avoided by the exercise of free will at critical moments. If fate is implacable and they must fall, is there a way to recover what has been lost? So the book is set in the form of a quest. Those in the past are looking for a means of redemption, knowing that much, if not all, the future is set on a fixed path. Individuals are also searching for their own identity and a better sense of what their role is to be in the greater scheme of things. For some, it means they will be required to die. For other it offers a chance for salvation.
I found Kindred and Wings slightly slow to get going. It takes a while to establish where everyone is and what they are doing. However, once the basic set-up is complete, we’re off on a well-paced plot to some interesting outcomes, at least one of which was unexpected. This leaves a satisfied smile on my lips. There’s enough intellectual substance to lift the book well above average for a high fantasy with dragons. This is worth pursuing.
For reviews of other books by Philippa Ballantine, see:
Harbinger
Hunter and Fox
Phoenix Rising (written as a team with Tee Morris)
Wrayth
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Now You See It by Jane Tesh
Now You See It by Jane Tesh (Poisoned Pen Press, 2013) is the third in the Grace Street Mystery series. Although I never actually lived in a commune or squat during the 1960s — I was born middle-aged and could afford a roof over my head with comfortable furniture and my own choice of people wandering in and out — this book plays with the notion that a group of people living together will either fall into Satre’s model of Hell or find themselves operating as a continuous self-help group — which may seem like Hell for those on the receiving end of the help. In this developing series, we’ve got a small group aching for therapy and living together in a big oldish house on Grace Street. In theory, the six of the seven pair off but, as in all series, the path of true love, etc. The lesser mortals are Angie and Rufus, followed up the human evolutionary scale by Camden and Ellin who have psychic powers and produce an ESP show respectively. This leaves us with David Randall who’s deep into grief because of the death of his daughter, but hankers after Kary. And Fred who’s old and should really be in a home, except the Grace Street house has become home for him.
As a private investigator working out of his bedroom, Randall gets hired by a stage magician who hid a box as part of a bet only to find it gone when he returned. Such unexpected tricks are part of the trials and tribulations encountered in the world of magic. This proves there’s always a catch — that’s the one on the inside of the box used by the client’s twin brother who was thinking of becoming an escapologist. But, for some reason, when they open that box they find the dead body of the escapologist manqué. This is odd because he should have been able to escape since he knew where the hidden catch could be found. So now David Randall has to solve a two-box problem. One apparently stolen from its secret hiding place in the magic club and the other a locked-box murder with a body that shouldn’t have been inside (unless someone put it there, of course, and not in a magical way). These box cases have to fit around the missing diamond bracelet belonging to Sandy Olaf unless, like magic, the bracelet turns up in the missing smaller box, conveniently solving two of the cases with a drumroll and single Ta Dah!
Jane Tesh and her muse
In the midst of all this investigating, there’s confusion and dismay as the new financial backer for the cable show celebrating psychic powers insists his wife takes over as the host. This is alienating everyone connected with the show. Obviously the show needs the money to survive, but the production crew value their independence more. This connects back into the world of magic because the son of the inconveniently rich sponsor is a wannabe magician who’s completely talentless but auditioned at the magic club where the body was found in its box. Now is that a coincidence, or what? Which leads to an equally coincidental and even more irrelevant memory of a faintly comic British television series called Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) set in and around London and only occasionally showing scenes shot in Camden in which a private investigator solves crimes with supernatural help.
