Review of The Devil in a Forest by Gene Wolfe

A copy of this classic was a gift from a talented friend of mine whose opinion I value, so clearly it had to go right to the top of my reading pile – and I’m not sorry that it did as it started my 2012 list on a really high point.

Deep in a forest wilderness lay a village so humble, so insignificant, that only a handful of people knew it existed – yet it was here that a mighty battle was waged in the endless struggle between Good and Evil.
Led by Fate into the timeless struggle were:
WAT the savage and charming highwayman…
MOTHER CLOOT the cunning and cruel possessor of mysterious powers…
BARROW MAN the awesome spirit of a long-dead warrior… and
MARK not yet totally seduced by Evil, not yet totally convinced by Good…

And there you have it – the back cover blurb. As you can see they did things slightly differently back in 1976 – for starters they didn’t see fit to tell you at least half the plot although there were lots of capital letters and slightly portentous pronouncements due to the Tolkein effect still rippling through the genre at the time. And the blurb gives no insight whatsoever as to what the book is actually about. Neither does the cover. I was expecting major battle scenes… nasty armoured beasties lurking around every tree… which simply doesn’t happen. It’s SO much better than that.

Told in third person limited pov from Mark’s viewpoint, this little book gives you a slice of the gritted business of surviving in an isolated community that has seen better times when their religious shrine brought in a steady stream of pilgrims. But now, thanks to the depredations of their very own highwayman, Wat, that trickle has all but dried up and everyone is having to tighten their belts. A lot.

Mark is an orphaned fourteen year old apprentice to the village weaver. Which means he often goes hungry and has learnt to take care of himself – something that stands him in good stead when a foray into the forest with the innkeeper’s daughter turns into a dark and dangerous adventure. Where his future and very soul is at stake…  Wolfe has a trick of utterly subsuming you into his created world. We accept that Mark spends a large chunk of time so hungry that his stomach gripes with the pain. That he has to always pick his words carefully to the adults around him, because there is no one who innately cares about him. We learn just how unnerving Mother Cloot’s behaviour can be – and what Mark does when he comes across a murdered man…

The huge forest rustles with hidden food and threats, the river offers fish and the risk of drowning – and threading through all this is the scalding knowledge that life is precarious and cheap. And Mark has been caught between forces that he cannot hope to prevail against. All this occurs without an ounce of sentimentality and in just over 220 pages, Wolfe produces a gripping adventure that had me reading faaar into the night to discover what would happen to Mark, and Wat and Mother Cloot. The writing is pin-sharp and exquisite, with wonderful dialogue, superb scene setting and an interesting cast of characters, who are initially offered up as ciphers – and then, refuse to behave as you’d expect.

So Mark is less defiant and more accepting of the clear injustices that Life has dealt him; more suspicious of nearly everyone and their motives for being friendly; and very aware of the occult and dark forces in play around the village. Mother Cloot is a tough, wise old woman – and then something else a whole lot darker… As the violence escalates and events spin out of control, this tale gripped me and would not let go. And by the end, I felt I had a far clearer understanding of what it meant to part of an underclass in a small village during the Dark Ages – despite the fact that I have a teaching Degree in History and regard myself as reasonably knowledgeable about that period.

As you might have gathered, this 1970’s offering mightily impressed me and confirmed what I’ve always known – that superb writing is timeless. If you enjoy excellent adventure Fantasy in an historical setting, then hunt down this little book – it’s worth the effort.
10/10

Review of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe

This supernatural historical thriller is set in 1991, with flashbacks to the era of the notorious Salem witch trials. Don’t worry, though. You will not have to endure the whole harrowing business all over again – Howe has managed to put an interesting spin on this much-visited subject.

While clearing out her grandmother’s cottage for sale, Connie Goodwin finds a parchment inscribed with the name Deliverance Dane. So begins the hunt to uncover the woman behind the name; a hunt that takes her back to Salem in 1692 and the infamous witchcraft trials.

