LAST UPDATE
6/30/09
Norse Code by Greg van Eekhout, Ballantine
Spectra, 2009, $7.99, ISBN 978-0-553-59213-9
Norse
mythology, fortunately, has not been completely done to death as have
many other myth systems - particularly Celtic - and I still have fond
memories of Edmond Hamilton's A Yank at Valhalla and Lester Del
Rey's Day of the Giants. This new, quite enjoyable adventure
story assumes that Ragnarok is imminent, and its effects are already
making themselves known on Earth where our modern civilization appears
to be crumbling under various pressures. The protagonist is a woman
brought back from the dead and given a new name so that she can become a
Valkyrie and help in the battle to come, but she has a more immediate
agenda, recovering her sister from the land of the dead, all of which
will have unexpected consequences in the greater struggle to come..
After some lively adventure, she gains a companion, an oddball god who
agrees to help her in a campaign to save the world. Good fun
throughout, fast paced, and the prose has a refreshingly light touch.
This seemed a lot shorter than it actually was, which is usually a good
sign. 6/30/09
The Last Battle of
the Icemark by Stuart Hill, Chicken House, 2009, $18.99, ISBN
978-0-545-09329-3
The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan,
Hyperion, 2009, $17.99, ISBN 978-142310147-5 2344-45
The Silver Door
by Holly Lisle, Orchard, 2009, $17.99, ISBN 978-054500014-7
There's been quite a bit of quite good young adult
fantasy the past few years - thought sadly very little good young adult
SF. Although all three of these mimic to some extent adult
fantasy, the stories are shorter, faster moving, quick reads, and aren't
weighed down by ponderous prose or lengthy side issues. First up
is the closing volume of a young adult fantasy trilogy. The evil
sorceress has been banished, but since we have one book to go, we know
that she isn’t out of the fight completely. Sure enough, she’s back,
and she’s brought a friend with her, and he has powers even stronger
than her own. As allies, it seems that there is nothing to prevent them
from gaining supreme power over the world. The good guys rally and
there’s a mild surprise involved in how they save the day. Although the
plot itself is less than original, the writing is quite good,
particularly for a YA series, and the story certainly moves quickly.
The Riordan book isn’t written on quite such an adult level, but I’ve
enjoyed this series from the outset. Kronos has raised an army with
which to storm Olympus, currently hidden in Manhattan, and our young
hero has to play his part in the battle to defeat them. This was a fun
series and I’m curious to see what the author will try next. Last we
have the second in Holly Lisle’s Moon & Sun series. It’s a lot more
adult in format and language, the story of an epic battle involving
humans and non-humans and the young girl who is the key to the
resolution of the conflict. Although probably the best written of the
three, I wasn’t as interested in the story as I was in the other two.
Nevertheless, all three are among the best YA fantasies I’ve read so far
this year. 6/29/09
A Spell
for the Revolution by C.C. Finlay, Del Rey, 2009, $7.99, ISBN
978-0-345-50391-6
The Demon Redcoat by C.C. Finlay, Del
Rey, 2009, $7.99, ISBN 978-0-345-50392-3
These
are books two and three in a secret history fantasy series set around
the time of the American Revolution. The protagonists are determined to
use witchcraft to help Washington and his followers to defeat the
British because the enemy is being aided by the Covenant, a secret
society of magic users that has been manipulating the governments of
Europe for centuries. In Spell, they launch a campaign to free
Washington from the supernatural restrictions placed upon him. It’s
quite good. Demon takes place a few years later. The revolution
is over but the threat from the Covenant remains and our heroes decide
to take the fight to the enemy, in the Old World. Comparisons to Naomi
Novik’s series are inevitable as these are more action oriented than,
say, the Empire of Unreason books by J. Gregory Keyes, which already
played with early American history. The author, incidentally, might be
better known to some readers as Charles Coleman Finlay. The first
volume, which I’ve never seen, is The Patriot Witch. 6/21/09
The Spy Who
Haunted Me by Simon R. Green, Roc, 6/09, $24.95, ISBN
978-0-451-46272-5
Eddie
Drood makes his third appearance in this new title in a series related
to the Nightside series. Eddie is part of an organization that shelters
the human race from magical enemies and investigates odd goings on. The
head of his organization is Alexander King, who is terminally ill and
who needs to pass on his position to someone else in the group. King
employs an old standby to choose his successor, a complex and dangerous
contest that will pit the six top contenders – including Eddie – against
one another as well as against the opposition. But there’s a darker
side to all of this because King also knows that someone in the
organization is a traitor. I can’t think of anyone who writes this kind
of light, occult adventure story more entertainingly that Green, and
this is one of his best. 6/15/09
Jonathan Strange
and Mr. Norrell audiobook, read by Simon Prebble, Audio Renaissance,
2009, $59.95
I
have found that listening to an audiobook is generally a different
experience than reading in the normal fashion. I suspect this is in
part because the speed of the experience is not in my control, and since
I generally only listen when I’m driving and I no longer commute, it
takes a long time to finish one. I’d read this when it first appeared
and enjoyed it, and I did so again this time. I wasn’t entirely
satisfied with the ending because I thought Norrell deserved to get his
comeuppance, but it was only a mild disappointment. I did want to
mention however that this is one of the best performances by a reader in
all of the audiobooks I’ve listened to over the years. It reportedly
took Clarke ten years to write this. I hope the next comes more
quickly. 6/15/09
Strange Angels
by Lili St Crow, Razorbill, 6/09, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-59514-251-1
First
in a young adult, sort of paranormal romance series featuring Dru
Anderson, a teenaged girl with mild psychic powers who becomes an orphan
in this one after her father is turned into a zombie. She takes refuge
with a goth friend from school, except that he gets attacked by another
supernatural creature and begins to change into a kind of werewolf.
