Review of Ghost of the White Nights – Book 3 of The Ghost trilogy by L.E. Modesitt, Jr.

This is the third in the series and if you have missed reading the two previous books, Of Tangible Ghosts and The Ghost of the Revelator which Tor have conveniently put together in a single duology called, The Ghosts of Columbia – then I strongly recommend that you put this book on one side until you’ve read the previous offerings. If you are a fan of well constructed alternate histories and enjoy Modesitt’s intricate layering of daily detail, then this is a treat not to be missed.  Set in an alternative world in which ghosts are real, the United States never came into existence and Russia is still ruled by the Romanovs, this book continues the adventures of semi-retired spy, Dr. Johan Eschbach.

His lovely wife, Llysette du Boise, a refugee from the burning remains of France and a world-famous vocalist, has been invited to provide a command performance for the Russian Imperial household. Johan accompanies her, allowing him to work on the oil concession in Russian Alaska that Columbia so desperately needs and do some spying on the side. Johan’s espionage is carried out against the backdrop of the famous white nights of St. Petersburg, and nearly Arctic midsummer when the sun barely dips below the horizon and the sky seems to dissolve in ivory light. But even the oil shortage will fade to insignificance when Johan discovers what new weapons technology the Russians are developing, a threat even more fearsome than the atomic bombs of Austro-Hungary.

This is a fascinating premise, because when someone dies a violent death and registers what is happening to them, they leave behind a ghost. So suddenly all the great battles that litters our history mostly don’t occur, including WW’s I and II – because having thousands of disturbed ghosts will make large areas uninhabitable. Unfortunately, it doesn’t completely prevent tyrants and Ferdinand of the Austrian Empire is a case in point. The Founding Fathers never made it to America, which is split up into a series of smaller states and Columbia, where Johan and Llysette live, was colonised by the Dutch. Modesitt’s world building is a delight and – unlike most series – I personally think the middle book is the strongest.

This Russian adventure is an enjoyable, engrossing read. I loved meeting up again with Johan, who is an interesting protagonist as a university professor. However, this time around I do have a couple of niggles. Modesitt carefully builds the tension by giving us all the small details of Johan’s life, which works very well. But when there is a sudden explosion of violence, I find it difficult to equate Johan’s completely casual approach to killing several people in quick succession to the man who quivers when his wife raises an eyebrow and snaps. It also disturbs me that, given we have a ringside seat into Johan’s first person point of view – he only once alludes to his dead wife and child, wincing when someone else brings them up. He is depicted as a thoughtful, sensitive person, desperate to keep Llysette safe and I find his absence of any remembrance of his former family at odds with the rest of his character.

These quibbles aside – and yes, I have marked the book down accordingly – I still found this book a really enjoyable read and if you haven’t yet gotten around to catching up with this excellent series, I would urge you to do so.
8/10

Review of Ghosts of Columbia omnibus edition by L.E. Modesitt, Jr

There’s a problem, I think, with extremely prolific writers. The obvious one is that someone regularly releasing two novels a year will – inevitably – at times have something published that would have been far better if only it had a chance to ‘incubate’ a bit longer, either in the author’s imagination or in the editing state. But another issue is that an author with fifty-something novels to his name will occasionally produce a book, or series that is absolutely outstanding – which somehow gets overlooked. Fortunately, someone at Tor had the good sense to realise that this had happened to Modesitt’s Ghost books and so Of Tangible Ghosts and The Ghost of the Revelator were republished together in an omnibus edition.

I’m very glad they were – and that I stumbled across the book on the library shelves. This is a world where people who are killed violently or accidentally with sufficient time to realise that they are about to die, become ghosts. So large battles become undesirable – battlefields overrun with hordes of ghosts make an area uninhabitable until they fade. The point at which history has also diverged is when the colonists from the Mayflower landing in the New World succumb to the plague, denying England any foothold on the American continent. Which means a chunk of Canada and North America is settled by the Dutch, in a nation called Columbia with New France down in the south and the Mormon state of Deseret jostling in an uneasy truce. For the time being…

Drop into this interestingly original world, ex-espionage agent and political minister Johan Eschbach, now living quietly in New Bruges and working as a lecturer on Environmental Studies at the Vanderaak Centre who tells his story in first person POV. And we are sucked into a world where everything is in its place; where people all know each other in a small university town and Johan, recovering from the death of his wife and small son, gives us daily details of the food he eats, the lessons he teaches and his interactions with the Dean, his colleagues and cleaning lady – and the ups and downs of his relationship with the French opera singer and refugee, Llysette duBoise. Against this backdrop political tensions rise, murders occur and Johan is inexorably pulled into the deadly intrigue going on around the new research into ghosts.