But nothing is entirely as it seems and when Connie unearths the existence of Deliverance’s spell book The Physick Book, the situation takes on a menacing edge as interested parties reveal their desperation to find this precious artefact at any cost.  What secrets does The Physick Book contain? What magic is scrawled across its parchment pages? Connie must race to answer the questions – and reveal the truth abuot Salem’s condemned women – before an ancient family curse fulfils its dark and devastating prophesy…

This story does have its creepy moments, but it is far more bound up in the everyday with the oddness and discordant details sneaking in when you’re not necessarily paying attention. I really like the way that while in Connie’s viewpoint, we gradually become aware that things are not exactly normal. So when we are confronted with the more gruesome details – they really provide full shock value.

One of the recurring themes in this enjoyable story, is the relationship between mother and daughter – and how circumstance and genes can conspire to create friction between the generations. Connie and her hippie mother, Grace, certainly have been at odds throughout Connie’s life. I found the telephone conversations between mother and daughter one of the book’s highlights, both managing to be poignant and amusing at the same time.

In setting the book in 1991, Howe has been smart. This is before the computerisation of records had really got going and mobile phones are not widely used. So as a historical researcher, she spends hours combing through the primary source materials in cotton gloves and when alone in her grandmother’s derelict cottage, she is truly marooned in a way that these days with wireless internet and mobile phones would be almost impossible.

Howe’s connection to this story is more than just keen interest – she is related to two of the victims of the Salem witch trials, one survived and one didn’t. In these sceptical times, the accepted version for the Salem witch trials is that the whole sorry business was as a result of an overly repressive regime, raging teenage hormones and an hysterical reaction to both the power and the attention. But, what if there really was an element of magic clouding the whole issue? The contemporary accounts certainly absolutely believed that witchcraft was in evidence. And this is the premise that Howe uses as the foundation and starting point for her tale, providing her with an enjoyably original and yet plausible version of the Salem trials.

This is book, while not necessarily found parked alongside the other Fantasy offerings on the bookshelves, offers a delightful slice of supernatural happenings from a refreshingly original angle by an accomplished writer. If you are feeling a tad jaded with the genre right now, I suggest you look this book out. You won’t be sorry if you do.
9/10

Review of Banners in the Wind – Book 3 of Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution by Juliet E. McKenna

This is the final instalment in this intriguing series where McKenna decided to see what would happen if the downtrodden masses and squeezed middle men revolted. And, no, I’m not guessing about this – I happened to be at Bristolcon this year when McKenna gave a fascinating talk on her world. She is an articulate, intelligent speaker and if you get a chance to meet her, take it. You won’t be disappointed.

A few stones falling in the right place can set a landslide in motion. That’s what Lescari exiles told themselves in Vanam as they plotted to overthrow the warring dukes. But who can predict the chaos that follows such a cataclysm? Some will survive against all the odds; friends and foes alike. Hope and alliances will be shattered beyond repair. Unforeseen consequences bring undeserved grief as well as unexpected rewards. Necessity forces uneasy compromise as well as perilous defiance. Wreaking havoc is swift and easy. Building a lasting peace may yet prove an insuperable challenge.

And there you have the blurb – congratulations on whoever wrote it, by the way. It’s a relief to read a back-of-the-book taster that doesn’t feel obligated to give away half the plot… So, the question has to be – after the tumult of the pitched battles, does McKenna manage to convincingly tie up the host of loose ends still waving in the wind along with those banners? Well for my money, this book is the best of the trilogy. This was always an astoundingly ambitious project – to depict a full blown revolution through the viewpoints of six characters.  McKenna succeeded so well because she is an experienced, skilled writer whose epic Fantasy has always been character-driven.

However, this series is not something a reader can skim through. McKenna has taken care to ensure all six characters are widely differing, but several of them are constantly on the move – as would be the case in a war. So that means, with a couple of exceptions, the backdrop to much of the action, especially the battles, is also changing.  In addition,  there is a host of other characters constantly processing through the story. It really took me until halfway through Blood in the Water, the second book in the series, to slow up my reading pace sufficiently to ensure I was able to fully absorb what was happening. The advantage of immediately picking up Banners in the Wind straight afterwards was that I was already in Lescari mode from the start and fully in touch with all the characters.

