Sarah Chorn's Blog, page 106

The Emerald Tablet – Joshua Silverman

About the Book

Do you wish you could have the power of a god? Would you use it for good…or for evil?

When an archeologist discovers the mythic Emerald Tablet buried beneath Egypt’s desert, her son decodes the ancient text leading him to a distant world.

On that world, a slave girl begins a journey towards a destiny she cannot imagine. But when an ancient foe rises from the ashes, they will be brought together

by forces neither understands.

Leoros, who dreams of being like the heroes in the comic books, must fight to unlock the secrets of the universe to save a people he never knew existed.

Atlantia, whose bloody visions wake her in the night, senses the darkness coming.

Together they will face an enemy with the power of dark energy, lose a mentor to the assassin’s blade, and be betrayed by someone they trust. Their fight for the future is just beginning, and before it is over, a final sacrifice must be made. When the darkness comes, will they stand and fight or will they join it?

There is darkness in everyone.

408 pages (paperback)

Published on September 15, 2012

Author’s website

This book was sent for me to review by the author.

—–

Admittedly I have a huge soft spot for history, mythology and the blending of the two into unique fantasy. It’s one of those things where, if a book touts the fact that it’s based even loosely on mythology, I find that I simply must read it. So you can imagine how I jumped on The Emerald Tablet when the author approached me, saying it was based on Egyptian and Greek mythology. Yes, please.

I haven’t really read a ton of fantasy based on Egyptian mythology and I’m not sure why. It seems to be an obvious choice which offers plenty of fodder for the fantasy author, however not many choose it. Maybe because so many people know so much about the mythology that authors think it’s harder to write a good fantasy based on it without upsetting all the aficionados out there? I’m not sure. Maybe they just don’t want to. Who knows. The fact of the matter is, The Emerald Tablet is one of the few, if not the only, fantasy book based heavily on Egyptian lore, that I’ve read. Not only does Silverman write based on Egyptian mythology, but he throws in plenty of Greek action for your pleasure. (And I recommend you follow him on Twitter, if this sort of thing interests you. I’ve been learning all sorts of random facts from his tweets).

With these two powerhouse cultural systems in the works, Silverman has to show that he has the authorial gumption to do them both the justice they deserve, as well as the intense research that it will require to accurately portray these cultures, and the mythology that he’s based them on. This is, perhaps, where the author both succeeds and fails. First, it’s obvious he knows his stuff. He could probably teach classes at a university based on mythology and I’d be in the front row drinking it all up. I learned more about these mythology systems and the fascinating cultures that they developed from, and his unique (and believable) evolution of them, than I ever expected to. That being said, Silverman does get a little overly complex for the plot, especially in the first half of The Emerald Tablet. There are infodumps, which can be a bit dry at times, and they do have a tendency to bog the flow of events. While it’s interesting, it seems as though Silverman has trouble drawing a line between necessary information, and too much information.

The Emerald Tablet is both fantasy, and science fiction rolled into one. It’s one of those books that seems to defy the reader’s ability to label it. That’s always a rare treat for me. While one of the threads of the story begins on Earth with an unsuspecting boy, Leoros, it quickly is transported (literally) to another planet called Potara. Characters meet; puppy love (a side plot) is found. Battles are fought. It’s all quite fascinating and rather refreshing to read a book that doesn’t just take place in one location, but multiple planets, without ever really crossing the threshold into space opera territory.

As with most things, there is a negative to this, as well. While I enjoyed the multiple locations, while so much of the story takes place on Potara, I wasn’t exactly sure why Earth and the hubbub of teleporting to another location was necessary. In fact, this whole plot point caused me to suffer from some believability issues, and felt like it made the plot unnecessarily complex when it would have been just fine, if not more smooth and flowing, if Silverman had just picked a location and ran with it. There is a certain amount of embellishment on plots, locations and characters that is fine and expected. After that the book just starts to feel cluttered. In matters of location and some of the mythology, Silverman did cross the line occasionally, but I wonder if it wasn’t his passion for what he was writing that fueled him into exorbitance occasionally.

The interesting thing about Potara isn’t really that it’s another planet, but it’s the societies Silverman has developed on this planet. I can see how it would be essential to take earth out of the equation so these people could develop their society in a way that would be impossible in this modern day. Potara is essentially a society poised at the brink of war with high tensions between futuristic Egyptian and Greek societies. This creation is truly an amazing, if not absolutely fascinating, aspect of The Emerald Tablet, and it really shows off all that Silverman knows about the cultures and the mythologies he talks about here. It’s one thing to write about these societies in a past tense, but it’s quite another to wonder just how they would have evolved if left to their own devices, and then create and entire world from that.

Mixed into this are some characters that aren’t incredibly unique as this sort of plot goes, but are rather endearing, despite that. While the secondary characters do suffer from a bit of the cardboard cutout syndrome, it’s obvious that Silverman spent plenty of time breathing life into his main cast and it pays off in characters like Leoros, Dio and the others. Despite a rather dark beginning, the characters are all pretty young. Sometimes they might seem a little too young for the events transpiring, but this allows Silverman to appeal to a wider audience than he would otherwise be able to, making The Emerald Tablet a comfortable book for the more mature YA readers, and those who prefer books geared toward an adult audience, as well.

Despite the fact that The Emerald Tablet could have been polished a little more, the story itself is rather fun, if not a tad predictable to those who are frequent fantasy readers. It’s the basic good-vs-evil story with a few “chosen ones” and some evil guys who are so evil they are almost unbelievable. The final battle has a pretty obvious outcome. The ending is an obvious segue into book two. While I do get rather tired of good-vs-evil stories and chosen people and all that, Silverman’s unique setting and truly endearing characters, coupled with his absolute mastery of mythology, really jazzes up a fairly tired trope and makes it fresh and different. The overall problem I faced wasn’t with the writing or the story itself, but with the fact that Silverman was trying to be a bit more complex than the plot actually needed him to be. While he set a firm foundation for the rest of an enthralling series, The Emerald Tablet could have used a little more balance.

 

3/5 stars

Eve of Darkness – Sylvia Day

About the Book

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Bared to You

Years ago, Evangeline Hollis spent a blistering night with a darkly seductive man she can’t forget. But that evening of addictive pleasure has become a disaster of biblical proportions: She’s been branded with the Mark of Cain.

Thrust into a world where sinners are marked and drafted to kill demons, Eve’s former one-night stand, Cain, is now her mentor—and his equally sexy brother Abel is her new boss.

Now Eve has become the latest point of contention in the oldest case of sibling rivalry in history…

Cursed by God, hunted by demons, desired by Cain and Abel… All in a day’s work.

348 pages (paperback)

Reissued on January 8, 2013

Published by Tor

Author’s webpage

This book was sent for me to review by the publisher.

If you want a copy of this book, click on the following links: Eve of Darkness: A Marked Novel, Eve of Darkness (Marked)

—–

Cancer treatment sucks. It really does. It’s as much of a physical exercise as a mental one. One thing that this treatment is doing is making it hard for me to think. My reaction time is nonexistent, so I can’t drive right now. But I also get lost in my own neighborhood because I can’t quite remember where I’m going, what I’m doing, where I should be, etc. It’s incredibly frustrating and very emotional. These issues also translate into my reading. For example, I can’t really follow intense, very epic and multi-faceted plots right now. I have a hard time not being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of it all. Epic fantasy is pretty much off my list until I get my head back. It’s just too hard for me to read. So what do I read when I am struggling with so much? Well, evidently I read the sort of stuff I’d never touch with a ten foot pole when I’m not like this: paranormal romance.

It fits the bill. There’s very little depth, not much to keep track of, nothing too intense or incredibly layered. It’s just a book, some characters, a plot that may or may not be compelling, and some sex. I can handle that right now.

Enter Eve of Darkness.

Now, to say that I’m not well versed in this area of literature is the understatement of the year. However, sometimes you just have to throw all your cats in one bag and see what happens. Sylvia Day is a comfortable, and easy to read author. The writing is rather descriptive, which is incredibly helpful with the mythology-rich world she has created. It’s important for her not to only bring Southern California (an area most everyone is familiar with from movies, if nothing else) to life, but she has to make it feel fresh and interesting to the reader. It can’t feel like a place we’re all familiar with from the movies. It has to feel like somewhere I’d like to not just read about, but learn about. Day manages that nicely. Southern California isn’t just the place in the movies that I’ve seen (and visited) umpteen times in my life, but it is new and that’s quite an accomplishment for any author.