It is masterfully done. Johan is a wonderful character, whose depth and complexity powers the whole narrative. Modesitt even pulls off the very difficult trick of giving the reader information about Johan through what he won’t discuss – his first wife and dead son… This is Modesitt at his blinding best – and that best is very good, indeed. Because the other major component that needs to really work in an alternate history, is the world.

In this particular plot Modesitt not only had to have the basis tenant nailed, he also needed to ensure all the details are convincing – this isn’t some paranormal fantasy where we can shrug our shoulders and assume that the odd flaky anomaly is ok – it’s a big ask. But Modesitt rises to the challenge magnificently and as far as I’m concerned, this is the best alternate history I’ve ever read. The world is there in a welter of detail that in its everyday ordinariness acts as a striking contrast to ghosts and the increasingly dangerous situation besetting Johan, thus adding to, rather than diluting the narrative tension.

Any niggles? Well, there’s one – which would have been a major problem if this review had been about Of Tangible Ghosts, rather than the omnibus. Modesitt slightly messes up the climactic denouement at the end of the first novel, so that I wasn’t completely sure exactly what had occurred – until I’d finished the first chapter of the second book where it is all properly explained. As I’ve been reading the second book, I’ve been slightly dreading the end – what if he does the same thing? It’s one of the major sins in my view – taking your reader all the way, only to rush the final details, leaving an unsatisfactory muddle. I’m delighted to report that Modesitt brings the plot to a complete and well explained conclusion in the second and final book in the omnibus. So despite that one glitch, I’m giving this book a 10.

If you enjoy well depicted, convincing worlds where the main character leaps off the page, complete with believable foibles – this is a must-read book that has been somehow buried under the weight of the rest of Modesitt’s output. A real shame… because it’s right up there as one of my most enjoyable reads, ever – and the skill required to produce such a gem shows that at his best, Modesitt is one of the outstanding speculative fiction writers of his generation.
10/10

Review of The Family Trade by Charles Stross

This start to his alternate historical science fiction series proves that Charles Stross is an outstanding talent and – unsurprisingly – won the 2005 Sideways Award for Alternative History, as well as a nomination for a Locus Award.

Miriam Beckstein is happy in her life. She’s a successful reporter for a hi-tech magazine in Boston, making good money doing what she loves. When her researcher brings her iron-clad evidence of a money-laundering scheme, Miriam thinks she’s found the story of the year. But when she takes it to her editor, she’s fired on the spot and gets a death threat from the criminals she has uncovered.  Before the day is over, she’s received a locket left by the mother she never knew – the mother who was murdered when she was an infant. Within is a knotwork pattern, which has a hypnotic effect on her. Before she knows it, she’s transported herself to a parallel Earth, a world where knights on horseback chase their prey with automatic weapons, and where world-skipping assassins lurk just on the other side of reality – a world where her true family runs things.

I love this world – where Miriam is constantly cold away from her modern comforts. Where, as a thirty-two year old, she is regarded as a dowager – almost past her prime purpose, which is to make an advantageous match and provide plenty of babies also capable of world-walking. However, as the tension mounts and news leaks out that she has been found, Miriam finds herself in acute danger and unable to fully trust anyone – not even Roland… The heroine is enjoyably complex with a completely understandable reaction to the shock of switching between the two worlds.

This is standard fantasy fare – but there is nothing standard about the rawness and real sense of trauma experienced by Miriam as she finds herself catapulted into this new, hostile existence without any prospect of being able to safely return to her former life. As we are pulled into her adventures, there is a constant sense of danger as she feels herself unable to completely trust anyone in this complicated, brutal world. While the intrigue thickens and the plot gathers momentum, Stross keeps the pace and narrative driving forward to the end of this particular story – leaving me looking forward to reading the second book in the series, The Hidden Family.
10/10

Review of Triumff, Her Majestt’s Hero by Dan Abnett

In a peculiar twist of circumstance, I ended up reading this book directly after Christopher Priest’s The Separation. Both are alternate histories, both are a blend of fantasy and science fiction – although Priest’s book won’t own up to the fantasy element. However, despite sharing the same genre, the overall approach and style couldn’t be more different.