This is the book where the stakes are at their highest. As the death toll has steadily mounted, I really cared whether the revolutionaries managed to bring about any peace in Lescar. Because if they haven’t managed to do so, then a lot of lives have been ruined and lost in vain. It wasn’t a surprise to learn that McKenna studied history – the political powerplays and unintended consequences of apparently good ideas rang all too true. And her depiction of the damage to all those involved in the revolution also feels very realistic – this is no romp where everyone gets to swash their buckles with a witty chortle on their lips. This is a gritted, desperate business brought about by a group of individuals who simply felt they had no choice.

The themes that were started in Irons in the Fire are still being played out here – the nature of power, who has it and who is desperate to hold onto it; as the struggle continues, what rules of engagement get broken – this particularly applies to magic. The Archmage has expressly forbidden the use of magic in warfare – however, the speed and convenience that magic can provide proves to be far too tempting for this edict to be obeyed by either side. And it is this aspect of her world that McKenna continues to explore in her latest trilogy.

Meantime, she manages to bring this trilogy to a satisfactory, if not wholly tidy conclusion – which is just fine. Revolution is a messy, bloodsoaked business that hurts both the innocent and guilty, and it is a measure of McKenna’s writing skill that this final book is such a gripping, engrossing read.
10/10

Review of The Attenbury Emeralds by Jill Paton Walsh

You’ve just finished re-reading Dorothy L. Sayers’ The Nine Tailors for the nth time with a deep sigh… ‘They don’t write them like that, anymore,’ you mutter, kicking the cat in disgust.  However, Jill Paton Walsh, an accomplished murder mystery writer in her own right has adopted The Mantle and has written three more Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. I’ve just completed The Attenbury Emeralds – and while she may not have the exact feel of Sayers, she has skilfully negotiated the timeline so that it isn’t such a big issue.

It was 1921 when Lord Peter Wimsey first encountered the Attenbury emeralds. The recovery of the magnificent gem in Lord Attenbury’s most dazzling heirloom made headlines – and launched a shell-shocked young aristocrat on his career as a detective.

Now it is 1951: a happily married Lord Peter has just shared the secrets of that mystery with his wife, the detective novelist Harriet Vane. Then the new young Lord Attenbury – grandson of Lord Peter’s first client – seeks his help again, this time to prove who owns the gigantic emerald that Wimsey last saw in 1921. It will be the most intricate and challenging mystery he has ever faced…

It certainly is intricate. Walsh weaves through a series of timelines with assurance and skill, as we follow the very complicated fate of this amazing gem. Several surprises are served up along the way – and you may guess whodunit – I didn’t, but then I generally don’t try very hard when I’m in the hands of a really good mystery spinner, preferring to just allow the story to whip me long in its wake. But, for me, the highlight of this novel isn’t necessarily the labyrinthine plot, it’s catching up with a host of other favourite characters – Charles, Helen, Gerald and, of course, Bunter. Who in 1951 is an outright anachronism.

So, does Walsh pull it off? Yes, in my opinion she certainly does. By jumping ahead to the fifties, the fact that Lord Peter’s speech and mannerisms have changed is completely believable and the impact of death duties and a new mood sweeping the country on aristocratic families works very well. Sayers’ wonderful, complex detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, may not have quite the dynamic intensity in Walsh’s reincarnation – but then again, he is now well into middle age, after years of domestic bliss. The angst-ridden edge that haunted many of the earlier novels during his long, sometimes desperate, courtship of Harriet Vane, alongside his guilty misery whenever he successfully tracked down a murderer, is bound to be blunted.

All in all, this is an enjoyable and successful transition of one of detective fiction’s most famous and well-loved characters. It was a very big ask for any author to take this project on, but Jill Paton Walsh has definitely fulfilled the brief.

8/10

Review of The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I heard an interview by Kathryn Stockett with Mariella Frostrup on Radio 4 about this book and decided to get a copy from the library to see what all the fuss was about.

Enter a vanished world: Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Where black maids raise white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal the silver… There’s Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child and nursing the hurt caused by her own son’s tragic death; Minny, whose cooking is nearly as sassy as her tongue; and white Miss Skeeter, home from college, who wants to know why her beloved maid has disappeared.