This trilogy is based on religious mythology, which is very been-there-done-that. Where Day takes a turn is Cain and Abel aren’t the source of all vampires (throw a rock and you can find that in the urban fantasy section of your local bookstore). Cain and Abel are, in fact, brothers who work as sort of bail bondsman for demons. The demons themselves are all quite unique and well thought out. The only sort of creature that has a rather stereotypical feel to it is werewolves. In this respect, I think Day didn’t aim high enough. In a book full of unique creations that are infused with vibrant imagination, werewolves just stick out like a sore thumb.

That being said, perhaps it is the mythology that I enjoyed most from Eve of Darkness. Despite the fact that the book is a little info-dump heavy, Day manages to portray a rich and complex reality that is, at times, a little too complex for the rather paint-by-numbers plot itself. However, it is interesting and unique despite all of that. The religious base doesn’t water it down or make it feel old and tired, like these things so often do. Day isn’t afraid to make a bold statement with her magic system, and she’s not scared to blaze her own trail when so many other authors in this genre create a fairly cookie-cutter magic systems.

Now, to the brass tax. While this book was called “urban fantasy” to me, it’s more of a paranormal romance than anything else. There’s an obvious love triangle and plenty of sexual tension. In fact, while this is something I usually think urban fantasy books focus on a bit too much, Day seemed to overdo it, even for what I expected. I dare say, the romance and sexual tension might be the whole reason you either love or hate this book, as the rest of the plot seems to take a back seat to Cain, Abel and Eve and their various emotional and sexual dilemmas. The characters are a bit two dimensional and cardboard, and the secondary characters are fairly nonexistent, but the more I read the book, the more I realized that it’s about relationships rather than actual people. This could be a hit or miss for many people who read this sort of thing.

You might notice that I haven’t mentioned anything about the logic of the plot or plot holes and what have you, like I normally do. The truth is, if I focused on whether or not things made any logical sense, I’d probably have hated this book. However, I didn’t read this for the logic or the incredibly deep plot. I read this because, right now, I just need to detach and enjoy a damn story. If you want to psychoanalyze a book, you might want to look elsewhere. However, if you want to enjoy a very estrogen charged story with some fairly creative mythology and some characters that are a bit admirable and frustrating, but easy to get behind, then you might want to look here. Eve of Darkness is predictable, a bit smutty, lacks depth, but can be a whole lot of fun, if you are in the mood for that kind of thing. Day’s writing and her quick moving plot keeps the pages turning quicker than you’d expect.

Onto book two, Eve of Destruction.

 

3/5 stars

American Elsewhere – Robert Jackson Bennett

About the Book

Some places are too good to be true.

Under a pink moon, there is a perfect little town not found on any map.

In that town, there are quiet streets lined with pretty houses, houses that conceal the strangest things.

After a couple years of hard traveling, ex-cop Mona Bright inherits her long-dead mother’s home in Wink, New Mexico. And the closer Mona gets to her mother’s past, the more she understands that the people of Wink are very, very different …

From one of our most talented and original new literary voices comes the next great American supernatural novel: a work that explores the dark dimensions of the hometowns and the neighbors we thought we knew.

688 pages (paperback)

Published on February 12, 2013

Published by Orbit

Author’s webpage 

This book was sent for me to review by the publisher.

You can purchase a copy of this book by clicking the following links: American Elsewhere, American Elsewhere – Kindle

—–

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Robert Jackson Bennett. His book The Troupe is probably one of my all-time favorite reads. His other two don’t fall far behind. The thing that always sticks out with Bennett, is when so many authors are concerned with imbuing their work with a sense of foreignness, Bennett seems perfectly happy with American life, history, and American mythology (if there is such a thing). In fact, he has such an incredible gift with taking the culture and history in which I’ve been firmly ensconced since my birth and making it feel new and fresh, that I can’t help but appreciate and look at my world a little differently. He has an uncanny ability to add a little magic to the things I see (and get sick of seeing) almost daily.

He did it to the Great Depression, big business, vaudeville, and now he takes on small town Americana in American Elsewhere, his longest, and perhaps most in depth book he’s written to date.

American Elsewhere is essentially the story of our protagonist, Mona, who learns that she inherits a house her mother left behind out in the middle of absolutely nowhere, New Mexico. Perhaps you have to be a resident of the Midwest/West to fully visualize this small town, Wink, but the true marvel is just how well Bennett brings it to life. The thing is, out here in the wide, Wild West, the landscape is just as important, just as much of a character, as the people who live here. It’s wide, open, mysterious and dramatic. Bennett portrays that perfectly. He does justice to the mystery of the West and many of the small, hidden towns, valleys and coves out here with their nuanced histories and the unique mindset you find in a place with more cows and sagebrush than people, and very little interaction with the outside world. The West is truly a unique place that needs to be experienced rather than studied. It doesn’t take long for the reader to realize that Wink is less of a town and more of a personality and a central character in its own right.

The development of Wink highlights what Bennett seems to master in American Elsewhere – the pacing. While this book is fairly long, Bennett unravels things slowly, adding layers as each chapter passes. These layers make the characters, scenery and tension seem all the more real and well rounded until, by the end of the book, all of these aspects are fairly leaping off the pages. Wink, Mona, and the rest of the characters grow from being fairly two-dimensional, to being complex and full of their own life, vibrancy and multi-dimensional facets. As the book progresses, it’s obvious that all of the elements, from the town of Wink, to the characters, to the events that transpire, all feed off of each other. It’s a fascinatingly complex machine that Bennett has built and it’s amazing to watch all the small parts work together to make something quite grand.

One thing that most readers will probably notice is their inability to completely sympathize, or become quite as close to Mona as they probably expect to. The reason for that, in my humble opinion, is because the real protagonist is Wink itself. A close relationship with Mona would ultimately distract from the events that transpire in Wink, and the development of the small town and the mentality of it’s citizens, which is so incredible important to the plot. While some readers will assuredly lament an intense relationship with Mona, ultimately, I think the decision to keep her interesting, but somewhat at arm’s reach was incredibly wise on Bennett’s part.

This also allows readers to enjoy the twists and turns that floods the plot of American Elsewhere. It also allows Bennett to crawl under your skin without even realizing that he’s doing so. This is a true hallmark of a good horror author. I also found that a lack of intense sympathy or understanding of any specific character kept me from being able to predict much of what was happening, or going to happen. Thus, as the book unfolded, so did my understanding. I kept perfect pace with the plot as it progressed and this was a real treat. Bennett’s pacing was masterful and it was a real treat to never be mentally ahead or behind the exact point I was reading.

While Bennett’s work is always rather hard to pin down and shove into one genre label, American Elsewhere might be a bit easier for some people to define. It does have some distinct horror feel to it, which many people might inevitably compare to Stephen King. While I can see the obvious comparison of work (they are both horror), I think the comparison should end there. Bennett is a master of his own style and unique voice. While Stephen King is obviously the horror grandmaster, Bennett is creating something new with his books, and that should be appreciated. It’s hard to write a horror book and not have people automatically throw around Stephen King’s name somewhere. American Elsewhere is a bit of horror, but it’s also a unique insight into small-town Americana and, as always, Bennett isn’t just writing a book here, he’s trying to share a deeper something with the reader as well.

American Elsewhere is Bennett’s longest book, but it never loses its focus. Bennett really shows off his flare for balance, development and pacing. The plot, while interesting, is definitely unique. The horror aspects will please fans of that genre, but readers shouldn’t miss out on the subtle undertones, the things that are classic Bennett: a layered book that slowly unfolds, intriguing (and unexpected) character development, and something a bit deeper that Bennett hints at rather than hits readers over the head with. Perhaps the most incredible aspect of this work is how well Bennett manages to string readers along, which allows them to feel all the twists and turns as acutely as if they were living through it. American Elsewhere is as much of a mental exercise as an exciting horror read, and truly shows his unique flair and incredible (and obviously growing) talent.

The truth is, when I boil it all down to its most basic elements, the thing that keeps me coming back to Bennett is how unique he is, and how much he evolves with each book. I never know what I’m going to get, but whatever it is, I always seem to enjoy the holy hell out of it. At the end of the day, isn’t that what really matters? 

You’ll never look at small town life the same again.

 

4.5/5 stars

The Red Knight – Miles Cameron

About the Book

Twenty eight florins a month is a huge price to pay, for a man to stand between you and the Wild.

