Kam

This review is based on an ARC given to me for free by the publisher via Netgalley. This does not in any way affect my review. This book is slated for release on November 20, 2018.

In terms of themes, this novel covers more or less the same ground that previous novels have. While no book should ever be expected to overtly tackle any of the important socio-economic-cultural-political concerns that are at the heart of many of today???s issues, I certainly think books should at least attempt to address them in some small way. Lies Sleeping does just that, usually through Peter???s jokes and commentary, though Guleed puts in her own opinions quite frequently (which I like very much, given her background). This is a very good thing in my opinion, since the most important part of this novel is the plot, and anything more than what was done in this novel would simply get in the way of the overall plot.

And speaking of plot, that is perhaps the most important part of this novel. Since Moon Over Soho the Faceless Man has been a malevolent presence who acts through various agents, attempting to further some mysterious plan that Peter needs to stop... . Again I will not give specific details to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that the Faceless Man???s goals are both entirely unexpected and also rather predictable given his background... As for Mr. Punch, his role in this novel is a bit hard to describe without spoiling it, but suffice to say that it is important and unexpected. ...

During the last few weeks, I've hit something of a slump in my reading. Usually I can go through books at a fairly fast clip of a book every week or week and a half, but during this latter half of the year I've barely managed to make a book every two weeks. This has a lot to do with the kinds of books I've been reading. For the most part, I've been happy with them, but there is always something about them that trips me up: some flaw in characterization, or some plot point, that makes me want to take a long vacation by reading something else far less likely to make me feel exhausted and exasperated by the time I get to the end of the book. I was staring reading burnout in the face, and in order to remedy that I chose to reread some old favorites before getting back to the books in my ephemeral and constantly shifting To-Read list.

It was only a few days ago, reading burnout remedied, that I finally got around to picking up a new book. I was a bit tired of fantasy, so although I'd made a promise to my friend Chris to get started on Patrick Rothfuss's Kingkiller Chronicles (especially since he'd already read the first two books of Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards series at my insistence), I thought it was high time I paid heed to the call of the distant stars and read some science fiction.

Now, I had a choice here: I could start on Dan Simmons' Ilium duology, which Chris suggested I read because I enjoyed science fiction and Homer's epic poetry. But I wasn't really up to that kind of science fiction. I wanted a world I was already relatively familiar with and wouldn't take too much time sinking into, but I didn't particularly feel like reentering Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga at the moment. That left me with just Dan Abnett and his Ravenor trilogy, so I picked up the first book, titled Ravenor, and settled in.

The Ravenor trilogy is set in the Warhammer 40,000 shared universe. I'm sure most sci-fi readers have at least heard of it, even if they don't engage in it, likely because of the recent furor over Games Workshop (the company that owns Warhammer 40K) claiming to hold the copyright on the term “space marine”. The claim is, of course, ridiculous at best, since the term has been around for almost as long as science fiction has been around. Fortunately, the case that started the whole brouhaha has been settled, though the potential for trouble still remains.

The Ravenor books don't get tangled up in any of that mess, and any Space Marines are kept somewhere in hazy memory and half a galaxy or more away. Instead, they, like the Eisenhorn trilogy that precedes them, focus on another prominent faction of the Warhammer 40K universe: the Inquisition, a group tasked with hunting down and silencing anyone that doesn't subscribe to the Empire's religion, which is focused on worshipping the God-Emperor of Terra. There's a lot that can confuse the reader if they're using this series as a jumping-off point into Warhammer 40K, so any further explanation they might need or want (or even not want) can be found in the two Warhammer 40K wikis online; I suggest they be used as necessary, but judiciously, as spoilers abound.

The eponymous character's full name is Gideon Ravenor, who made his first appearance in the second Eisenhorn book Malleus. In that book, Ravenor was burnt almost to death, and though he managed to survive he must now live confined inside a force chair: something like a completely enclosed life-support system that moves around using anti-grav. Under normal circumstances, Ravenor would be forced to retire from his job.

However, that's not the case, because Ravenor is a powerful psyker (psychically-powered person), and his enfeebled body has only strengthened his psyker abilities because he now has to rely on them for pretty much everything. This means that he continues to work as an Inquisitor - which is where the reader finds him at the beginning of Ravenor: on a world called Eustis Majoris, looking into the trade of a substance called flects. However, what seems like a rather routine investigation soon twists into something else, and his search leads him down a path that may prove far more dangerous to him and his crew than he ever expected.

Since I've read the Eisenhorn trilogy, it's inevitable that I compare Ravenor's story to that of his former mentor's, and I have to say, I think I like Gregor Eisenhorn more than Ravenor - at least, in terms of his narrative voice. The Eisenhorn books are narrated by Eisenhorn himself, and though there are occasional slips into third-person limited perspective when another character other than Eisenhorn is narrating that particular part of the story, those parts are few and far between. For the most part, it's Eisenhorn telling the story, and best of all, he has a strong, distinctive narrative voice - something that's very important for me when I'm reading something told in first-person point-of-view. Eisenhorn's narrative style is a mirror of the man himself: serious and determined, but with enough of a sense of humor to find things funny from time to time, and to relate those funny incidents in a manner that can elicit a chuckle or two from the reader.

Ravenor, unfortunately, isn't like that. The parts narrated by Ravenor himself - again in first-person point-of-view, like the Eisenhorn books - are few and far between, and though those are fun enough to read, they get lost in the third-person limited narrations of the other members of his retinue. By the end of the book, I didn't think I was as familiar with Ravenor as I wanted to be. I'd come to know his crew, to be sure, and to know something of the enemies he faced and will face further down the line, but the man himself continues to be something of a mystery. I guess that's acceptable, given that Ravenor's in that force chair all the time and therefore mystery is a part of his general image, but I did find myself disappointed that I didn't learn more about him this first book - which means I'm not as attached to him as I'd like to be.