Skeeter, Aibileen and Minny. No one would believe they’d be friends; fewer still would tolerate it. But as each woman finds the courage to cross boundaries, they come to depend and rely upon one another. Each is in search of a truth. And together they have an extraordinary story to tell…

Skeeter, back from college, finds she doesn’t fit in so well with her married friends’ social life when the talk turns to installing a separate bathroom for the maid so the family isn’t in danger of catching ‘colored diseases’. Missing the maid who brought her up, she is drawn to motherly Aibileen and turns to her for help when she lands the job of writing a column in the local paper solving domestic problems, such as removing stubborn stains and unscrewing broken light bulbs. So when she gets the chance to write about the lives of the black women who help out in all the neighbouring white households, once more she asks Aibileen to help in contacting other maids for their stories – good and bad – of working for white folks. And Aibileen asks Minny…

Stockett was brought up in Mississippi and it shows. The description of the food, heat and landscape is pitch perfect. It is an effort to remember that this is only forty-nine years ago – and yet, the rigid standards imposed on everyone in this hide-bound rural society inevitably falls most heavily on those at the bottom of the heap – black women. This book could have degenerated into a Gone With the Wind pastiche of southern society, or shown Aibileen and Minny as downtrodden victims. Fortunately, it does neither. Both the black protagonists are shown to be intelligent, spirited individuals with their own particular coping strategies for getting through their difficult lives. Aibileen’s religion is an active force in her life and contrasts well with her shafts of desert dry humour that runs like a delicious chocolate thread throughout her narrative. Hm… talking of chocolate, you may not be quite so enthusiastic about the thought of chocolate pie by the end of the book – and I’m not saying anything more about the method that Minny uses to express her anger at all the injustices she has to contend with working for a manipulative, unscrupulous woman.

We see all the social strata in Jackson and what it means to be an acceptable member of the ‘in’ crowd – and what happens when you aren’t. Skin colour isn’t the only defining factor and as a Brit, I found it fascinating to see that 1960’s Jackson was every bit as snobbishly exclusive as any 18th century London salon, while poor Celia struggles to befriend anyone at all. Her breeding – or lack of it – along with her catastrophic dress sense doom her to be constantly snubbed.

However, while this subplot is engrossing, it isn’t the engine that drives the plot forward – it’s the threat of the violence by white racists against the growing civil unrest. Skeeter plunges into this project in order to produce a publishable book, and only as the maids start confiding in her does she begin to realise just how much they are risking. The growing tension as the book starts being read by the people who appear in it, with the protagonists’ dread of discovery brings home just what a dangerous time it was for dissenters. It is a powerful foil for the outwardly genteel concerns about appearance, cooking and well run homes.

Stockett manages the three narratives very well and in my opinion, manages to avoid most of the pitfalls that could have mired her. This is an impressive debut novel that manages to tell a gripping entertaining story about a raw, difficult stage in American history – and the fact that many people still recall it must have created an added complication.

Any niggles? Well, Stockett manages to mostly avoid lapsing into sentimentality, however one scene in the church when Aibileen is presented with a gift wrapped book for Skeeter had me wriggling uncomfortably. The enthusiastic applause and words of the reverend were just a little OTT for my taste.

Apart from that one jarring scene, though, I felt this is an excellent book that tells a powerful story with humour and adroitness. I look forward to reading Stockett’s next offering.

9/10

Review of U is for Undertow – Book 21 of the Kinsey Millhone series by Sue Grafton

This is the latest offering in the long-running and very successful series from Sue Grafton featuring her female protagonist Kinsey Millhone, set in the 1980’s. I suppose it could be parked on the shelf in the ‘Historical Thriller’ section…

In 1960’s Santa Teresa, California, a child is kidnapped and never returned. Twenty years later, Michael Sutton contacts private detective Kinsey Millhone for help. He claims to have recalled a strange and disturbing memory which just might provide the key to the mystery. He now believes he stumbled across the kidnappers burying Mary Claire Fitzhugh’s body…

Michael’s account is indistinct – he was only six years old at the time of the kidnapping – and even members of his family try to discredit his evidence. But Kinsey is certain there is something vital within Michael’s recollections. And even when what is eventually unearthed isn’t what anyone expected, she can’t quite let go of the case.