Twenty eight florins a month is nowhere near enough when a wyvern’s jaws snap shut on your helmet in the hot stink of battle, and the beast starts to rip the head from your shoulders. But if standing and fighting is hard, leading a company of men – or worse, a company of mercenaries – against the smart, deadly creatures of the Wild is even harder.

It takes all the advantages of birth, training, and the luck of the devil to do it.

The Red Knight has all three, he has youth on his side, and he’s determined to turn a profit. So when he hires his company out to protect an Abbess and her nunnery, it’s just another job. The abby is rich, the nuns are pretty and the monster preying on them is nothing he can’t deal with.

Only it’s not just a job. It’s going to be a war.

648 pages (paperback)

Published on October 25, 2012

Published by Orbit

Author’s webpage

This book was sent for me to review by the publisher.

You can purchase a copy of this book by clicking the following links: The Red Knight (The Traitor Son Cycle), The Red Knight (The Traitor Son Cycle) – Kindle

—–

The thing about military-esque epic fantasy is that it will always have an audience. Always. There will always be someone out there who sees a blurb about a knight on a horse and buys the book. It’s a sort of subgenre that will have fans no matter how redundant, or unique, the books may be. With that in mind, books that fit into that genre have a greater challenge ahead of them. They need to do something new, or present an old story in a refreshing way because there really are only so many different things that you can say about a guy on a horse going on a quest.

On the surface, The Red Knight is exactly what I look for in this kind of book. It’s unique. Set in an alternative earth/post-apocalyptic earth/secondary earth (I never was quite clear on that point), The Red Knight reads more like historical fantasy more than anything else. There is a religious order that will automatically call to mind the days of the old, powerful Catholics complete with nuns and monks. There is hokey, backward medicine that is practiced with a great deal of superstition. Camps and basic life procedures are absolutely disgusting when taken into consideration with this day and age, and probably right on par with how they were back in the medieval times. In fact, the life, culture, and cultural practices are incredibly believable and well fleshed out. They show the author’s surprising amount of in-depth research and obvious passion for the time period he’s portraying and the subject matter.

Cameron’s writing also helps him on his quest to bring this period of time to life in a realistic way. He’s blunt, straightforward and detailed so it’s hard to get confused with what he’s trying to say. He’s also lyrical and descriptive enough without being overly so. This all works together to create a very fascinating world with it’s own unique qualities nicely balanced with a rich historical feel that many fantasy fans will fall in love with.

Perhaps the book starts to fall apart a bit with pacing, especially some of the fight scenes. While I’m sure it’s hard for authors to write fight scenes that are constantly unique and memorable, that seems to be something that Cameron struggled with the most. Many of his fight scenes, especially toward the end, seemed almost interchangeable. This added to the occasional plot drag that readers would probably feel. The two working together could make readers impatient for the book to just move on in places, but it’s worth the wait as the ending is pretty rewarding and sets up the next book in the series nicely.

Characters themselves vary in believability. Cameron has women in his ranks of soldiers and he also shows how women are treated in the world around them. The two vary considerably and it’s an interesting window into sexism from days gone by and how people might have handled it, whether a soldier or a villager. That being said, while Cameron seems to excel on cultural nuances, he seems to struggle a bit with bringing characters into a well-rounded perspective. Some of the conversations are a little unbelievable, the Red Knight himself struggles with that, as much of what he says to other high-ranking individuals is done with such a flippant air I find him hard to engage in fully, or believe completely. Other characters fall flat, and lack color or memorability. With a cast that is as vast as the cast in The Red Knight, this is a serious failing that might break it for some readers. It’s unfortunate that, when I’ve finished reading, I can’t remember half of the people I’ve read about.

What it really boils down to is the fact that Cameron seemed to struggle a bit blending all of the elements together into one cohesive book that is more than just the sum of its pieces. Somehow, when the book was put together, some elements feel like they get far more attention than others. While The Red Knight is incredibly plot driven, the characters could have used a little more love. Though the world is fascinating and the culture is interesting, some of the plot points and action sequences suffer a bit which makes the background seem more interesting than the events the reader is meant to focus on. This left me feeling like The Red Knight is the same old man-on-a-quest-against-all-unexpected-odds, albeit jazzed up a bit, that I’ve already read before. That’s unfortunate, because Cameron really shows some amazing talent and deep thought in this book, it just doesn’t seem to seep through all the pages. The Red Knight is a valiant effort and sure to catch any epic fantasy fan’s eye, despite how unbalanced it may be. This might turn off some readers more than others. Regardless, it’s a solid foundation for a series that will leave many begging for more.

 

3/5 stars

A Natural History of Dragons – Marie Brennan

About the Book 

Not a day goes by that the post does not bring me at least one letter from a young person (or sometimes one not so young) who wishes to follow in my footsteps and become a dragon naturalist. Nowadays, of course, the field is quite respectable, with university courses and intellectual societies putting out fat volumes titled Proceedings of some meeting or other. Those interested in respectable things, however, attend my lectures. The ones who write to me invariably want to hear about my adventures: my escape from captivity in the swamps of Mouleen, or my role in the great Battle of Keonga, or (most frequently) my flight to the inhospitable heights of the Mrtyahaima peaks, the only place on earth where the secrets of the ancient world could be unlocked.

Even the most dedicated of letter-writers could not hope to answer all these queries personally. I have therefore accepted the offer from Messrs. Carrigdon & Rudge to publish a series of memoirs, chronicling the more interesting portions of my life. By and large these shall focus on those expeditions which led to the discovery for which I have become so famous, but there shall also be occasional digressions into matters more entertaining, personal, or even (yes) salacious. One benefit of being an old woman now, and moreover one who has been called a “national treasure,” is that there are very few who can tell me what I may and may not write.

Beyond this point, therefore, lie foetid swamps, society gossip, disfiguring diseases, familial conflicts, hostile foreigners, and a plenitude of mud. You, dear reader, continue on at your own risk. It is not for the faint of heart — no more so than the study of dragons itself. But such study offers rewards beyond compare: to stand in a dragon’s presence, even for the briefest of moments — even at the risk of one’s life — is a delight that, once experienced, can never be forgotten. If my humble words convey even a fraction of that wonder, I will rest content.

In this first volume, I will relate to you how my career as a lady adventurer and dragon naturalist began, commencing at the creation of my childhood fascination with all things winged, and for the bulk of its length describing my first foreign expedition, to study the rock-wyrms of Vystrana. Common gossip has made the bare facts well-known, but I warn you, dear reader, that all was not as you have heard.

336 (Hardcover)

Published on February 5, 2013

Published by Tor

Author’s webpage

This book was provided for me to review by the publisher.

You can purchase a copy of this book here: A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent, A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent – Kindle

—–

The first thing anyone even looking at this book is going to notice is the artwork, so lets just get that part out of the way. Holy crap, this artwork is amazing. And the cover is the least of it, in my opinion. Drawings add a nice spice and are liberally peppered throughout the book to accentuate various points the narrator is trying to make, and it really helps. Not only does it add some visual stimulation to a more mental framework, but it’s just nothing short of damn beautiful. Seriously, the artist deserves an award for this one. Period.

A Natural History of Dragons is written in a memoir form, by the Lady Trent (who hasn’t attained her ladyship yet). This is written about her younger years, her discovery of science (not a hobby ladies of class subscribe to) and how she went about learning all the things her mother tried so hard to keep her from learning. While this book takes place on a secondary world, the mannerisms are very Victorian, an era that seems to crawl under my skin the wrong way in every single book I’ve ever read, but this one. It really worked here and I don’t think the book would have worked nearly so well if not for the era it had taken place in, with the social classes dealt with.

A Natural History of Dragons will either bore readers to tears, or they will absolutely love everything this book has to offer. I think it depends on mindset more than anything else. I am a science-minded person and I do (more often than I’d like to admit) read natural history and biology books that are more like doorbusting tomes.  Slow science discovery fascinates me. The realistic fight a woman has to be recognized as a formidable talent in a man’s world adds a nice spice to all the learning that my science aimed brain truly enjoyed. That being said, other people might find the details a bit too tedious, and if you are a person who doesn’t really give a fig about the anatomy of an animal or how archeology and the study of natural objects happens, this book might not work for you. You’ll probably find it boring, no matter how interesting the protagonist’s plight to be recognized for her intellect in her man’s world, is.

Isabella is a loveable character who put me in the mind of many early female scientists who were in for the love of the game, rather than anything else. Marie Curie, for example. Many areas of science have been pioneered by women who were too passionate to be able to sit down and shut up when they were told to do so. Brennan really infuses Isabella with that quality, and does it very nicely. Isabella isn’t a woman that does her time proud. She’s everything woman shouldn’t be and despite trying hard not to be that way, her inner science rebel always finds a way of peeking out at the most inopportune times.