This is completely unlike the Eisenhorn books, wherein I got to know Eisenhorn through the way he told his story, and not just through the story itself. By the time I got to the middle of Xenos (the first book in the Eisenhorn trilogy), I was invested enough in him that the things he did and the things that happened to him genuinely mattered to me, and I wanted to know what would become of him further down the line. That attachment to Eisenhorn was more than enough to see me through the rest of his trilogy to the very tragic end. This, there also proves that Abnett is more than capable of writing characters in a way that's capable of hooking the reader all the way to the bitter end, which kind of makes me wonder why he didn't do that with Ravenor: a character with enough tragic backstory behind him and adventure (and blood and torture and death and all kinds of fun things) ahead of him that, by rights, he ought to be compulsively readable - but he's not. The members of his crew are all a fascinating lot (especially the girls, Patience Kys and Kara Swole), but Ravenor himself is, sadly, rather bland for my tastes.

Aside from that, though, the rest of the book is actually quite fun - especially since it goes into territory that wasn't covered in the Eisenhorn books. As I mentioned earlier, Ravenor is a powerful psyker, and that power isn't used just for making things levitate and pushing himself around in his force chair: he can fight with them too, and when he does, he's utterly terrifying to behold. It's part of the reason why he doesn't regret the loss of his body much: his psyker powers are more than adequate for him to continue on fighting, whether physically or against other psykers. There are a handful of psyker versus psyker battles in the novel, and those are reminiscent of the battle of Proteus and Menelaus from Greek mythology, or the many djinn versus djinn battles in the Arabian Nights, in the best possible way. They prove that Abnett's capable of writing a good fight wherever he chooses to set it: physical realm or ethereal realm, it doesn't matter, Abnett's got it covered.

As for the plot itself, it's rather slow to start, and feels rather small, especially when compared (again) to the first book of the Eisenhorn trilogy. It's interesting, to be sure, and quite a fun thing to read, but it just feels like it could have been a far larger, grander creature than it is. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I did rather feel the lack. My friend Steven (who got me into Warhammer 40K in the first place) has reassured me that the Ravenor series is really slow to start, and as someone who's read more than a few series that are slow to start, I can live with that, so I'll let this particular aspect slide as long as the other books in the series can deliver.

Overall, Ravenor isn't the most promising beginning for a new series. Ravenor himself lacks a distinctive voice, which I find invaluable in a story told from the first-person perspective, and though the other characters make up for his relative reticence, the reader gets to the end and still feels as if they don't really know Ravenor. This may or may not have been intentional, but I, for my part, wish that Abnett had given his own main protagonist more airtime, just so the reader can really, truly get attached to him and care about what happens to him further down the line. The other characters can potentially make up for this weakness, but it's certainly not enough: after all, the series is called Ravenor for a reason - it's just that the reason doesn't seem very obvious in this first book.

Despite that hitch, though, everything else is quite fun to read, if one doesn't mind shades of purple prose (which is pretty much de rigueur for any book written in the Warhammer 40K universe, so it shouldn't be held as a mark against the Ravenor series). The plot might seem a bit small at first, though this might only be a problem for those who've read the Eisenhorn trilogy and know what those books are like. Otherwise, it's a pretty fun ride, and promises much for the next book, which will - hopefully - take care of the issues this book has, and prove that this is a series really worth getting into.

Edit added 6/26/2020: Recently it???s come to light that Elizabeth Bear is a serial emotional abuser and manipulator. I did not know that at the time I wrote this since I don???t move in the same spaces as her victims, but I???m leaving this note here now to say that, despite my high praise of this novel, I absolutely do not condone her behavior at any point in time, whether I was aware of it or not. Any of her books that I now have will not be reviewed on this blog. Review of any of her future work will depend upon whether she has demonstrated any actual, genuine change in her behavior going forward.

It???s been a while since I last read steampunk???and by ???a while???, I mean almost three years. The last time I read anything steampunk was all the way back in 2012, when I picked up Sam Starbuck???s Dead Isle and fell head-over-heels in love with it. Up until that point, I had been reading in the genre on a fairly regular basis, though I admit that I didn???t necessarily read everything and anything that came across my path. Most of it was rather bland, except Scott Westerfeld???s Leviathan Trilogy, which I thoroughly enjoyed because of Westerfeld???s excellent writing and artist Keith Thompson???s incredible illustrations.

But Dead Isle showed me something else: it showed me what steampunk could do. At its best, it can be a vehicle for addressing issues of racism, imperialism, and feminism, grabbing hold of long-neglected corners of history and bringing them into the light, or turning established history upside-down and inside-out in order to better showcase the issues that troubled us in the past, and continue to trouble us today. At its worst, however, it can ignore, or further reinforce, harmful stereotypes and conventions.

Unfortunately, the latter appears to be something a lot of steampunk writers out there still do quite frequently, and is the main reason why I haven???t picked up anything steampunk in a long time. Dead Isle, in a way, spoiled me for everything else in the genre, giving me standards that I now expect all steampunk writers to meet. And in the last three years since I read that novel, nothing has even come close.

But in 2014, Elizabeth Bear announced that she was releasing a steampunk novel in February 2015, and I sat up and took notice. I???d already read Bear???s Eternal Sky Trilogy and loved it, so I had a good idea, more or less, of the kind of quality to expect: which is to say, top quality work. This made it easier for me to decide to pick up Karen Memory when it finally came out???a decision that I do not regret making, not least because it has renewed my interest in a genre that I thought I???d almost completely lost interest in.

Karen Memory is set in an alternative version of American history, roughly during the Klondike Gold Rush, in a place called Rapid City (a fictional city that reads a lot like Seattle, but isn???t). Karen Memery, the lead character and narrator of the novel, works as a ???seamstress??? in Madame Damnable???s H??tel Mon Cherie. It???s not the most noble kind of work, but it???s work nonetheless, and Madame Damnable???s house is a good place to be???certainly far better than any of that Peter Bantle???s dockside cribs. But when a pair of women stumble into the parlour of Madame Damnable???s establishment, injured and pursued, Karen and her companions in the H??tel Mon Cherie find themselves caught up in a whole world of trouble.