As the protagonists of the tragedy are gradually brought to light, from Country Club parents to their free-living, hippy children, the truth finally begins to emerge. And while stepping back into the past, Kinsey discovers more about her own history too…

Those of you already acquainted with Kinsey in her alphabetical adventures that started back in 1982 with A is for Alibi will be familiar with Grafton’s slow-burn style and steady build of everyday details giving us yet another slice of life in Santa Teresa back in 1988. Those of you who haven’t yet had the pleasure perhaps need to be aware that Grafton offers a series of cinematically sharp scenes through Kinsey’s eyes, complete with an eclectic mix of characters – including Henry, Kinsey’s octogenarian landlord; Rosa, the Hungarian owner of the local café and the stand-alone cast of characters that make up the scenario in this particular book. If this is the first time you’ve stumbled across this series, go for it and dive into U is for Undertow. While you may not be completely up to speed with the ins and outs of Kinsey’s background, Grafton doesn’t assume that you are a long-time fan and so the books can be read and enjoyed without any knowledge of the rest of the canon – a refreshing change, these days.

If graphic gore, two-dimensional victims and a clichéd protagonist have lost their lustre, then Grafton’s careful plotting and quirky heroine might tick your boxes. Her solid characterisation gives us a real insight into what makes Kinsey tick – her stubborn refusal to give up when an investigation gets difficult; her fear of commitment; her short-fused reaction to authority; her love of junk food – well, any food she hasn’t had to cook, really… all these foibles along with a dozen others makes her an enjoyable mass of contradictions in the grand tradition of the best fictional detectives. In my opinion, Kinsey ranks right up there with Morse, Rebus and Lord Peter Wimsey.

As with all long-running series, some books are better than others. If Grafton has a besetting sin, at times she rushes the final denouement to the long build-up, so that the final flurry of action rounding off the mystery feels a tad unsatisfactory. Not so in U is for Undertow. Grafton manages to tie up all the lose ends in this plot completely successfully – leaving me with only one nagging worry. Now there are only five more letters of the alphabet left, what will I do for my fix of Kinsey Millhone once Grafton has reached the letter Z?
9/10

Review of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

I encountered David Mitchell’s book, Cloud Atlas, and was blown away by the ingenuity, inventiveness and sheer audacity of the writing. How could anyone have started such a book imaging he could pull it off – and then succeed?

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is an historical novel, set on a tiny man-made island in the bay of Nagasaki. This island of Dejima was the sole gateway between Japan and the West, in the guise of the Dutch East India Company, for some two hundred years. The enclave was where two cultures rubbed shoulders and misunderstood each other. And in 1799 a young clerk, Jacob de Zoet, lands on the island with the intention of making sufficient money to return to Holland and marry his fiancée in five years’ time. Instead, he loses his heart to a beautiful but scarred Japanese midwife.

While the love story winds through the book it isn’t the engine driving the plot – what lies at the heart of this boisterous roller-coaster is the gulf yawning between the Japanese and Europeans. However, I’m not going to say too much more about the plot, because it would be all too easy to throw in a couple of inadvertent spoilers in a storyline that had me gasping aloud in surprise a couple of times. Mitchell plays with his readers expectations by throwing in a few curved balls which I certainly didn’t see coming… Although, you might as well take curved balls in your stride, because almost everything else in packed into this novel.

It takes a while to pick up pace as the reader is plunged into Mitchell’s extravagant prose while he depicts this extraordinary world and his beautifully drawn characters, who leap from the page with three-dimensional vividness. The sense of immediacy is helped as the story is narrated in third person, present tense and I’d advise you to relax and enjoy the richness and complex detail, for once things start kicking off the tale whips along at a cracking rate, with all sorts of double-dealing, corruption and dirty deeds afoot. And Jacob finds himself caught up right in the middle of it all…

The writing is wonderful. In these days of pared back prose bereft of descriptors, Mitchell’s exuberant style is a breath of fresh air. And while the story couldn’t be more different from Cloud Atlas, we do get a glimpse of some of that virtuosity in a wonderful prose-poem describing Nagasaki near the end of the book. Yes – before you ask – it does work…

So… any niggles? Well, there’s one. Captain Penhaligon hoves into Nagasaki bay in the last quarter of the book – and I fell in love with him. However, we never learn his ultimate fate after he finally sails out of the plot and it’s the one dangling end that I personally would like to have seen tied up. But, set against the sprawling, complicated landscape of rival interests and clashing personalities, it is a relatively picky point. Mitchell manages to bring this epic tale to a satisfactory conclusion – and when we finally get the long, hot summer we richly deserve, I’m going to take a few days off, loll on the garden swing and re-read this book to once more get lost in Mitchell’s luscious prose. Do yourself a favour – grab a copy of this book and dive in.
10/10