She falls upon the sort of grudging respect relationship that a woman could hope for at a time like that. Things were awkward, and Brennan did a great job showing how a woman of her class might adjust to a life of marriage after being a member of her family’s house for so long, including her own boredom, and her faults with lacking at various wifely duties. It’s obvious that Isabella isn’t cut out to be a keeper of the manner, and soon the opportunity rises for her to go and do what she’s always dreamed of doing. Being able to do this takes a lot of convincing, and many people think she’s absolutely mad, but passion overrides that and she sets off as a young woman into an adventure that will make her cross her threshold into womanhood.

Isabella’s time with her husband and her group in the foreign country studying dragons is quite interesting, as much of how Brennan describes the naturalist and archeological methods of the time are, I’d assume, quite surprisingly accurate. In fact, everything from traveling (basically moving your whole house) to writing maps and interacting with the locals would be exactly how I’d expected it was in earlier days here. While many people might fault these parts for dragging on slowly, I will again remind readers that this book won’t please everyone. Those who are science minded might very well enjoy the scientific process that the group uses to discover as much as they can about these mysterious beasts. It’s like Brennan has taken her readers back through time to see how it was done years and years ago. Fascinating, and incredibly well researched.

Isabella is the star character, and you’d expect that from the narration of it. However, the story is being told from an old woman’s perspective and much of the romance and emotional mystery has been stripped from it, which I was grateful for. In a book, it’s enough to say that a couple found happiness. I don’t need to be part of their foreplay, if that makes sense. Brennan gives privacy where privacy is due, and her character makes plenty of mistakes and faults, so she’s not some perfect woman sent to blaze the way for science. No, I think half of A Natural History of Dragons is Isabella admitting she made one horrible mistake or another, which is amazingly refreshing.

While it may sound like this book was absolutely perfect, there was a few things that kicked it down a star ranking in my opinion. When Isabella has to face true tragedy, there is hardly any time spent on the emotion. She acknowledges it, but life moves on almost moments later and she’s back in the game and ready to go. While one side of me understands this, with my own cancer I tend to leave my “flip out” moments for those secret times when no one can see/hear me, I think it’s harder to empathize with the protagonist when we aren’t given any room to see or hear any of those private times as they are just vaguely alluded to.

Secondly, some of the “wrapping up” is pretty predictable, which was unfortunate. While I enjoyed Isabella the Naturalist, the end of the book felt more like the story of Isabella also known as Nancy Drew. That’s fine, but this switch of the character toward the end caused some of the mysteries to wrap up a bit too quickly and cleanly to be completely believable. In fact, the ending as a whole felt quite rushed and almost out of sync with the feeling Brennan had set up during the rest of the book. v

Do these cons take away from the book at all? In my opinion, it knocks it down a star, but that really doesn’t say much because this book really tickled an itch I didn’t know I had. I’m not a big fan of Victorian era things. It seems like every protagonist pushing boundaries in these Victorian books are just like the other victorian protagonists pushing their own boundaries. There’s little different and much the same. However, A Natural History of Dragons stuck out to me. The characters charmed me, the situations were interesting and well researched and I loved all the science and the science process minus a couple hundred years or so. Not only did Brennan tickle my fantasy bone, but she also tickled my intellectual one, and I appreciated that immensely. Brennan set a wonderful groundwork for an absolutely charming series and my one hope, my one true fervent desire is that the author writes fast, because I want to read the next installment in this series like, yesterday.

4/5 stars

The Kassa Gambit – M.C. Planck

About the Book

Centuries after the ecological collapse of Earth, humanity has spread among the stars. Under the governance of the League, our endless need for rfesources has driven us to colonize hundreds of planets, all of them devoid of other sentient life. Humanity is apparently alone in the universe.

Then comes the sudden, brutal decimation of Kassa, a small farming planet, by a mysterious attacker. The few survivors send out a desperate plea for aid, which is answered by two unlikely rescuers. Prudence Falling is the young captain of a tramp freighter. She and her ragtag crew have been on the run and living job to job for years, eking out a living by making cargo runs that aren’t always entirely legal. Lt. Kyle Daspar is a police officer from the wealthy planet of Altair Prime, working undercover as a double agent against the League. He’s been undercover so long he can’t be trusted by anyone—even himself.

While flying rescue missions to extract survivors from the surface of devastated Kassa, they discover what could be the most important artifact in the history of man: an alien spaceship, crashed and abandoned during the attack.

But something tells them there is more to the story. Together, they discover the cruel truth about the destruction of Kassa, and that an imminent alien invasion is the least of humanity’s concerns.

288 pages (hardcover)

Published on: January 8, 2013

Published by Tor

Author’s webpage

This book was provided for me to review by the publisher.

You can purchase a copy of this book here: The Kassa Gambit, The Kassa Gambit – Kindle

—–

Science Fiction is a genre that sets itself unique challenges based on the quality of work that floods its sphere. SciFi is known for pushing the limits and challenging whatever else could possibly be dreamed of. The truly successful SciFi author will put something never seen before into his or her books. That’s a mark of success that readers like myself look for when they read books in the genre. When that sort of inventiveness is missing, it’s felt acutely. 

Such is the case with The Kassa Gambit. While there is a lot to enjoy like a well thought out future, colonization, as well as how different societies have developed and evolved over time. There is enough on the surface to scratch any SciFi lover’s itch. However, when you look a little deeper, the book itself lacks that inventive edge I often look for in this genre. I felt it acutely. While the world building, cultures and evolution of said cultures is well thought out and rather fascinating, it never stretched into never-seen-before territory. Furthermore, the world building itself, while interesting, lacked a depth I’d expect from a SciFi book.

This is, perhaps, where the crux of this book lies. A lot of readers, when reading a space opera, will expect more from the world and characters than The Kassa Gambit is willing to offer. That will probably be a sticking point for many readers. In a genre full of such inventive worlds and technology, there really isn’t much there that is going to stick in your mind, or keep you holding on and saying wow long after the book is over.

That being said, the plot is fast moving and coupled nicely with political intrigue, a dash of thriller, and a nice layer of interstellar space opera type travel. Things move forward at a fast clip, and at times there is little occasion to catch your breath before the next thing happens. The Kassa Gambit isn’t a long book, and this quick pace will easily make this a fast, fun read. Despite the various aspects of the book that might not work well for some readers, the fast, action filled plot will inevitably help you through the rougher points. 

The Kassa Gambit switches perspectives between Prudence, or Pru and Kyle. Both characters have pasts that are complex and mysterious and only hinted at throughout much of the book. While the characters are fun and exciting, and fit the pacing of the book well, there’s an unreal quality to them, perhaps aided by the fact that they aren’t incredibly well developed. In fact, at times they come across rather two-dimensional and their dialogue can be somewhat stilted and unbelievable. While the characters are two unique individuals, often their dialogue doesn’t reflect that. Furthermore, the development of a relationship won’t come off as a shock to anyone, but the authors spends very little time developing that relationship. One second they are fond of each other and the next they are involved in a hot-and-heavy relationship. I missed the development and the slow building of feelings cultivated by two distinct individuals. The lack of it made the characters, and their relationship, rather unbelievable.

It takes some time for readers to be familiar with the various cultures and the politics of the Legion, but it doesn’t take long. Planck does a good job at introducing potentially complex ideas in an easy to understand way. This will, inevitably, help readers appreciate the plot more. This also makes The Kassa Gambit a good novel for individuals to read who might be a little less familiar or easy with many complex aspects of space operas.

The Kassa Gambit has a lot to offer readers who are looking forward to something fun and fast that has the feel of a thriller about it. This book would make a great introduction to space operas or science fiction to those interested in looking into the genre. It’s easy to understand and digest and Planck does a great job presenting complex ideas in a simple, easy to understand way. Those tried and true in the genre might miss the inventive, never-done-before feel that most SciFi books have. The characters are a little stilted and unbelievable and the book lacks the complexity that readers might be looking for in a science fiction/space opera style book. That being said, the relentlessly fast, fun plot is worth trying out. While the pros and cons are fairly balanced, The Kassa Gambit is the start of a promising series that is worth keeping an eye on.

 

3/5 stars

Excerpt | Fade to Black – Francis Knight

On February 20th, Orbit will be publishing Fade to Black by Francis Knight. This debut novel has my attention peaked, so when the wonderful people at Orbit asked me if I’d be willing to post an excerpt, I gladly jumped at the opportunity.