I???ve already mentioned that one of the things a lot of steampunk writers appear to get wrong about writing their books is that they don???t take the time to write good, well-rounded characters. Karen Memory certainly does not have that problem???in fact, the main reason I love this book so much is that I adore the characters to pieces. Karen is everything I could want in a main character: intelligent, practical, with enough gumption to get her both in and out of trouble???and a soft-enough heart to worry if the girl she fancies is even interested in the ???rites of Sappho???, as she calls it.

It can be hard, getting the balance right to make a character come off as genuinely good while at the same time making them human, but Bear manages to find that balance with Karen, and that???s what makes her so endearing???something a great many steampunk writers can???t seem to manage as well as they can manage their descriptions of steam-powered analytical engines. It???s easy to love Karen almost from the get-go, when she declares that ???You ain???t gonna like what I have to tell you, but I???m gonna tell you anyway???, and proceeds to tell her story with the sort of easy nonchalance that is the gift of the born storyteller, all in a charming (to me, anyway) ???country girl??? accent.

The accent is another thing that Bear has managed really well. Writing an accent has always been a difficult proposition, and can lead to books like Trainspotting, wherein one must necessarily read aloud to oneself if one wants to stand any chance of actually understanding the book in the first place. Fortunately, Bear doesn???t go to such lengths, choosing instead to play with word choice and syntax in an attempt to recreate the accent for the reader, and in this, she succeeds. Karen???s voice???accent and all???rung clear in my head as I was reading the book, and though there were times when I had to reread a sentence in order to understand it, it wasn???t a very great obstacle to reading the book.

The other characters are equally fun and well-drawn, and more importantly, are diverse in race, gender, and sexuality More than half the characters are people of colour: Beatrice, another one of Karen???s fellow seamstresses, is black, the daughter of a courtesan from New Orleans; Crispin the bouncer and Connie the cook are also black. Merry Lee is Chinese. Priya is Indian (as in from India, not Native American). Madame Damnable herself would be considered black according to the laws of the time, but passes for white. And that???s just the characters that appear in the first chapter, not counting any of the others who come in later.

And then there???s Miss Francina. The ???man in a dress??? gag is one that pops up in adventure stories (and consequently in its descendants, Westerns and steampunk) quite often, and has rightly been viewed as hurtful and damaging to trans women everywhere, to say nothing of the murkiness of the history of trans people down the years. But Miss Francina is not presented as a gag: instead, she is presented seriously, addressed always as ???she???. Right from the beginning Karen makes it clear that it hardly matters that Miss Francina has ???a pecker??? underneath her dress, because as far as she and everyone else is concerned, Miss Francina is a woman because she says so, and that???s that. The only time she changes the pronoun is when Miss Francina goes undercover as a man, and even then the ???he??? is very distinctly put in quotation marks.

Later on, the story introduces Marshal Bass Reeves and his posseman, Tomoatooah. It might not seem obvious from the get-go, but after a while the reader may come to realise something interesting (or they may already know it, if they are well-versed in pop culture history): the duo are meant to be the Lone Ranger and Tonto, written right. I myself only put two and two together when I read Bear???s Author???s Notes at the end of the novel, where she mentions that Bass Reeves is a real person, and is thought to be the basis for the Lone Ranger???a character who is portrayed, sadly, as white in all his iterations. While it???s unknown if Bass Reeves was ever accompanied by a Native American in his work as a Marshal, the name ???Tomoatooah??? itself could be shortened to ???Tonto??? in the right (or rather, wrong) mouth. Either way, I???m glad that Bear has given credit where credit is due for one of the most iconic characters in American pop culture history, and for writing said character???s companion, however fictional, appropriately.

To say that I was ridiculously happy with all of the above is something of an understatement. After casually leafing through other steampunk novels and finding them lacking in any attempt to tackle the issues I mentioned before, to see Bear do so was a delight. It???s not just the presence of the characters themselves: it???s also the problems they run into and live around, the prejudice and the difficulty of the life they lead being who and what they are. Even better, Bear doesn???t try to cover up any of the nastier stuff???but then, why should she? Doing so would be a great disservice to all the people who had???and in many cases, have???to suffer and sacrifice under prejudice because of their race, or their gender, or their sexuality, or all of the above, in order to keep on living. Karen???s matter-of-fact tone when talking about these difficulties puts some distance between the reader and the issues at hand, but doesn???t make them disappear entirely, and thus makes the reader think about them anyway.

Backing up the characters is the setting. It???s might not be as richly described as it would be in some other steampunk novel, but in this case, I don???t particularly care. Bear obviously wants the characters to take centre stage, and for good reason: the setting fits around the characters, not the characters fitting into the setting. While it???s true that Karen describes Rapid City and its environs, and all the funky steampunk details like airships and mechanical gadgets and the like, all of that takes second place to the characters in the story???which is just as it should be.

Something that a lot of steampunk writers seem to forget is that all the details that make steampunk, steampunk???the airships, the clockwork, the analytical engines???all of those are just details, meant to be used sparingly to support a strong cast of characters and an equally strong plot. There is only so much time one can spend talking about an airship, after all; at some point one must begin writing about characters and actually telling a story, and unfortunately, quite a few writers appear to forget that. Thankfully, Bear is more than aware of how to write an actual story, and though there is and airship in this story, and it is important to the plot, it doesn???t take the place of a properly told story, starring properly-written characters.

If there is anything I might have to complain about in this book, it???s mostly to do with the plot. Given the richness and vibrancy of the characters I was rather hoping for something a bit weightier, but the plot Bear weaves for the novel is, while appropriately fun and exciting, rather light for my tastes. In truth I don???t really know what I was expecting. The plot moves along as it should, though it does go a touch too fast for my liking towards the end. That might be it, I suppose: I was hoping for a longer plot line, perhaps something with a larger scope with larger consequences, but that???s not the point of this novel. It???s meant, in the end, to mimic the dime novels that were so popular at more or less the novel???s equivalent period in actual history: short adventure stories featuring real people doing more or less real, yet amazing, things. It was, in short, too short for my liking, but that might just be me, wanting to spend more time with the characters.