Review of Revelation by C.J. Sansom

Like your whodunit with a twist of history? Well, look no further than one of our local authors, Chris Sansom. Those of you who attended the Writers’ Club meeting, will probably remember the tall, quiet-spoken ex-solicitor who matter-of-factly charted his meteoric writing career. On sending sample chapters of his first book, Dissolution, out to a number of agents, his work generated so much interest there was a bidding war for it. And P.D. James agreed to write the foreword…

If you weren’t inspired back then to pick up this author’s work, I strongly recommend you do so, now. His sleuth of choice is Matthew Shardlake, who should have some sort of medal as the unlikeliest P.I. in the history of the genre. Master Shardlake is a hunchback, who has battled against his disability to become a lawyer – which is a greater achievement than you might think, considering that Sansom’s detective series is set in King Henry VIII’s turbulent reign. I have just finished reading the fourth book in the series, Revelation, and in my opinion it’s right up there with Dark Fire, my favourite.

King Henry, recently widowed after Catherine Howard’s execution, is looking around for a new queen – and a certain good-looking widow, Catherine Parr, has caught his eye. Meanwhile, the Bishop of London, Bonner and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cranmer, are locked in a power struggle, where the stakes couldn’t be higher – a heretic’s fiery death. When a colleague and close friend of Shardlake’s is horribly murdered, he finds himself, once more, sucked into Tudor power politics, with all its attendant risks…
The twisting plotline is a triumph of narrative tension with a satisfyingly surprising denouement. Shardlake, the chief protagonist and first person narrator, is beautifully drawn and we are reacquainted with other old friends, his sidekick, Jack Barak and his physician friend and ex-monk, Guy Malton.
But, for me, the best character in the story by far, is the Tudor backdrop. Sansom gives us a slice of historic London in exquisite detail – from the unusual weather conditions, to the social and religious difficulties afflicting everyday folk trying to earn a living. This account would be a respectable feat if he was writing a history book of the time – the fact that he manages to use his extensive knowledge in such a lively, natural manner, puts him right up there with the great writers of the genre, in my opinion.
So, as the nights lengthen, treat yourself to a late Christmas present and curl up by the fire with all the books in this series Dissolution, Dark Fire, Sovereign, Revelation and his latest – Heartstone. You’ll be thanking me if you do…
10/10

Review of In Ashes Lie – Book 2 of The Onyx Court by Marie Brennan

I thoroughly enjoyed Brennan’s first book in this series, Midnight Never Come, a tale of faerie plot and counterplot set in Elizabeth I’s England. Therefore, I was keen to sample Brennan’s next offering.

The year is 1666. The King and Parliament vie for power, fighting one another with politics and armies alike. Below, the faerie court has enemies of its own. The old ways are breaking down and no one knows what will rise in their place.

But now a greater threat has come, one that could destroy everything. In the house of a sleeping baker, a spark leaps free of the oven – and ignites a blaze that will burn London to the ground. While the humans struggle to halt the conflagration that is devouring the city street by street, the fae pit themselves against a less tangible foe: the spirit of the fire itself, powerful enough to annihilate everything in its path.

Mortal and fae will have to lay aside the differences that divide them, and fight together for the survival of London itself…

As anyone who has more than a nodding acquaintance of English history can see, this book isn’t a straight sequel. Despite some of the same characters, there is a jump from the time of Elizabeth I’s reign between 1588/1590 and the timespan of In Ashes Lie, which hops between 1639 and 1666. One thing you can’t fault Brennan for is her ambition. Using any historical setting requires a degree of research and knowledge before putting word processor to paper – and even then it can all go horribly wrong. To swing between two major, disparate events throughout the first half of a novel as the setting for your action is brave to the point of being recklessly daft. I’d love to report that Brennan pulled it off. But sadly, I don’t think she does.