Without being a flat-out comedy mystery, Now You See It is a very pleasing fun read, the pages intermittently bursting into life with people talking in idiosyncratic ways or there being a wry sense of humour underlying some of the situations. Indeed, the whole plot is somewhat ironic because Camden is a genuine psychic and he helps Randall investigate a group of magicians. Of course, the solution to the three crimes is mundane, i.e. not supernatural, but there is actually a sense of magic about the way the whole thing is put together. Even the identification of the bracelet’s final resting place is nicely managed. So Jane Tesh delivers an ingenious set of puzzles to solve, explores the backstabbing world of amateur and professional magicians, and leaves a smile on your lips when the final piece of the puzzle slots into place at the end. There are also some romantic resolutions but our PI remains on the shelf for now. Hopefully, he can make further progress through the five stages of grief in the next book in the series.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Silevethiel by Andi O’Connor
Silevethiel by Andi O’Connor (Purple Sun Press, 2013) looks and feels like a self-published book. There’s nothing about the publisher’s website to suggest it’s anything other than a vanity label created by the author for this book. Sadly reading it confirms it as poorly written with one or two typos in the digital version I read. In a way, the opening chapter should mark it out as dark fantasy. The King is found murdered in his bed, his heart ripped from his body and left draped over his head. His daughter and only living heir is spirited out of the kingdom only to fall foul of assassins who leave her for dead. But the prose style and vocabulary choice mark it as essentially intended for young adults. Hence, the darkness is quickly waved away and the language trivialises the events. Indeed, some of the prose is embarrassing in what is presented on the page as a professionally produced publication. Here’s Irewen running past the guards into her father’s bedchamber where the blood is almost dry. So why has it taken so long for the alarm to be raised? In a well-run castle, someone notices if the king is slaughtered and raises the alarm. Then she’s led off through the “expansive” castle to the sitting room (obviously a castle designed by Walt Disney) where she perches on a settee, takes a slug of wine to calm her nerves, tucks a stray raven curl of hair behind her ear, and decides to get out of Dodge. I confess to almost giving up at the end of the first chapter but, after following the heir apparent’s example and taking a fortifying drink, I soldiered on.
This prince guy with the elf magic (and hormones) coursing through his veins comes upon the scene and rescues the fair damsel before she can get properly deceased. Laegon is definitely a useful person to have around. He can pull out two arrows without making the wounds worse, neuralise the poison that’s been slowly spreading through her body for an hour (the icy cold has not been enough to kill this tough young woman), and he can close the wounds from the inside out. No Irewen, don’t go towards the light! Anyway, after deciding which way to go, she regains consciousness and greets the lonely elf prince again after a ten-year gap. He’s one of these shy twits who would be red-hot if he let himself go but. . . So he’s never known true love (it’s apparently a pretty rare commodity in these magical times until an author gets just the right pair together in the cold) and can satisfy the virgin requirement for relationships with sex-starved princesses. Before the love birds get too deeply involved, a word of explanation. Silevethiel is a lioness and the Dame of the Guardians who, like, protects people. The Dame was able to save Irewen because she’s, gasp, a quarter Green and Wood elf. Now calm yourselves. The Elf Discrimination Act is in force: equal treatment for all on the basis of their race. But that means the princess has the mind-talking ability. Human Daddy king married a commoner with elf blood. They could do nothing to hush up the lowly birth, but they did hide the witchy bit. Fortunately, there’s an elven prophesy that someone just like Irewen (what a coincidence) will reunite the four elven races and save the world. Isn’t this exciting? Particularly when you discover she can talk to the dead? Is that not cool or what?
So then we plough through some mind-numbingly banal romance, endure bathos without any sublime bits in-between, and have some fighting with Drulaack — zombie warriors, no less — sent by her evil cousin who has a lock of her hair and can track her every movement (well, perhaps not every movement). This inspires our princess to learn to become an Amazon — no, not an online bookstore — fighting with bladed weapons without faltering in her strikes. Go, Irewen, go! And she’s recruited as protectee by Silevethiel. Things just naturally go her way until the evil cousin attacks from within and then the virgin prince is told he must stay home while the princess goes on a quest. Ah the stresses young love must bear even if the virgin prince is over two-hundred years old (he’s been saving himself for a long time). Fortunately this is written for twelve-year-old girls so it all comes out right at the end with a little predictive ability showing her children in the future with the prince (after he loses his status as a virgin, of course).