Overall, Karen Memory is an amazing steampunk novel, showing what the genre can do when it???s put in the hands of a really good writer. Bear creates an incredible cast of characters, and is not afraid to tackle issues about race, gender, sexuality, and imperialism, without sacrificing characterisation or plot. Karen is an endearing character, as are all the other characters excepting the villains, who are appropriately, teeth-grindingly villainous. Karen???s voice as narrator is an excellent one, though some readers may find Bear???s changes in syntax to recreate a country accent somewhat difficult to get around. However, it???s easy to get used to it after a few chapters, at which point the characters will have sucked the reader in sufficiently enough that it hardly matters. The plot may feel a bit too light for some readers, but it???s well in keeping with the conventions of the dime novels that inspired the entire adventure genre in the first place, and quite entertaining to boot, so that???s really a minor complaint and doesn???t detract from the overall quality of the novel. 

This is, in other words, the very sort of steampunk novel I???ve been looking for the last three years, and it is a very great pleasure indeed to get to read this and renew my faith in the genre???s potential.

Pastel-coloured, boogly-eyed, and tentacled: these are the primary descriptors for a particular brand of cute I???m especially fond of. Two out of three of those descriptors make sense to a broad swathe of people: pastel colours are often associated with infants and, therefore, fall into a commonly-understood spectrum of cute; same thing goes for big eyes. But tentacled? When one is looking at a squid or cuttlefish in a market, it can be hard to think of it as anywhere near ???cute???, and far easier to be reminded of H.P. Lovecraft???s eldritch horrors.

But cephalopods???a group of animals that includes squid, cuttlefish, and octopuses (not, as I used to think, ???octopi???)???can be cute as well, in ways that can easily appeal to a broad range of people. Take this tiny deep-sea octopus that scientists are considering naming Opistoteuthis adorabilis because it is just so gosh-darn cute (click here for a video). When one sees the animal alive and in motion in its natural element, instead of dead and limp on a fishmonger???s table, it becomes easy to see why they can be such fascinating creatures???and, yes, even cute.

However, there is more to cephalopods than just being cute, especially when one talks about octopuses. Zookeepers working at marine parks and aquariums tell almost-unbelievable stories of octopuses not only escaping their tanks when the lights go out for the night, but sometimes leaving to go fishing in other tanks, before returning to their own tanks and closing the lids behind them as if nothing had happened. Biologists specialising in animal behaviour are now backing up these stories with hard evidence: several studies show that octopuses are far smarter than initially expected???possibly enough to be self-aware in the same way humans are.

The question of the octopus??? ability to be self-aware is one that Sy Montgomery attempts to answer in The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness. Octopuses, Montgomery states, are very different from humans: they live in the ocean; they have a beak like a bird and venom like a snake; they have no bones; and they have four more limbs than humans do. Even evolution itself divides us from octopuses: ???[m]ore than half a billion years??? is the point when the evolutionary path diverges, and one branch leads to humans, while another leads to octopuses. Montgomery puts it best: ???Octopuses represent the great mystery of the Other.???

And yet it is that vast, seemingly unbridgeable gap between our species and the octopus that intrigues Montgomery, leading her to ask some interesting questions:

I wanted to meet an octopus. I wanted to touch an alternate reality. I wanted to explore a different kind of consciousness, if such a thing exists. What is it like to be an octopus? Is it anything like being a human? Is it even possible to know?

The entirety of The Soul of an Octopus is an attempt to answer that question, as Montgomery pays a visit to the New England Aquarium, and has her first octopus encounter with Athena, a Pacific giant octopus, under the gentle, learned guidance of aquarist Scott Dowd. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, including her own personal experience, Montgomery explores the idea that there are other intelligences on our planet other than our own???and that of all those intelligences, the octopus just might be the most fascinating, and the closest to what we might call ???human???.

Now, it must be said that Montgomery is a very good storyteller; she has a way of weaving fact and personal narrative together so that the reader can go from one to the other without the slightest hitch, as shown in the excerpt below:

At the [New England Aquarium] Wilson [Menashi] had been tasked with an important mission: designing interesting toys to keep the intelligent octopus occupied. ???If they have nothing to do, they become bored,??? Bill [Murphy] explained. And boring your octopus is not only cruel; it???s a hazard. I knew from living with two border collies and a 750-pound pet pig that to allow a smart animal to become bored is to court disaster. They will invariably come up with something creative to do with their time that you don???t want them to do, as the Seattle Aquarium discovered with Lucretia McEvil. In Santa Monica, a small California two-spot octopus, only perhaps eight inches long, managed to flood the aquarium???s offices with hundreds of gallons of water by experimenting with a valve in her tank, causing thousands of dollars??? worth of damage by ruining the brand-new, ecologically designed floors.

Such an ability is a blessing in a non-fiction writer, and whenever I find an author with such a gift, I take careful note of the author???s name so that I may track down the rest of their work. Thanks to this book, I will take the time to track down her other work, because the quality of her storytelling is close to impeccable, and is something other non-fiction writers should aspire to.

However, for all that this book is a good chronicle of one woman???s friendship with four octopuses and the people who look after them and are enthusiastic about them, it is far too light on the science for my taste. The title promises ???A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness???, but it doesn???t quite fulfil that promise. To be sure, Montgomery peppers her narrative with scientific facts, psychological explorations, and philosophical quotations about the nature of the mind and consciousness, but those digressions are not the focus of the book; rather, the focus of this book is a woman???s friendship with four octopuses and the people who look after them. While that suits the first part of the title just fine, it leaves the second part of the title unfulfilled. I picked up this book expecting a scientific exploration of the nature of non-human consciousness with the octopus as it???s focus, not a memoir.