Meanwhile yet another nonhuman, this time a benevolent one, takes a
kindlier interest in Dru’s fate. The set up for this one is kind of
unusual and I have no idea where the series is going to go from here.
The author writes somewhat similar books for adults as Lilith Saintcrow,
and is one of the better writers working this particular vein. I found
this one entertaining but unexceptional, unless the next twist turns out
to be a more intriguing one. 6/15/09
Darkness Calls
by Marjorie M. Liu, Ace, 6/09, $7.99, ISBN 978-0-441-01730-0
Number
two in the Demon Hunter series, an urban fantasy/horror sequence which
moves closer to fantasy than horror in this one despite zombies and
demons. The protagonist is Maxine Kiss whose body provides the conduit
through which several diminutive demons can enter our world, although
they are subject to her will and are used by her to suppress evil demons
and other supernatural manifestations of evil like zombies. Her
romantic interest is the enigmatic Grant, who has a unique power to
control other forms of life including demons, but who is now in terrible
danger from forces too powerful to be dismissed. Liu writes very well
and I even tracked down several of her more overt fantasy romances a
while back, but this series just doesn’t come together for me. I think
it’s because basically I don’t care for either Maxine or Grant, and the
clever bits aren’t clever enough to overcome my distaste for them.
6/11/09
The
Enchantment Emporium by Tanya Huff, DAW, 6/09, $24.95, ISBN
978-0-7564-0555-7
Before
the current boom of urban fantasy, there were a few writers already
using that form, and very well, better than most of the latecomers.
Tanya Huff is a prime example and her new novel, set in Calgary, makes
most of the other paranormal fantasy I’ve read recently pale in
comparison. Alysha Catherine Gale, the protagonist, comes from a long
line of magic users, witches if you will. When she inherits a small
shop from her grandmother, she discovers that her clientele come from
the local magic community, some of whom are fey. She also has an
assistant who introduces himself as a leprechaun. The ordinary business
of business is soon complicated by Alysha’s search for the truth about
her grandmother’s life, and death, and her dealings with certain
customers who want more than she bargained for. After dozens of stories
of feisty women battling vampires, werewolves, demons, black magic, and
so forth, this felt delightfully fresh and sometimes even funny. I
wouldn’t even mind if this turned out to be the first in a series.
6/7/09
Green by Jay Lake,
Tor, 6/09, $26.95, ISBN 978-0-7653-2185-5
Jay
Lake leaves the clockwork world of his first two fantasy novels in his
third, and introduces one of the most absorbing characters in recent
fantasy fiction. Green is a beautiful young woman who was elevated, if
that’s the word, from poverty to virtual slavery. She is educated and
trained to fit into the highest social circles, but only because she is
meant to become an effective agent, even assassin, as events require.
To this end she is subjected to brutal training and indoctrination.
Fortunately, she is able to become a two edged sword and use her talents
and knowledge to secure her freedom. Alas, as we all know there is no
such thing as absolute freedom, and in a world where political and court
intrigue determines the fate of nations and individuals, subterfuge and
treachery are necessarily rampant. She also has enemies, because her
former masters are not happy about losing their investment. On the
other hand, they may have trained her more effectively than they counted
on. Liked this one a lot, but I would have been surprised if that had
not been the case. 6/6/09
Faery Moon by P.
R. Frost, DAW, 6/09, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-7564-0556-4
P.R.