This excerpt is of the third chapter. To read the first two chapters, please visit the following links:

Chapter One

Chapter Two 

Author’s webpage

About the Book

From the depths of a valley rises the city of Mahala.

It’s a city built upwards, not across—where streets are built upon streets, buildings upon buildings. A city that the Ministry rules from the sunlit summit, and where the forsaken lurk in the darkness of Under.

Rojan Dizon doesn’t mind staying in the shadows, because he’s got things to hide. Things like being a pain-mage, with the forbidden power to draw magic from pain. But he can’t hide for ever.

Because when Rojan stumbles upon the secrets lurking in the depths of the Pit, the fate of Mahala will depend on him using his magic. And unlucky for Rojan—this is going to hurt.

Chapter Three

The Sacred Goddess Hospital was one of the plusher ones, up above Trade, and it took me most of the rest of the afternoon to negotiate my way up the ramp. Mahala’s Spine they call it, the link between each layer from the depths of Boundary to the pinnacle of Top of the World. By the time I reached the right level, the sun was setting behind a rack of rainclouds. I stopped the wheezing carriage and watched for a while. It wasn’t often I got up high enough to see the sun directly, normally relying on second- or third-hand light bounced from mirrors or seeping dimly through light-wells.

From here, I could see right out over one side of Trade, the huge, hulking factories that seemed to permanently shake the feet as they pounded out Mahala’s lifeblood – the technology we invented and made so well. Behind them sat warehouses, black and squat and menacing. No buildings above the factories or warehouses – they’d have been shaken to pieces – so I could see, far off and grey, the tops of the mountains that surrounded the city, that gave us our strength, and our weakness, the reason we built up rather than out. The reason we had to trade for food, because we had so little land left to farm.

Mahala was built to make you look up, and then up again. The other side of Trade, the merchant houses, shops, arcades, markets, showrooms and laboratories were all covered by more buildings, so that all I could make out in the lowering light were facings, flashing red Glow lights shouting out wares, and black chasms between. Walkways clung to them like spider’s webs, as if they were spiders trying to spin a city. Above lay Heights, on graceful spires and spindles, then Clouds, giant platforms that I would never see except from underneath, full of gardens and rarer wonders, or so I’d heard.

Above everything, on a spire so thin it seemed it must break, with only the gossamer strand of the Spine reaching its dais, sat Top of the World. Heart of the Ministry, home of the Archdeacon, far off and impossible to reach. All the better to look down on us, mere mortals, unworthy of divine notice, or sun, at least once you got down past Trade. I supposed you couldn’t see us from up there; Under-Trade, or the area they called the Buzz, was where rich men might come if they were feeling adventurous, but not too grubby. Down further into the murky depths where the sun was a rumour, buildings squashed together as though for comfort, was the area once called Hope City, now known as No-Hope Shitty, and, at the bottom, Boundary. The city used to go further, before the synth.

Ah yes. Synth. Hailed as the great invention to save mankind from pain-mages and from the city’s reliance on the power they had, the way they could run all the machines in Trade, make us the city that everyone looked to. Only magic had its side effects: odd splurges that got out of control, weird fogs that choked and fumed; the pain-mages either falling into the black or going mad and blowing up portions of the city, or each other, on a fairly regular basis as the workload increased and the number of mages didn’t, or not very fast. So when the Ministry discovered synth, they knew they could topple the King – a mage himself, with a habit of defending every mage’s action even when they were blowing each other and the non-magical populace up. With a new power source behind them, the Ministry had banned us, for “the good of the city”, introduced synth to run the machines, and all had been well. The Glorious Revolution had saved the city and of course, as the instigators, the Ministry had become the new government. Fair, even-handed – or they were to start with. Never stays like that, does it? But most importantly, they were not magical. The air cleared, no one blew anyone else up except the odd alchemist. All the same, it had taken them years to realise synth was killing people.

No one knew of the toxic properties of synth to start with, and it was only when a new and virulent form of disease had swept over the plains north of Mahala, and then raced through the lower layers of the city, before it ate its way through most of the rest of the continent, that they’d realised something was amiss. The synthtox. It seeped into every part of you, from the rain, the water you drank, the food you ate. In itself it wasn’t harmful, but it did something to the body, made it retain all the toxins that should have been flushed out, until the system could take no more and the tox took over. It was a long, painful death, as I could attest. Watching my mother die of it over a period of ten years was the single most gruesome experience of my life.

We couldn’t go back to pain magic: all the mages had either left, been sent to the ‘Pit or been driven into hiding by the Ministry. The King they’d beheaded – the surest way to kill a pain-mage, because it’s so quick – and shoved his body off the edge of his own palace in Top of the World and left him for the rats. Without him and his absolute authority to protect them, and with the sight of his headless body plunging a hundred levels or more imprinted in their minds, the mages had scattered.

Even if the Ministry hadn’t got rid of all the mages, synth had been more powerful. Mahala had grown so much on the extra trade in the only way it could – up – that even if we’d had all the mages back they wouldn’t have been able to power a tenth of the new machines. So the powers-that-be had panicked, and pulled together. Synth had been banned and the alchemists and priests had come up with a new fuel, Glow, one shrouded in mystery, not as powerful as synth but at least clean. Of course that’s what they’d said about synth, but people would have believed anything at that point and maybe it was even true. No one has ever been known to die from Glow, but it’s early days yet.

The lower places were the worst-infected by the synth, where the tainted water pooled. They’d cleared them out, sealed them off in Namrat’s Armpit, cleaned the remaining water supplies Upside. Over the course of the next few years the synth levels had dropped dramatically, though those who had it in their bodies already couldn’t get rid of it, and so they still died. Fewer each year, until now, almost fifteen years later, it was becoming a rarity except far down in Boundary.

If it was as bad as this, why didn’t I leave? Why didn’t we all? I could see those mountains, grey, mythical shapes. I knew they existed. Probably. I knew there had to be an Outside. I had yet to meet anyone who’d been there. For all any of us knew, it could be worse. According to the news-sheets it didn’t even exist, not really, a story the Ministry stuck to despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Even if I’d been tempted, two very real things kept me here. One, getting Outside would take more money than I could blag in a lifetime. Oh, things went out, machines, inventions, all the little things that kept us in crappy vegetarian mush. People didn’t, though. Maybe the occasional Special, the élite Ministry guards who escorted the merchandise out. But anyone else? If you weren’t Ministry, forget it.

The general feeling Under-Trade was either that, given the lack of people who’d actually seen it, it was mythical, or you’d die trying to get out. Neither appealed. Besides, reason number two: Dendal. I owed the old bastard – quite a lot, and not money. Lastri would look after him if I went but… but I’ve abandoned a lot of people in my life. I just can’t quite see myself abandoning Dendal. Not least because, if he wanted, I’d be a smear of blood on his carpet, the knowledge of which sharpens the mind wonderfully. Only idiots tried to get Outside, that was the crux of it, and they died, or got sent to the ‘Pit. I kept telling myself that, and never failed to stop to look at the pale ghosts of mountains when I got the chance.

But I didn’t stop to stare at the mythical Outside and the not-so-mythical but highly pungent Inside for long, because the view always left a bad taste in my mouth.

The Sacred Goddess Hospital was a great grey building, squashed between the outer boundary of Trade that supported its base and the more graceful area of Heights above.

I left the carriage and negotiated the clanking iron walkway that led out over the gap. I’ve said I prefer the lower-rent districts because it saves me money. It also saves my head. With one hand firmly on the handrail, I stepped out, eyes fixed ahead. Just keep the hospital in view. Don’t look down. You’d think I’d be used to it after a lifetime in this city, but I’ve seen too many fallers who’ve missed the nets and bounced their way down twenty or thirty levels. Or rather, I’ve seen what was left of them once they reached Boundary.

The walkway swung alarmingly with all the people crossing, barging and pushing to get home before the sun went, but I managed to get across without screaming like a little girl. The hospital was new, scavenged from the guts of the old building that had stood here and refaced with a newer type of steel that shone faintly in the lights of the Glow globes hung around it. I made my way towards the larger glow of open doors. The Sacred Goddess Hospital never shut.

Inside was more traditional: lots of wooden panelling, floors that squeaked under my shoes and the scent of every hospital everywhere – disinfectant, boiled cabbage and death waiting to happen.