This means that I found nothing truly ???surprising??? about Montgomery???s narrative, because what she discusses is familiar to anyone who cares for animals, no matter their species. Humans form attachments to their pets, and science is gradually beginning to prove that pets form attachments to their owners. What Montgomery writes about is not necessarily about how octopuses are ???intelligent??? or ???conscious???, scientifically speaking, but how she thinks they are intelligent and conscious, how she thinks they have a soul because of her personal experience with them, and the people who find their lives improved by being in contact with them. While there is no denying that octopuses are incredible, extraordinary animals, and that they are remarkably intelligent as well, the question of whether or not they are conscious, or possessed of self-awareness, is still up in the air???and is a question Montgomery does not answer with any scientific accuracy.

This, then, means I find the book rather disappointing. I went into it looking for science, after all, and while I understand???indeed, enjoy it???when popular science writers include personal anecdotes into their writing, as a rule the best popular science writers focus on the science, not their personal experiences. Switching focus from one to the other means that one is writing a memoir, not popular science. Though the full title of The Soul of an Octopus, and even its blurb promises popular science, it quickly becomes obvious that this is, in fact, a memoir. I may have found Montgomery???s prose engaging enough that I kept reading anyway, but that mild sense of disappointment still lingered when I finished the book, and has, therefore, tainted my opinion of this book.

Overall, The Soul of an Octopus: A Surprising Exploration into the Wonder of Consciousness has a rather deceptive title. If the reader expects a memoir of a woman recounting her extraordinary experiences with octopuses and the people who love them, then this is precisely the book they are looking for. However, if the reader is looking for a more scientific exploration of the nature of consciousness in non-human species, even one that is peppered with personal anecdotes, then said reader will be sadly disappointed: The Soul of an Octopus does not contain nearly enough science to satisfy even the casual popular science reader. Any science included in the book is brief, and typically subsumed into Montgomery???s more personal exploration of her experiences and encounters with octopuses and the people who love them. While this can certainly be interesting, and may be enough to keep disappointment at bay long enough to finish the book (as it did with me), some readers might find themselves growing impatient with the text and set it aside???a course of action I certainly cannot blame them for taking.

One can say anything one likes about the quality of content on Tumblr, but one cannot deny that, if one follows the right blogs and blocks enough of the wrong ones, it???s possible to find gems amidst the dross on a regular basis. I stumbled across one particular gem early this year: a post which talked about how, in science fiction, humans always seem to be portrayed as weaker and less threatening than aliens, when in fact it???s quite possible that we are the dangerous ones, not the other way around. It???s a hilarious post, of course, especially for anyone who is interested in sci-fi, but it does lead to some interesting questions about what it means to be human in space - or what it means to be ???alien???, for that matter.

The question of ???What is alien???? is an especially interesting (albeit occasionally thorny) question that sci-fi writers tackle on a regular basis, particularly those who are interested in telling First Contact stories. Earlier this year I read Carolyn Ives Gilman???s Dark Orbit, which in many ways is a typical First Contact story: humans on an exploratory mission unexpectedly come into contact with an alien race, and that contact leads to a great many changes, both for humanity and the aliens.

Now, while Dark Orbit is quite an enjoyable novel, and poses some interesting questions and tackles some intriguing themes, it is, as I said, a ???typical??? First Contact novel, wherein the alien species is one completely unknown to humanity, and (likely) bears no relation to our species at all. In Children of Time, Adrian Tchaikovsky proposes an entirely different scenario - and does so in a highly entertaining manner.

Children of Time tells the story of humanity???s journey to the stars: first in pursuit of discovery, and then in pursuit of survival. After generations of nuclear and environmental catastrophe that has made Earth all but uninhabitable, the last few survivors of the human race board an ark ship and head out to the stars, following the clues and remnants left behind by their more advanced predecessors in order to find a new home: a terraformed world ready for human habitation. But once they find the treasure they seek, they find out that something is not quite right, and that the new home they have long hoped and sought for is, in fact, occupied - and those occupants will not give up their hold so easily.

The above summary makes this novel look like a First Contact story in the same vein as Dark Orbit. However, it is not - something that quickly becomes obvious to the reader once they have gotten a few chapters into the book. First of all, Tchaikovsky considers what one might mean when one uses the concept of ???alien??? in sci-fi. For most readers (and perhaps a lot of writers), it means a completely different species, one that has no relation at all to humans. While Tchaikovsky does indeed use that more traditional meaning in this novel, he considers what it might mean if the aliens are, in fact, ourselves:

???There???s this myth that advanced cultures will be so expansively cosmopolitan that they???ll be able to effortlessly talk down to the little people, right? But the Empire never intended its tech to be forward-compatible with primitives - meaning us. Why would it? Like everyone else, they only ver intended to talk to each other.???

One of the most popular quotes from the novel The Go-Between, written by L.P. Hartley, goes: ???The past is another country; they do things differently there.??? And this is quite true: we oftentimes look back into history and wonder: what were they thinking? Why did they do what they did? And sometimes, what we find there is so strange or incomprehensible to those of us in the present day that the past does not seem like another country so much as another world entirely. Though they are the same species as us, our ancestors can sometimes seem very much like aliens.

This is an idea that Tchaikovsky takes to an interesting extreme in this novel by showing what happens to humanity if something causes it to regress from a socio-cultural high point into a kind of ???dark age???. This idea is nothing new: it has happened in history, and many other writers have taken a similar angle in their writing. But what makes Tchaikovsky???s take on it interesting is that he tries to look at the similarities, not the differences, between humans at their highest and humans at their lowest. The most scientifically-advanced human in the story is shown to be no different from the least advanced. To be sure, there are vast gaps between the two in terms of, say, scientific knowledge, but at base, they are the same: both driven to survive, and to attain that survival by any means necessary.

Tchaikovsky also draws upon similarities when discussing the novel???s alien race. I cannot say too much about them, as that would ruin a lot of what makes this novel so very interested to read, but here is a quote that shows just how similar the aliens are to humans:

Another handful of her kind are already there, seeking the reassurance of the numinous, the certainty that there is something more to the world than their senses can readily grasp; that there is a greater Understanding. That, even when all is lost, all need not be lost.