Frost has also written as Phyllis Ann Karr and Irene Radford. This is
third in her new series about Tess Noncoire, a slight variation on the
typical current urban female hero with unusual powers battling magic and
the supernatural. She has been recruited into the battle to keep
creatures from other dimensions from invading the Earth, willingly or
unwillingly. The current installment opens with her hoping to get away
from her job by taking her mother on a vacation trip to Las Vegas, but
naturally someone with a job description like that is never off duty.
When she notices that a high wire act is performing without wires, she
realizes that they are really flying, that they are fairies being forced
to work as performers. Meanwhile, her impish familiar Scrap has been
doing some research and discovers that the bleed over between universes
is getting worse. The author is an old hand at fantasy adventure so
this feels a lot more polished than most similar novels, and the two
protagonists, Tess and Imp, are a lot more likeable than most. This
isn’t being marketed as urban fantasy, but that’s essentially what it
is. 6/5/09
Blood from Stone
by Laura Anne Gilman, Luna, 5/09, $14.95, ISBN 978-0-373-80297-5
Wren
Valere is back for her sixth lightly romantic magical adventure. She’s
on the rebound from the nearly apocalyptic events in the previous book
and is more interested in rest and relaxation than in using her magical
talents again. But if that was possible, there wouldn’t be much of a
story. She’s at work again quickly, this time searching for the person
responsible for the kidnapping of a child. Even having a demon for a
boyfriend isn’t going to help when she finds herself on the wrong end of
powerful magic this time. Gilman maintains a nice balance between
romance and adventure, and while I have ambivalent feelings about the
boyfriend, her own character is nicely drawn and appealing. I thought
this was a bit of a letdown after the last couple of books, but maybe
the author – as well as the protagonist – needed a chance to catch her
breath. 6/3/09
The City and the
City by China Mieville, Del Rey, 2009, $26, ISBN
978-0-345-49751-2
The
latest from China Mieville is, as you might expect, not like anything
you’ll have read before. In some unnamed Eastern European country, two
cities exist overlapping each other, each in its own nation and reality,
and with the citizens of each trained to “unsee” things from the other.
I would not have thought it possible to make such a bizarre concept work
for the length of a full novel, but I would have been wrong. Those who
violate the separation of realities are subject to the powers of Breach,
a mysterious organization with almost magical powers and with no
apparent oversight. There are also rumors of a third city, hidden
somewhere between the other two. The main plot involves the murder of a
foreign archaeologist who seems to have been murdered in one reality,
her body dumped – though not in violation of Breach – in the other. The
detective assigned to the case initially has to travel to the
counterpart city to pursue the investigation, and discovers a tangled
web of intrigue and legends that might just be true. The first half of
the novel is superb. It flounders a bit in the middle, though not
badly, probably because routine police procedure is inherently dull and
it’s difficult to make the bridging scenes more interesting. Then
there’s a terrific wind up. This has been a good year so far for very
unconventional fantasies of exceptional quality. 5/27/09
The Little Mermaid:
A Broadway Musical by Michael Lassell, Disney, 2009, $40, ISBN
978-142311272-3
I
wasn’t even aware that this Disney story had been adapted as a Broadway
musical, but here is a companion book, filled with full color
photographs of the cast, illustrations from the graphic version, photos
of the various people involved, concept drawings, and a great deal of
text. All of the characters are profiled in detail as well as details
of how the show was prepared, choreographed, cast, and performed.
There’s a gallery of undersea art that contains some striking pieces.
Although there are a lot of pictures, there is enough text to tell me
almost more than I cared to know about the production. One of the
snazziest looking tie-in books I’ve seen. 5/23/09
Storm Front by
Jim Butcher and Mark Powers, Del Rey, 2009, $22.95, ISBN
978-0-345-50639-9
This
is a full color, graphic adaptation of the first part of the Harry
Dresden novel by Butcher. More presumably will follow. The story
involves a missing husband who may have decided to take up sorcery as a
hobby and some pretty gruesome murders. Harry gets involved despite his
love hate relationship with the local police, and several subplots
complicate issues. The adaptation seems to me fairly loyal – I haven’t
read the book in several years. The artwork is generally quite good –
although his depiction of Dresden doesn’t match mine even remotely. One
of the better adaptations I’ve seen. 5/23/09
Night of Knives
by Ian C. Esslemont, Tor, 5/09, $25.95, ISBN 978-0-7653-2369-9
Esslemont was the co-creator of the Malazan series
which, up till now, was written exclusively by Steven Erikson. I
believe this addition takes place early in the history of that world to
avoid conflict with the other novels. Malaz is a small town rather than
an empire, and it is at the time of this story a place of tension
because a prophecy of dire events is about to come due. These events