It didn’t take long to find out that Perak was in one of the private rooms on the top floor, which made me raise my eyebrows, though not as much as the phalanx of hatchet-faced guards outside the door. They stood out like blood on a bandage with their bright red uniforms, red linen over pale body armour. Each of them had a gun at his hip, a new innovation. Mahala alchemists had used black powder for various things in our less salubrious past; the ability to use that powder to launch a piece of metal into someone’s body was relatively recent. Luckily, that meant it was also too expensive for most people, especially the sort of small-time low-lives I dealt with on a daily basis. It should also be out of the reach of guards – the Ministry had yet to equip them with guns due to the cost – and the fact that it wasn’t was unnerving.

I recognised one of them, Dench. He often gave me surreptitious tip-offs on bounties coming up in return for a small cut. He nodded almost imperceptibly to the other guards, murmured he knew who I was, and let me in.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dim interior. The room was small but well appointed, much more so than the open wards below. Instead of bare whitewashed walls, lush hangings in muted green and gold softened the square room. The Glow globes, while dimmed, were top-notch quality; and proper fruit, not reconstituted crap, sat on the side table in enough variety to shame all but the best grocers. Perak must have done well for himself, or had powerful friends.

He was asleep, the dark hair that we’d both inherited from our father mussed and clumped with blood. He’d always taken after our mother more than I had. His skin was lighter, a creamy brown like Ma’s, his cheekbones somewhat broader than my own too-gaunt ones, the nose shorter. But that we were brothers showed in the rounding of our chins, the downward tilt to our eyes, the shape of our mouths.

A sheet covered him below the waist and blood spotted a large bandage that was wrapped tightly around one shoulder and over his chest. A doctor with a sharp, dark face leaned over him, his fingers registering Perak’s pulse.

The doctor scowled at me. “No visitors, not yet.”

I shrugged. Putting this off would be a relief, but Perak didn’t have that luxury. “I’m his brother.”

The doctor laid Perak’s arm down and regarded me critically, maybe assessing the likeness. He seemed convinced. “Hmm. Well, when he wakes up again you’ve got two minutes. We managed to get one bullet out. The other’s still in his chest somewhere.” He shook his head so his hair flopped over his forehead. Suddenly he lost his arrogance and looked young and tired and pissed off. “This is only the third bullet case I’ve ever seen. The others were minor, but the potential for damage – the wounds are nothing like knife or sword wounds and we’re still learning. That bullet might be fine, or it might kill him, and I haven’t a clue which it will be. Whoever invented guns, I just hope Namrat takes the guy’s soul and balls when he dies.”

The doctor made for the door, trailing weariness in the slump of his shoulders. He turned at the doorway with an afterthought. “I haven’t told him everything about his wife. He just knows she’s dead. Perak said you find people for a living and you’re going to find his daughter. If you think anything about the mother’s death would help, come and find me after. Ask for Doctor Whelar.”

The room was deathly quiet when he left, with only the bubble of Perak’s breath to break the silence. I went over his words earlier, the way he’d sounded as though tears were choking every word. I’d never known Perak cry before. I’d rarely seen him any other way than in his own head, grinning at what went on there and occasionally trying it out in the real world, generally with disastrous consequences.

Of course the consequences had always been left for me to deal with, like that time he’d mixed together all the powders, liquids, bits of soap, paint and scraps of wood he could find with a thimbleful of black powder he’d found somewhere, and lit the resulting mess. Right near the guard’s station. It was a clear area, he said, like that was an obvious place for an experiment. Well, yes, it was clear because no one went close if they could avoid it, so as not to get arrested for being alive. Which at least meant no one got hurt when it all exploded, but the station had a large hole in its side and the guards were seriously pissed off. Who did they chase? Oh yeah, me. Almost caught me too. I suppose it was inevitable that Perak would end up in Alchemy Research.

Still, he’d never meant any harm, which was part of the reason it rankled so much. Now real life had finally caught up with him.

I was just beginning to doze myself when Perak woke up. He struggled to sit and I helped him get settled on some pillows and tried not to see the way his eyes tracked me. When I sat back, he couldn’t hold it in any more. Tears choked him until I thought he’d open up his wound with the wrenching sobs. Or maybe I just worried about that to take my mind off the misery that seeped into me. I was reminded just how much I loved him, even if he had almost got me thrown in jail at least four times, more than one of which would have meant a one-way trip to the ‘Pit. I remembered what I’d made myself forget when I’d cut myself off from him: his generous heart, a complete faith that everything would work out; one I could never share. That faith was stretched to its limit now.

“She’s only six,” he kept saying. He couldn’t seem to say anything else without it coming back to that. “Only six.”

I didn’t know what I could say to him that would help. In the end there was only one thing I could do, the reason he had called me. “What happened? And since when have you been married?”

He managed to pull his sobs back into him, and gave me a ghost of his old smile. “Not long after I saw you last, when you—” He didn’t need to finish that sentence.

The last time I’d seen him had been just after our mother’s funeral, when it had seemed that I was going to be the only one responsible for him. As I’d been for so long growing up, since our father disappeared not long after Ma got sick, before we knew for sure what it was, that it would kill her. I was ten and all I really remembered of my father was his dark hair, his bitterness and his voice. I remembered the timbre of that voice, the way the rhythm of it seeped into your head and conjured pictures there. It stayed with me long after his face had become a blur, or I’d learned to hate him for leaving us. Leaving me. I’d been responsible for both Perak and Ma since then and when she died I’d wanted to be free of it, of responsibility, of people depending on me.

After the funeral, Perak and I had had words, you might say, although the words were all mine. I’d pretty much told him the only reason I’d put up with him that long was for Ma’s sake. I hadn’t meant it; her death had still been too raw then, and all the bitterness and despair of her long, slow decline had come spilling out in a black torrent of abuse. So I’d just spewed it all over him, watching the acid in my voice dissolve his smile till all I could see was a desperate, shocked hurt. I’d stopped looking at him so I couldn’t see that hurt, but I couldn’t stop the bile. I turned to face the wall and my words fell out of my mouth without thought. When I turned back he’d gone and I hadn’t seen him since. If I was truthful, it was shame that had kept me from getting back in touch.

“So what happened?” I asked.

He shrugged as well as he could, his mouth dragging down into a grimace of pain. “We went out, for lunch. Left Amarie with a sitter, young girl from Under.”

“Under where? Where are you living?”

“Clouds,” he said, and I was frankly astonished. How had my daydreaming little brother managed to get a place in the rarefied air of Clouds? It seemed he almost read my mind. “I made a very lucrative discovery. They gave me a job in Alchemy Research.”

Now I was speechless, and he smiled again at the look on my face. Alchemy Research was the single largest, and richest, arm of the Ministry, ever since the disaster with synth when the ‘Pit had been sealed off, years ago. Given the way our mother had died, and the long-hidden alchemical poisoning that had caused it, it was a subject close to both our hearts.

“You were right, what you said about me,” he said. “Took me a while to see it, but you were right. So I got my act together. Got myself a good job, a lovely wife, and Amarie. She was the pinnacle of everything I had.” He blinked back fresh tears. “We’d used this sitter before, nice young girl, Amarie liked her. We came home early – Elsa wasn’t feeling so well – and when we got in…”

“And when you got in, what?” I had to prompt him; he was lost in his thoughts again.

He blinked back to reality. “We must have disturbed something, someone. The sitter was dead on the living-room floor. Elsa screamed and ran for Amarie’s room. I was frozen, just looking down at the body. There – there was blood everywhere. I couldn’t believe it. Then there were shots from the bedroom. That’s irony, isn’t it? I worked out how to get black powder to launch bullets, I invented the concept of the gun and then – I ran in but Elsa was already dead. Amarie was there with two men, but she looked glazed, like they’d drugged her maybe. She tried to say something, but it was all slurred and—” He broke off again, and this time he couldn’t stop the tears.

“And that’s when they shot you and took her,” I said, when it was clear talking was too difficult for him. He nodded.

This wasn’t like any case I’d had before; I found runaways and bounty-hunted small-time thieves and embezzlers on the run, not kidnappers or anything that might turn too violent. I value my own arse too much and the responsibility of a life depending on me gives me the jitters. But the look on his face, and shame for the way I’d treated him, forced me to say what I did.

“I’ll find her for you, if the guards don’t first. You concentrate on getting well; when you are, I’ll have her here.” He looked so pathetically grateful that I had to turn away for a moment. “You have a picture?”