Oftentimes in sci-fi stories, especially First Contact stories, lots of writers try to highlight what makes the aliens different from humans - sometimes in ways that make the aliens better than us, other times in ways that make them worse. But in choosing to highlight the similarities instead of the differences, Tchaikovsky gradually lays down the groundwork for the novel???s primary theme: that empathy - the ability to see someone else not as ???Other??? but as ???Same??? - is what makes us all human, and that it is the trait that should define humanity as a species, both now and in the future.

It is that focus on empathy that, I think, really makes this novel not just an enjoyable read, but in the end, an uplifting one. Over and over again, in ways both subtle and overt, the reader is asked to try to see things differently - whether it is to understand the world through the eyes of an alien, or through the eyes of humans trapped in a situation where a single wrong decision can mean the death of the entire species. It is a timely message too; after all, a brief glimpse at current news headlines ought to convince any reader that maybe, if we were all a little more empathetic towards not just our fellow humans, but to Mother Nature too, we might not be facing so many threats to our ability to live in a peaceful and healthy world.

It also helps that Tchaikovsky???s prose is quite readable. While it is not exactly the same as the prose of some other, more lyrical writers, and while he has a tendency to lay it on a bit thick in some places, he does have a fairly good handle of both the language and the direction of the plot, managing to keep three distinct plots going while still ensuring that the novel reads as one, cohesive whole. While some readers might be drawn to one particular plot more than the others (I certainly was), by the novel???s latter third it becomes clear that all those disparate stories actually do form one whole, and Tchaikovsky could not have achieved the ending any other way.

Overall, Children of Time is an unexpected gem of a novel: not because it does anything extremely grand or groundbreaking, but because it has an emotional heart that readers don???t often see in sci-fi, certainly rarely in First Contact novels. Even better, that emotional heart is treated in a way that is not tawdry or sappy; rather, Tchaikovsky takes the time to lay down the groundwork in such a way that, by the time the reader gets to the end, it rings uplifting and true rather than flat and false.

The idea of an ???alien invasion??? tends to come pre-packaged with a very specific set of tropes: a group of hostile extraterrestrials wreaks fire and havoc upon a city (usually Western, usually American), and the world (or rather, America) must find a way to unite in order to beat the alien threat back and prove that humanity is a force to be reckoned with once it finds a reason to stand united, rather than divided. This is a pattern that I???ve seen repeated across different movies, from Independence Day to Transformers (that those are both Michael Bay movies says something, I think).

Recently, some movies have attempted to break the mold: Pacific Rim, for instance, takes the typical alien invasion narrative, but sets it in an Asian city, and gives us an Asian heroine in the form of Mako Mori (played by Rinko Kikuchi). Even the movie???s visual and thematic tropes find their roots in Asian pop culture: director Guillermo del Toro has stated on several occasions that he drew inspiration from the Japanese Gojira movies (Godzilla, to Westerners), and from mecha (giant robot) anime and manga such as Evangelion.

And then there???s District 9. It???s been lauded for its attempt to reverse the typical alien invasion story by portraying the aliens as essentially ???human??? entities, but forced into horrific living conditions by the humans, who are themselves portrayed as inhuman in their cruelty. Set in Johannesburg, South Africa, director Neil Blomkamp was inspired by the history of apartheid and its effects, choosing to use aliens as a metaphor for the oppressed Other.

However, though a lot of critical acclaim has been heaped on the movie, there???s also plenty of controversy attached to it - not least for its ???white saviour??? narrative and its portrayal of Nigerians. These problematic aspects inspired Nnedi Okorafor to lay down the groundwork for what would eventually become the novel Lagoon.

Lagoon begins in the waters off Lagos, Nigeria, with a very angry - albeit righteously angry - swordfish. That swordfish sets off a chain of events that brings three people from vastly different backgrounds together: Adaora, a university professor and married mother of two; Agu, a high-minded soldier; and Anthony Dey Craze, famous Ghanaian rapper. What the swordfish does sets them on a journey that will change the face of Lagos, and perhaps Nigeria, forever.

Now, on the surface, Lagoon doesn???t appear to be all that different from the typical alien invasion narrative: aliens appear, and the ensuing conflict brings people together in ways they might not otherwise had the world been normal. Indeed, one doesn???t really even need an alien invasion for that sort of thing to happen: a natural disaster works just as well, as so many other films have proven. Even zombies work, too.

So why aliens? Because aliens can reason, in the way neither a tsunami nor a zombie can. They can explain why they???ve come, and what they plan to do. To be sure, not all aliens in film do this - a lot seem to adopt the (extremely human) ???shoot first and ask questions later??? philosophy, or are otherwise unable, or don???t want to, communicate with humanity. But the aliens in Lagoon can and do want to communicate with humanity - in fact, that???s the main reason why they established contact in the first place. They have something they wish to share, and in order to do that they need to reach as wide an audience as possible.

Personally, I liked that deviation from the typical portrayal of aliens. I know it???s nothing new, but it was nice reading about it in a story that specifically deals with the concept of alien invasion. I also really liked that a musician is put forward as primary communicator - an idea which makes sense. Though song lyrics can be hampered by language, music itself is not. So when the aliens choose Anthony as their primary communicator, they are in fact choosing a speaker of what???s perhaps the most universal language possible to humanity. They could have, of course, chosen a mathematician, as many science fiction writers tend to do, but math isn???t really completely comprehensible to everybody - one needs only to watch eyes glaze over when one mentions the words ???higher calculus???. Music, however, speaks at the level of the heart, the level of the soul - and when one wants to start change, that???s the level at which one must speak.

And change is what the aliens want to do. ???We are change,??? states Ayodele, the alien???s ambassador, when asked why she and her people are on Earth. They can change themselves at a molecular level, and they can do the same for everything around them, even to harm, and to heal. But what sort of change do they intend to bring? Again, Ayodele supplies the answer: ???We come to bring you together and refuel your future. Your land is full of a fuel that is tearing you apart.??? No large leap of logic to understand the reference to fossil fuels and the divisive and destructive oil industry. This is a great thing, of course: our reliance on fossil fuels is literally destroying our world, and something - anything - that can cut our addiction would bring sweeping change.