This alternate history has Her Divine Majesty Queen Elizabeth XXX on the throne and Her Majesty’s vast Empire is run by alchemy and superstition, while the Church and Court factions tussle over the dwindling supplies of magic. With deep dissatisfaction in Spain at England’s supremacy, these forces combine in a deadly mix against Her Majesty. And Rupert Triumff, swashbuckler, drinker and gentleman of fortune, finds himself in the forefront of a desperate effort to save Queen and country. But he also has a dark secret of his own…

This romp presupposes the discovery of magic by Leonardo di Vinci has halted scientific and cultural advance, so that Her Majesty’s subjects in 2010 would be just at home in Elizabeth I’s London. The holes in this premise large enough to comfortably engulf a coach and four ceased to bother me fairly rapidly. I just relaxed into the madcap enthusiasm of the yarn and enjoyed myself. Abnett clearly knows his 16th century fairly well – and various puns and jokes made me grin, although at times I felt he was trying a trifle too hard… But I’m also aware that humour is highly subjective. Robert Asprin’s books give me a headache and I’ve never managed more than the first page of a Piers Anthony book.

The POV is somewhat odd, with a first person narrator who seemed to be absent throughout most of the story. But this is a relatively picky point. The pace is nicely judged and although the book chops from scene to scene in fairly swift succession, I didn’t find it obtrusive or annoying – which is a plus-point as this ploy often has me hurling books across the room. However, the world-building is a delight. Abnett’s florid description and detail is what makes this book zing off page and grab you by the throat. The characters are largely two-dimensional, but that really doesn’t matter. They suit the world, which is the real star in this book.

Abnett’s other strength is writing action and fight scenes, which is what you’d expect from a highly experienced author who has dozens of comic books and novels already to his credit – a fair number of them written for the Warhammer worlds. It’s not a branch of fiction I venture into, but my husband has reported that while the quality of Warhammer books is variable, Abnett’s books are some of the best he’s read. Abnett has the ability to write clear, exciting action prose, lacing the scene with farce and/or real tension as necessary.

If sword fights set in Shakespeare’s London do it for you, then this is a must-read book. And even if you don’t think you’d enjoy it, I’d still urge you to give it a go. I read it in one sitting, and it managed to put a smile on my face and ease the pain of a newly sprained ankle.
4 stars

Review of ‘Convergence’ by Thomas Settimi

If you enjoy alternative histories, then this interesting addition to the genre could well be for you.
Lieutenant Nathaniel Booth couldn’t know how his life was about to change as he and Lincoln Hayes completed their air mission in June 1968 over Laos and headed back to aircraft carrier USS Enterprise. Thirty-five years later, when Professor Roger Atwood and his assistant find Hayes’ flying helmet inside a Confederate footlocker from the American Civil War, they find themselves untangling a mystery spanning a time discontinuity of 105 years – from Vietnam to the Battle of Gettysburg.
This is an engaging read – once you get past the first fifty-something pages. Settimi is an experienced technical writer with an extensive knowledge of military history and hardware. And it shows. There is far too much technical information crammed into those vital, opening pages where the story and characters should be connecting with the reader – rather than frightening her away with the eye-boggling detail that holds up the action. If I hadn’t been reviewing the book, I’m not sure that I would have persevered. And that would have been a shame. Because, once Settimi gets into the swing of the story, the pace picks up and draws the reader in.
That said, this is definitely a plot-driven book. The characters are there to serve the narrative – not the other way around. Whilst I am aware that the current fashion is for character-driven stories, there is a solid readership out there for well-written, interesting plots that whisk you along. And once you get past those first fifty pages, this book certainly delivers a fast-paced story with some intriguing twists that had me guessing right up to the end.
Settimi gives us a vivid picture of life and conditions for a Confederate prisoner of war and the character of Nathaniel Booth is by far the most detailed and heroic protagonist in the book. And his penchant for using a series of details to build his scenes comes into its own as we follow Booth’s attempt to save Abraham Lincoln from assassination in this alternate version of American history.
By the manner in which the book concludes, I’m guessing that Settimi intends to write a sequel. If so, I strongly urge him to find an editor with a thick red pen to assist him in cutting out unnecessary technical detail.

5/10