He nodded towards the locker by the side of his bed and I took out the slim wallet, noticing it was real leather, a rarity these days that made this wallet worth about as much as everything I owned. First thing I saw in there was a card giving his rank at Alchemy Research.

“You’re a cardinal?” Cardinals were one step down from the Archdeacon, who ran everything like the spider at the centre of the web. The Mouth of the Goddess, who spoke her words to us for her. Supposedly. That was how he kept control, anyway. He spoke for the Goddess and everyone else jumped to obey, first the cardinals, who passed on orders to the bishops and down through the ranks. Everyone jumped, excepting maybe the Specials, but they swore to the Goddess herself, not the Archdeacon, so they had some leeway there. I couldn’t remember the last time they’d used it – they were usually pretty forward about doing the Archdeacon’s bidding.

Perak’s smile was small, lonely and rather shame-faced. “An honorific one only, because I’m head of research. I’ve never even been to Top of the World, and I only met the Archdeacon once, when I got the promotion. Too busy with my work.”

“What’s he like?” Not a pertinent question perhaps, but the Archdeacon ran my life whether I wanted him to or not.

“What? Oh. Ordinary. Just… just like anyone else really. Nothing memorable about him. He shook my hand, gave me a funny look like he recognised me but couldn’t remember where from, said well done and then he was gone. I couldn’t pick him out in a crowd.”

Same old daydreaming Perak – he met the man in charge of the city, the man who loomed large in every aspect of Mahala, and couldn’t remember him bar he was ordinary. I went back to the wallet.

Behind the Alchemy Research card was a tatty and much-thumbed picture painted in oils, nicely done. I could imagine Perak showing it at every opportunity, to anyone who asked and anyone who didn’t.

The thin scrap of paper showed a vibrantly pretty girl of about five, fair hair blowing under a pretend tiara and eyes shining as she waved and said, “Daddy, Daddy, look, I’m a princess!” A ten-second loop, a hideously expensive piece of tech and just the sort of thing a proud father would carry. A niece I had never met because of my own stubbornness. There was a picture of his wife there too, and I could see that Amarie took after her, the delicate prettiness, the intelligent eyes, the bright blonde hair.

“What did the men look like?”

He shrugged, and I had to stop myself asking why he couldn’t pay attention to what was under his nose – it was obvious he’d thought of no one but his daughter.

“One tall and thin, scarred face – a cut across one eye,” he managed eventually. “The other was younger, but they looked similar, brothers maybe. They were dressed oddly – I don’t know, but not like I’ve seen anyone else dress. Lots of leather. I don’t remember anything else.”

Leather, which only the rich could afford, and even then only in small pieces. There weren’t enough animals left to warrant killing them for their skin, though some got out when the few fattened ones were slaughtered for their equally expensive meat. Sometimes we got some leather in Trade, but its very rarity made it dearer than gold. Most of the farm animals had died of the tox and now it was more efficient to grow crops, which were more resistant to synth.

“You really think you can find her?” Perak asked, and for the first time he let a desperate, pleading hope into his voice.

“I’m sure I can,” I lied. What else could I say?

At least there would be no angry girlfriends, or rather exgirlfriends, waiting to launch another paint broadside.

It wasn’t a whole lot of comfort, if I’m honest.

Perak’s eyes were drooping and red-rimmed. I left him with a solemn promise to find Amarie and he promised he would sleep. I wasn’t so sure either promise would be kept any time soon.

I slid out of the door and blinked at the brighter lights of the corridor. The guards either side of the doorway made me feel both that Perak was safer, and more in danger. Ministry paid the guards’ wages. Perak, my daydreaming little brother, had invented the gun – that incident at the guards’ station with the black powder now seemed prophetic – and now he’d been shot, his wife was dead and his daughter kidnapped. I caught Dench’s eye and we didn’t need to exchange words. I had to talk to him soon though, and from the worried pinch of the skin round his eyes he wanted to talk to me. He palmed me a piece of paper as I made my way past, and I took pains to hide it from the other guard.

The nurses’ workstation was a blur of activity along the corridor and I read the note as I walked. Beggar’s Roost, midnight. Dench’s favourite pub, where the women were cheap and the beer cheaper, but only just. Well, it would be rude not to go, right? Besides, it wasn’t like I’d had anything planned for that night, not now.

The nurses were efficient and scrubbed to shiny-cheeked perfection, their acolytes’ robes brilliant white and stiff with starch. One of them – the name “Lilla” was embroidered on her robe – led me along corridors, down stairs, past wards that wafted the stench of synth at me so I hurried to get away, up another set of stairs and round till I was lost. I didn’t mind too much: the nurse was pretty in a clean and clinical way and I flirted my best. Even got a promise of dinner at a later date. Nurses: clean on the outside but, in my plentiful experience, absolutely filthy in bed.

Finally, with a dimpled smile and a giggle that hinted at much naughtiness, she showed me through a door. The room I entered was, simply put, staggering. I’d expected a cramped office overflowing with charts and bits of doctorly paraphernalia with cut-away diagrams of ears and hearts and livers. Maybe a skeleton grinning at people. What I got was a full-blown laboratory.

Glassware covered every surface of one half of the room, sadly not bubbling in a mad-scientist kind of way. I kind of hoped something green and seething would emit a whiff of gas that would give me visions, but no such luck. A half-dissected pig lay across a table, but that wasn’t much of a consolation. Mainly due to the smell of shit, which made me think it might have still been alive when the good doctor started. Wait, wait. I backed up a bit.

A pig. A real live, er, dead pig. How much money did this hospital have? Pork was even more expensive than beef – pigs had suffered more than cows from the synth. And the skin: pigskin was worth more than gold – shit, more than diamonds, pound for pound. Altogether the pig was worth more than everything I owned or was ever likely to. Plus, I’d heard they tasted nice. I’d smelled bacon once, and I still dreamed of it sometimes. It smelled crispy and crunchy and a hundred, maybe a thousand times better than any of the processed slop that was all anyone from Under-Trade could usually afford to eat. And Whelar was cutting it up.

“Mr Dizon.” Whelar appeared as if out of nowhere, though in reality it seemed his desk lurked behind a display of pickled organs and animals with more than the usual number of limbs. A three-headed cat stared at me gloopily through the thick preserving fluid and I tried not to stare back. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

It took a moment to regain my composure. That pig was unnerving me. So was the cat. “I, er, oh yes. Elsa Dizon. You said if I had any questions?”

He looked me up and down. I seemed to meet his approval, because he indicated a chair next to his desk. He sat in the desk chair and swung it to and fro, his hands elaborately loose in his lap, but his lips were pinched tight. Trying to look unconcerned and failing.

“So, what do you want to know?”

“I’m not sure. What can you tell me?”

One of his fingers twitched to life and tapped out a staccato rhythm on his thigh. “Not much. She died very quickly. Two shots, as with your brother. One was directly into the heart, the other shattered her jaw. Not pretty.”

I shut my eyes briefly against the image of the delicate face in Perak’s picture shattered by a lump of metal. Not pretty indeed. “What about the bullets?”

The finger stopped its tapping for half a heartbeat before it continued. “What about them?”

“I’d like to see them, if you have them.”

Whelar’s lips pinched just a fraction more, then he relaxed and gave a curt nod. “A moment, please.”

He left and I took the opportunity to nose around. I kept away from the pig though; I didn’t like the way it grinned at me, or the smell. There wasn’t much else of interest, only instruments that I couldn’t name and which seemed designed for torture, messy stacks of paperwork and a framed letter from the Archdeacon thanking Whelar for his sterling work in medical research.

It didn’t take long for Whelar to return; I guessed he’d only gone to order a subordinate to fetch the bullets.

“They won’t be long,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

I cast a sidelong glance at the pig. A neat little hole marred the skin by its neck. “The pig – seems a rather expensive thing to just chop up in a lab.”

To my surprise he didn’t become evasive or defensive, but instead grinned like a kid on his nameday. “Ah, yes, but it’s important, you see. More important than money. Did you know that pig’s flesh is more like ours than almost any other animal? One reason they succumbed as badly as us to the synth. So, very important in my research.”

“And what are you researching here?”

Yes, there it was: now he closed in. His shoulders hunched slightly, as if to ward off a blow. “I – I’d rather not say. Superstition, you know. Us doctors like to keep it all close to our chest until we know we’re right. It’s all theory at the moment, though there might be a breakthrough soon.”

“So that isn’t a bullet hole there?”

He looked about to protest when a knock at the door interrupted him and Nurse Lilla hurried in with a covered dish. She dimpled prettily in my direction while handing the dish to Whelar and left with a wink and an implied promise.