But what that is, is never really explained. In fact, a lot about the aliens is left up in the air, except what Adaora learns from Ayodele based on what the latter does and says. They are more like gods: mysterious entities from beyond that have come to save humanity from itself by appearing to chosen prophets, who must then spread the word about their coming. Why Okorafor chose to call them aliens instead of gods might seem a bit odd, but I think the reason is simple: gods interfere in the lives of humans all the time, whether to save them or to hurt them - or at least, they used to. It would be less easy to swallow the idea of gods coming back to save humanity, than it would be to accept aliens coming to Earth for the same purpose.

This makes me wish that Okorafor had spent a bit more time developing the aliens. I would have liked to understand their motives more, liked to learn why they really want to help humanity out. They could be doing so out of purely altruistic motives - such things are entirely possible - but a part of me wonders if that???s truly the case. Ayodele says they are ???change,??? as if that???s their entire purpose, to bring change to everyplace they touch, but is it always positive change? Or was it just pure luck that they decided to help humanity, instead of just wiping us off the face of the planet - something they???re also capable of doing? They come close to making the latter decision, at a certain point in the novel, but they change their mind and decide it might be better to go on with the original plan of helping humanity. It???s a touching moment, to be sure - not least because it???s children that tip the balance back in humanity???s favour - but it does make me wonder what???s really going on in their (collective, as they are a hive mind) heads.

Then again, I suppose that???s not the point of this novel. The point of this novel is, in fact, a very personal one - to Okorafor, specifically, and perhaps, by extension, to Lagosians and Nigerians. In the acknowledgements at the end of the novel, Okorafor shows the whys and wherefores for writing Lagoon, and it becomes clear that this is a very personal work to her, both as a reaction to what she saw in District 9, and her personal history as a Nigerian woman, and a Lagosian, specifically. Hope pointed out that this novel reads a lot like a wish fulfilment story: Okorafor saw things that were wrong about various things around her, and decided to correct all of it in one fell swoop in the writing of Lagoon.

Now, to be sure, there???s absolutely nothing wrong with the idea of this novel being wish fulfilment. It???s a completely valid reason for writing anything, because if one can???t have one???s way with the world, one might as well write a world in which one can do as one pleases. The problem with that, though, is not everyone is going to completely embrace what???s going on in the story because of its intensely personal nature. But if that???s not the point, if the point is just to write the story and get it out there, then whether or not other people beyond a specific set of them ???get??? the novel isn???t really going to matter.

And I think that???s what Okorafor had in mind, when she wrote Lagoon: not many people except those beyond a certain set of them - people with an intimate understanding of Lagos and Nigeria and all the interconnected ideas and problems associated with the culture and people of those places - will really ???get??? the novel; for all the rest, some parts of the story will appear opaque. But that doesn???t matter: this isn???t a novel for everybody, this is a novel that fulfils a certain purpose for its author, and that???s enough.

I would like to clarify, though, that the opacity of the story had nothing to do with the language, or the artistry, or characterisation, or anything else about the novel. Okorafor???s language is brilliant to read, particularly in her use of slang for atmosphere and characterisation; her characters - the humans, anyway - were a fun and interesting bunch (I adore Adaora???s kids, in particular); and her storytelling is as wonderful as it was when I first encountered her writing in Akata Witch. But I???m not Lagosian, and I???m not Nigerian, and I???m not African, and therefore certain aspects of Lagoon feel opaque to me.

There are some points that I understand, of course, and to a certain degree relate to: the prevalence of corruption; the power of the Internet; the dangers and prejudice faced by women and people of the LGBTQIA community. But the Philippines is not Nigeria, and Manila is not Lagos: the cultures are different, though they face many of the same problems. If Ayodele???s folk had landed in Manila Bay, instead of off the shores of Lagos, I think it would have been a very different story than that told in Lagoon. I don???t know if would have been better, or if it would have been worse, but I know only that it would have been different.

Overall, Lagoon is an interesting take on the alien invasion narrative, albeit one that???s very culturally specific to Lagosians and Nigerians, and very specifically shaped by Okorafor???s own experience and desires. The characters are interesting to read - the women, in particular, have a very special place in my heart - and though the plot feels small and a bit disjointed it certainly works well enough for its purpose This is not a story for everyone: this is a story told to fulfil a very specific desire on the part of the author, and on the part of a certain set of readers. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that, of course, but it does mean that some readers will find the novel opaque, certain aspects of it beyond their ability to relate. But getting everybody to relate was not the point of the novel anyway, and in that sense, it succeeds in what it set out to do.

I do not often read short story collections. Not to say I have anything against the format; as a matter of fact, a well-crafted short story is often rather like instant gratification to a reader: it does not take the same amount of time to read as a novel, but can be just as fulfilling if it's good. But I find that, as a rule, I only enjoy short stories if they are in collections written by one author, and preferably linked to one particular world or universe. Lots of writers do this, especially those who have long-running series, as a means of filling in certain gaps in the series, or for telling stories they might like to tell, but which don't have the necessary substance for a novel.

And then there are the collections that are meant to be tributes to a single author. This is usually done for authors who have had immense impact on the genre in which they wrote. After the King, for instance, is a collection of short stories containing works by some of the most notable fantasy writers still living, and is a tribute to none other than J.R.R. Tolkien himself (the “King” in the title of the collection). That one proved to be quite an enjoyable read - one story in particular, Peter S. Beagle's “The Naga,” is one of the stories I ask my students to read for class.

But it is very rare that short story tributes are made up for a fictional character - mostly because said character would have to be more influential than the writer who created him or her. However, that is most assuredly the case with Sherlock Holmes. Though a fictional character, there is no doubting that Holmes has a stronger grip on the imaginations of all those who encounter him, in his various incarnations, than his own creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Indeed, so powerful is the presence of Sherlock Holmes in the minds of people that it's hard to think of him as fictional at all. Many people - mostly diehard Sherlockians, but oftentimes more run-of-the-mill folk as well - speak of Holmes as if he were a real person. They speak of Dr. Watson as real, of Moriarty as real, of Irene Adler as real. It is as if, through some mysterious, magical means, Sherlock Holmes and the characters around him have seemingly emerged and detached themselves from the fabric of Doyle's stories, and embedded themselves in that strange gray space between true history and speculation.