are supposed to herald the return of an earlier ruler and there are
vested interests who are determined to prevent the dilution of their own
power. Two rather ordinary citizens are caught up in the tide of events
and find themselves drawn together to act as a catalyst in the events
that are about to unfold around them. The story’s not bad but at times
it felt more like a video game script than a novel, and I never really
got vested in either of the protagonists. 5/20/09
Magic in the
Blood by Devon Monk, Roc, 5/09, $6.99, ISBN 978-0-451-46267-1
I
really enjoyed this author’s previous Magic to the Bone, and the
sequel is equally entertaining. The setting is a bit different from
most of the current crop of urban fantasies. Magic has balance, so if
you gain something by performing a spell, there’s a loss somewhere
else. It is also possible for some people, including the protagonist,
to trace magic consequences back to the spell caster, which is
particularly useful if someone uses magic for illegal purposes. In her
second case, Allison Beckstrom is asked by the police to help with the
investigation of what appears to be a run of the mill missing persons
inquiry, but that’s just the veneer over a much darker plot involving
ghosts and black magic. The unraveling of this one is quite well
constructed, so I won’t spoil it by revealing too much. This is
shaping up to be one of the best of its kind. 5/14/09
Storm Glass by
Maria V. Snyder, Luna, 5/09, $13.95, ISBN 978-0-7783-2564-2
Maria Snyder’s recent trilogy for Luna was one of
the better blends of romance and traditional fantasy. This new novel
continues in that vein and sets up an interesting and original magic
system. Magic powers are contained in glass artifacts, supposedly
impregnable to outside attack. But someone has found a way to get
around the defenses, and as a consequence many magic users were killed
in a surprise attack. The protagonist is a combination glass blower and
apprentice sorceress who is enlisted in the effort to create new
defenses, but what she doesn’t know is that she is also the repository
of a power that could tilt the balance in unexpected ways. Fantasy
romance that works even for readers who aren’t interested in the
romantic elements. 5/14/09
The Island by Tim
Lebbon Bantam, 5/09, $12, ISBN 978-0-553-38468-0
Tim Lebbon wrote a lot of horror fiction before
turning to fantasy, and therefore it’s no surprise that his fantasy
frequently has a darker cast than does that of most of his
contemporaries. This is the fifth book set in Noreela, a fairly
straightforward fantasy world, whose inhabitants are endangered by the
intrusions of the Strangers, outsiders with magical powers with evil
plans. The protagonist of this one is a one time investigator who
specialized in countering their attacks, but he’s in hiding now, working
as a wood carver in a small village. When a mysterious island appears
out of nowhere during a storm, he is the first to realize that this
bodes no good, that it is evidence that the Strangers are still
plotting. And then some of the people in the village begin behaving
strangely. Very suspenseful, even creepy at times. 5/11/09
Starfinder by
John Marco, DAW, 5/09, $24.95, ISBN 978-0-7564-0551-9
John Marco, who writes well if not often enough,
kicks off what appears to be a new series with the first Skylords
novel. He hit some of my positive buttons right away because I’ve
always enjoyed stories with zeppelins in them since Prisoners of the
Sky by C.C. MacApp and The Cloud Walker by Edmund Cooper to
the more recent Airborn by Kenneth Oppel. Not that the story is
about zeppelins, actually, but they were still a plus for me. The story
is more specifically about the coming of age of Moth, a young man who
lives in a city high in the mountains of an imaginary land. Moth
aspires to be the pilot, or rider, of a dragonfly, a kind of aerial army
that protects the city. Moth is also fascinated by stories of the
Skylords, masters of the perhaps imaginary world beyond the mists that
surround his homeland. You won’t be surprised to hear that the Skylords
are real after all, or that Moth is about to meet them, but you’ll enjoy
the buildup because Moth is a multi-dimensional character in a genuinely
interesting fantasy world. His further adventures should be even better
as we presumably will see more of his surroundings. 5/9/09
The Laurentine Spy
by Emily Gee, Solaris, 2009, $7.99, ISBN 978-1-84416-603-0
There have been spies of one sort or another in a
great many fantasy novels, but I’m not sure that I’ve ever read one
before that was so obviously a spy story set in a fantasy world.
Corhonase is a fairly typical fantasy venue, a mix of good and bad
attributes, with a familiar looking aristocracy and a rather oppressed
lower class. It also has a lot of foreign and domestic spies, including
an ex-thief who has infiltrated the ballrooms and private parties of the
elite in order to gather information about the intentions of the local
government. Chief among these, from our point of view anyway, is a
woman named Saliel who has the added advantage of being able to practice
a limited form of magic. But she has to be careful because if found
out, she could be executed as either a witch or a spy, depending upon
which transgression comes to light. I liked this a lot better than the
author’s first novel. The prose is better and the plot is much better.
Possibly a name to watch for. 5/4/09
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