I dragged my eyes back to Whelar and gave him my best smarmy smile. He pursed his lips in tacit disapproval but said nothing and shoved the dish my way. I took off the linen cover and peered at the two bullets rattling around in the bottom. I’d no idea what I was looking for: I’d never seen a bullet before – heck, I’d never seen a gun before today – but the request had made the good doctor fidget so I took them out and looked them over. One of them was so squashed I could hardly tell what it was, but the second still had a recognisable uniform shape and I peered closer. It was flattened on one side, but the other had a maker’s mark. One I knew from long acquaintance.

“Thank you, Dr Whelar, you’ve been most illuminating.” I only said it to make him squirm. OK, and to stop him seeing that I’d just palmed one of the bullets.

Wraeththu – Storm Constantine

About the Book

In this powerful and elegant story set in a future Earth very different from our own, a new kind of human has evolved to challenge the dominion ofHomo sapiens. This new breed is stronger, smarter, and far more beautiful than their parent race, and are endowed with psychic as well as physical gifts. They are destined to supplant humanity as we know it, but humanity won’t die without a struggle.

Here at last in a single volume are all three of Constantine’s Wraeththu trilogy: The Enchantments of Flesh and Spirit, The Bewitchments of Love and Hate, and The Fulfilments of Fate and Desire. 

800 pages (paperback)

Published on October 15, 1993

—–

Oddly enough, I started reading Wraeththu because I happened upon it randomly in the bookstore and I was absolute entranced by the fact that I didn’t like the cover art at all.  That’s the opposite response I usually have toward cover art. I’m not sure why this is the one book that I looked at and thought, “Wow, that’s pretty terrible cover art. I better read the book.” Whatever the reason, I’m glad I did.

This is my first experience with any of Storm Constantine’s work. Occasionally I come across author’s work that makes me think it would be a criminal offense if said author didn’t write. Storm Constantine is probably in the top of that class. I have, quite honestly, never read such flowing, beautiful and absolutely evocative prose. While the subject matter will be a hit or miss with readers, the writing itself is worth reading the book for. There is something to be said for mastering lyrical, flowing prose, and Constantine has done just that. Her writing makes her world and characters fly off the page. You aren’t reading this book; you are experiencing it.

Along with the beautiful prose, Wraeththu is written in a rather dense way that will require your full attention to fully absorb. This also means that this is the type of book that you can read again and again and get something new out of it each time (Much like Janny Wurt’s Wars of Light and Shadow series).

Wraeththu is the first book in a series that is set in a future time of Earth where societies have risen and fallen and humanity has developed new methods of living (new religions, ruling systems, social rules and more). Introduced into this steaming hotpot of newness is a new evolution of humanity, the androgynous Wraeththu and all sorts of new beliefs, practices and even magic that comes along with them. 

It’s obvious that Constantine is adept at writing dark fantasy, which is a genre I personally love. It’s also a subgenre that seems to be hard to do right. Good dark fantasy is adept at toying with your darkest fears and most avoided imaginings. Constantine is a master of dark fantasy, and her series Wraeththu is obviously a cornerstone and a genre bender in a fantasy niche that is very hard for authors to perfect.

That being said, there is some subject matter that Constantine deals with that might not appeal to all readers. She also calls into light some uncomfortable social beliefs, and uses sex as a pretty direct tool to manipulate the magic system she has created. While all of these matters are just surface level plot points that hint at the much deeper and more intricate workings of Constantine’s mind, I could easily see how the subject matter could be unappetizing to some readers.

Constantine doesn’t drive her narrative in any typical way. Things happen that you wouldn’t expect and characters make decisions that are shockingly human, despite their (at times) obvious inhuman nature. Many of them are prone to mistakes, which often drive the plot. While all of the characters are memorable, it’s Cal and Pel that stuck with me more than the others. They have a complex relationship that can, at times, be hard to understand. However, they seem to be symbolic for much of the issues that face Constantine’s world. It should also be noted that each installment in this omnibus is narrated by a different character, and each has it’s own unique appeal. Some readers will enjoy some perspectives more than others.

In fact, it serves to point out that much of what Constantine writes in this book seems to be symbolic of something deeper and more complex. That’s another reason why you could read this book again and again and always feel like you are reading it for the first time. Constantine uses her characters as perfect tools to hint at the deeper workings of what she is trying to portray. They come across as beautiful, complex, mistake prone, clunky, occasionally offensive individuals that can’t help but shock you with their sheer humanness, despite the fact that many of them are anything but.

Constantine started her Wraeththu books in the 1980’s, and unless I’m mistaken, she’s still publishing short stories and histories for her numerous fans. What’s even more impressive is that, no matter if you read this in the 1980’s or now, much of what she’s written is still very before her time and her numerous and impressive number of fans no doubt thank her for that.

That’s probably the thing that’s most incredible about Wraeththu; it’s genre bending and forward thinking. The writing is, simply put, absolutely stunning. The world is rich and complex and the characters are so believable you can’t help but feel like they are alive – living, breathing parts of you. Storm Constantine and her Wraeththu books are probably some of my most exciting finds in my recent reading history and are easily ranked among my favorite dark fantasy books of all time.

 

5/5 stars

 

I’m back!

I’m back.

This mini break was necessary and I’m back feeling revitalized and fresh. I have a full week of stuff planned, reviews, excerpts, etc. It should be fun.

In the meantime, I will show you what I was so busy working on these past few days. I’m pretty proud of this set and while I might add one or two shots to it, this is pretty much it.

This set is called “Nothing’s Perfect” and has been basically keeping me sane despite the chaos of cancer treatment. I’ve learned that I handle things a lot better when I have some sort of artistic outlet to pour myself into. Photography is my vice and it’s been fun to focus on a totally different type of photography than I’ve ever done before and really concentrate on learning new technical nuances. I’m also having fun trying to “create art” and express my emotions through a photographic medium. A few days ago I did a set called Meditations on an Onion, which you can look at here.

As always, you can see more of my random photography experiments at my photography blog.

I’ll be posting a review tomorrow, a book excerpt on Wednesday and then more reviews on Thursday and Friday.

Taking a Break

Here’s some honesty for you…

I just got a few bits of bad news today, and I’m not working through it well. This is making me realize something: 

I’m not doing a good job at dealing with this cancer treatment.

Then I get slapped with bad news, and I am really not equipped for bad news right now.

The thing is, one of the side effects of this treatment is depression, so I’m not sure how much of what I’m currently feeling is me and how much is cancer (I have a feeling it’s all cancer. I’m never like this.). I don’t think I’ve ever been this upset or struggled this much emotionally before, but right now I’m really circling the drain emotionally and physically and it’s just hard. It’s too hard for me to balance everything I’m balancing and try to deal with treatment the way I should be. Then again, maybe this is just a bad day…

I’m about mid-treatment right now. I keep telling myself, “It’s almost over. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel.” But when I run my hands through my hair and chunks fall out, or I can hardly move because my body aches so much, or I can’t remember things that I’ve never had a problem remembering before – it’s hard to keep that in mind. It’s also hard to keep upbeat when I feel so horrible all the time – like I’m barely human. Then I get bad news, and my already sick, struggling self just spirals.

I’ll be fine. I just need to take some time and get my head on straight. I know this is all my cancer speaking, but right now it’s hard to differentiate between cancer and me, if that makes sense.

I’ll be back in top shape by the time this is over, I know I will be. I’m not naturally like this, so I know it’s the treatment speaking, it’s just so damn hard and it’s making me wonder how much I can trust my “critical” opinion about books and etc right now, which isn’t fair to authors. Plus, I struggle with writing reviews when I feel like this because A) I’m so amazingly exhausted it’s hard to think and B) My memory is suffering so I forget what I’m saying halfway through a sentence and it takes forever to get back on track.

The good news is, I’m reading a ton (it’s distracting me from myself). I’m also writing reviews but not posting them (re: I don’t trust my opinions right now). I’ll probably start posting them occasionally on my ‘good’ days. Right now, however, I think I need to figure out how to deal with myself because I haven’t ever felt like this before, and I’m not handling it well. I’m going to take some time and see if I can get myself back on track.

I’ll be back when I get here. Hopefully not too long. I hope this passes soon. Maybe I’m just having a bad week. It happens.

Anyway, thanks for dealing with me.

P.s. this is a perfect example of my synapsis not firing right. This post is redundant and poorly written but for the life of me I can’t figure out why or how to fix it.