As a final note of sadness, this is not even the worst book I’ve read so far this year. Yes, I have been less than merciful here but I did at least get to the end. In moments of naive abstraction, it amazes me that books like this can ever find a market. Then common sense reasserts itself and I remember the vast number of children and teens whose ability to judge quality has not yet formed and who will therefore enjoy this vapid fantasy romance. Since no youngsters read these reviews there’s no damage done to sales projections. Indeed, out of perversity, teens reading my contempt may well be inspired to buy Silevethiel — the perfect ironic riposte to an old man’s opinion.
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Harbinger by Philippa Ballantine
Harbinger by Philppa Ballantine (Ace, 2013) Books of the Order 4 deals with the continuing problems in the Empire of Arkaym. Put simply, what we might consider the boundary line between the worlds of the living and the dead have partially broken down. Individual spirits and more powerful elemental beings have either managed to pass through the barrier or to gain an influence in the human realms. Standing against them is an essentially practical Order of Deacons. Although they have adopted vocabulary suggesting the practice of a faith, the need to be able to exorcise spirits is considered more important than what they might believe while fighting to protect of the people. This is intended as the final book in the series (for now) and, as is required in such books, all the interested parties have to arrive in the same place at the same time for the debate on whether the big and destructive supernatural beasties should be allowed into the human world.
Philippa Ballantine
What makes this slightly better than the average fantasy novel is the rather equivocal nature of the different characters and their motivation for wanting to prevent the most dangerous of the supernatural beings from entering Arkaym. Sorcha Faris and Raed Syndar Rossin are, for different reasons, significantly flawed. Although Merrick Chambers seems to have his heart in the right place, there’s the question of his blood line and whether that has any significance. Fensena is a relatively low level Geistlord who’s been over in the human realm for some time. Then there’s the pretty much human Zolfiya. She’s the sister of the nutty Emperor Kaleva. And finally, there’s Derodak, the big mover and shaker who’s engineering the breakthrough in the arrogant belief he’ll be able to control the outcome. This is inherently more interesting than the usual fare of brave magicians or reasonably heroic humans defending their realm against attack. This Empire has humans fit for slaughter with only a few beings capable of standing against the enemy. But when you’re not sure the source of their powers will ultimately be helpful, there’s a pleasing edge to the proceedings.
That said on the positive side, there’s a problem to bring down the quality of the series. One of the reasons I enjoy books which have a system of magic in place, is the chance to watch the author work through the rule book. What’s the source of the power? How does it work? What are its strengths and weaknesses? How many different applications does it have? There’s no better test of an author’s world-building creative powers than a well-developed and coherent sword and sorcery plot. Perhaps one word of qualification. Given the airships and other “machinery” powered by the weirstones, it’s verging on sword, steampunk and sorcery. Indeed, this focuses our attention on the problem. I was waiting for some explanation of the relationship between the Tinkers and the Deacons. Although there’s a throw-away line explaining where the weirstones came from and the motive for their arrival, there’s nothing to explain what process the different people go through to achieve the given effects. All we have are a list of the runes and a note of their “power”. Perhaps the source of the “power” is like manna lying gratuitously in the environment just waiting for someone with the right runes to come along and say the magic words. Or is it a more physical energy field? Is it perhaps drawing supernatural energy from the “other” side? It’s deeply frustrating that there’s no effort made to explain how it all works. We’re simply presented with people and creatures doing magical things on a take-or-leave-it basis. So, for example, when “were” creatures transform into human or vice versa, where does the additional body mass come from or go to? I know it looks good on a page when a human man can change into a “lion” (both on land and at sea) but this is virtually an instantaneous event. One minute wimpy man, next roaring beast of impressive size and occasional underwater abilities.
As a final word, there’s a romantic element as different pairings emerge but Harbinger manages to avoid the excesses of sentimentality that can afflict the fantasy field. It’s good way of finishing off this series with the door left open for more if the publishers make the right commercial noises.
For reviews of other books by Philippa Ballantine, see:
Hunter and Fox
Kindred and Wings
Phoenix Rising (written as a team with Tee Morris)
Wrayth
A copy of this book was sent to me for review.
Thinking about books 