For a start, the big threat facing the faerie at the beginning cannot get our blood racing too much – for the simple reason that throughout that narrative arc, we keep getting yanked forward to the start of the Great Fire of London. So immediately, the reader realises that whatever is facing our plucky crew – they are going to get through it in 1639, because there they are in 1666 confronted with this big old fire… I have to say, I found the juxtaposition of the two story arcs annoying and distracting.

This brings me onto my next point. I don’t think I’m giving too much away when I reveal that the first of these deals with the unsuccessful reign of Charles I, ending in his execution in 1649. Once again, in Brennan’s world, this event is strongly influenced by what is happening in the faerie court. However, the series of political crises surrounding the relationship between Charles and Parliament is quite a complicated story in its own right. My personal knowledge of this period allowed me to pick my way through the admirable amount of historical detail included, here. But I did wonder how readers wholly ignorant of this period would cope and felt that maybe the pace of the novel floundered at times, which added to the lack of narrative tension.

All in all, getting through the first half of the book wasn’t exactly a struggle – but it came perilously close. Which is a real shame, because if any readers did give up at this point, they missed a cracking (and crackling) second half that really did have me at the edge of my seat and wholly made up for the rather creaky start.

The concept of having the Great Fire become a powerful dragon is a lovely notion – and the power struggle between the faerie courts that endangers London is an excellent idea. I did feel that some of the main protagonists were not so sharply depicted in this book, mostly because of its overly complicated structure. However, despite its evident flaws, this book still managed to be a stimulating, enjoyable read with some excellent ideas and memorable scenes, especially when battling the Great Fire. I recommend it – and if you get initially bogged down, grit your teeth. The rest is worth it, I promise…
8/10

Review of Irons in the Fire by Juliet E. McKenna – Book 1 of The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution

I am a major fan of McKenna’s outstanding canon, The Tales of Einarinn, which comprises five books starting with The Thief’s Gamble and the next series set in the same world – even better – in my opinion, The Aldabreshin Compass which starts with Southern Fire. These books are bursting with memorable, exciting characters, fast-paced action and wonderful scenery. If you like intelligent, well written Fantasy, set in complex world and haven’t yet come across these books, then you are in for a treat.
And why am I enthusing over her former nine books? Because Irons in the Fire is something of a disappointment in comparison. In my opinion, McKenna commits an unforgivable sin by treating us to a major info-dump, masquerading under the name of a Prologue. There are several pages of details including place names, ruling families and politics, along with their potted histories, without any attempt to nuance this information through character viewpoint. If I hadn’t read her earlier work, the book would have gone flying across the room at that point, along with a few choice words about the laziness of world building by dressing it up as some kind of Almanac… What further upsets me, is that the rest of the book is sufficiently well written that such a Prologue is actually unnecessary. Or – if she felt that she needed to help readers absorb her undoubtedly complicated world, this lump of information could have been offered as an Appendix.

The country of Lescar was carved out of the collapsing Tormalin Empire by ambitious men who all felt entitled to seize power for themselves. Now six rival dukedoms are ruled by their descendants, who all lay claim to the crown of the High King. Dukes pursue their ambitions through strategic alliances and strength of arms while their duchesses plot marriages and discrete pacts.
Meanwhile, ordinary people struggle to raise crops and families amid constant turmoil. Now a mismatched band of exiles are agreed that the time has come for a change. Can a small group put an end to generations of intractable misery? Perhaps. After all, a few stones falling in the right place can set a landslide in motion. But who can predict what the consequences will be, when all the dust has settled?
It is an intriguing proposition, charting the gradual rise of a revolution within a fantasy world. And when I got into the story, it is an entertaining, enjoyable read. The characters are well-rounded with good development, the world is complex and realistic and the plot progresses at a reasonable pace. But her outstanding achievement in this book – for me – is her treatment of magic. The best fantasy always ensures that magic users don’t just wave around some kind of ensorcelled artefact with an accompanying puff of coloured smoke… However, McKenna’s magical system is completely embedded within the political structure, which seems utterly believable to me. And it takes long, painful effort to fine-tune the mental disciplines necessary to use it, while profoundly changing the practioners.
While the book completes the story arc, like many fantasy series, it finishes at a point where we are set up for the next instalment. And – yes – I will be reading it. McKenna’s fantasy is too well-written and thought provoking to ignore.
I just wish she had left out that darned Prologue!
7/10