So powerful is Holmes's hold on the imagination of all those who encounter him, that it seems only fitting that a tribute collection of short stories should be made up for him - not, it should be noted, for his creator. And that is what A Study in Sherlock is, essentially: a tribute collection of short stories honoring the most quintessential, most influential detective in fiction (and maybe history).

The authors listed are notable, though I am only familiar with very few of them. I know who the editors are: Laurie R. King is the author of the Mary Russell series, and Leslie S. Klinger is one of the most famous Holmes scholars, not least because he put together the Sherlock Holmes Reference Library, which is an annotated version of the entire Holmes canon. I know Neil Gaiman, of course, being a fan of his work. I am also familiar with Lee Child, though I have not read his work; the Jack Reacher novels are really more my mother's thing than mine. The other authors are utter unknowns to me.

None of this matters, of course. I am always happy to acquaint myself with new authors, and sometimes a short story is a handy way of doing so, especially in collections such A Study in Sherlock. However, one of the most common problems I have with these short story collections popped up almost immediately: a noticeable lack of consistency.

Some of the stories were utterly intriguing. For instance, the first one in the collection, Alan Bradley's “You'd Better Go in Disguise,” was interesting because it told a Holmes story from an utterly different perspective: that of the criminal. The reader does not know initially that the narrator of the tale is a criminal, but this is quickly revealed in the climax and denouement. This was an utterly diverting new way of looking at the classic Holmes story.

Another excellent example of the above is “The Man With the Twisted Lips” by S.J. Rozan, which is a direct reference to the Holmes story of the same title - no surprise there, really, since this story is actually a behind-the-scenes look at what was going on in "The Man With the Twisted Lip." In Rozan's story, it turns out that Holmes and Watson's involvement was carefully planned by the Chinese immigrants who maintained opium dens in the area, setting the events up as a means of ensuring the lascar of the original story is chased out of their territory for good, but without calling undue attention to themselves. The way this story parallels Doyle's story is such that it is almost impossible to read the original without thinking of Rozan's, and how it fits so neatly into its fabric.

Equally good is Thomas Perry's “The Startling Events in the Electrified City.” Narrated (as expected) by Dr. Watson, it is a story that takes place after the events at Reichenbach Falls, and follows Holmes and Watson to the United States, where they receive a most unusual request: they are asked to help in the assassination of President McKinley - by McKinley himself. While there is nothing new with Holmes being involved in the affairs of famous historical figures (particularly those who were alive when he was), this one takes a whole new spin on things by introducing an element of conspiracy into the supposedly “known” facts of a historical event. All of a sudden it is tempting to look at certain historical askance and wonder if it were not possible that Holmes might have had a hand in them somehow.

Equally interesting is “The Adventure of the Concert Pianist” by Margaret Maron. Though it is set during Holmes's time, this is one of those stories that does not directly involve Holmes at all - in fact, the case is solved by Dr. Watson (thus proving that he is not the bumbling, well-meaning idiot he is portrayed as sometimes), and the narrator is none other than Mrs. Hudson herself. Though the case is one of those unremarkable things that Holmes would likely have been able to solve blindfolded and with one hand tied behind his back, it was still a wonderful opportunity for Dr. Watson to take center-stage, and to hear (for the first time, I think) Mrs. Hudson speak on her famous lodger (and perhaps her desire for him as well?).

A great many more of these stories, however, do not deal with Sherlock himself - in fact the connection is rather tenuous, like in “The Adventure of the Purloined Paget” by Phillip Margolin and Jerry Margolin, which involves a group of very wealthy Sherlockian collectors and a newly-discovered story, supposedly written by Doyle for Queen Victoria, and illustrated by Paget, hence the title of the story. Others are rewrites of Doyle originals, such as “The Eyak Interpreter” Dana Stebenow, a rewrite of Doyle's "The Adventure of the Greek Interpreter," but updated for an audience more familiar with the blog format. It even includes comments on blog entries, some of which have been deleted by their authors. “The Case that Holmes Lost” is a meta look into a Holmes story that will never see the light of day, with the focus on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself.

And then there are the stories that are inspired by Holmes, instead of being about him or being a rewrite of his original advenures. “The Last of Sheila Locke-Holmes” by Laura Lippman and “A Spot of Detection” by Jacqueline Winspear are precisely that, with Lippman writing a coming-of-age story for a young girl who wants to be just like Holmes (and a great many other detectives, besides), while Winspear writes about a young boy who turns out to be a young Raymond Chandler, and how Holmes turned him into the writer he would eventually become.

Some stories, though, are just totally out there. I was expecting this with Neil Gaiman, and his story “The Case of Death and Honey” is precisely that: it takes off from an interesting plot point in "The Aventure of the Creeping Man," with Holmes advising Watson to change some information in the actual facts of the case, thus allowing Holmes to freely pursue the real "rejuvenation extract" mentioned in the story - not an extract from langurs, as the story claims, but the elixir of life itself. Another story in this vein is “As To ‘An Exact Knowledge of London'” by Tony Broadbent, which plays on the idea that Holmes and Watson are reborn, over and over again, even as their greatest nemeses, Professor Moriarty and Sebastian Moran. This one is interesting if only because it contains an up-to-date list of contemporary Holmes media culture, plus an image of Watson and Holmes working on computers and surrounded by all the technological trappings of the 21st century.

Such a diverse selection of writers, all writing stories in their own style and each with a different take on Holmes and the culture Holmes has created, is great for gaining insight into the ways that Doyle's creation has embedded himself into the collective consciousness of all those who have encountered him. However, I find that not all of these stories are quite so fun. Some, like Broadbent's story, really aren't about mystery at all, and are only interesting for their connection (and manipulation) of Doyle's characters. Neither did I enjoy Lippman's tale all that much, since I was rather hoping for a child-sleuth story with coming-of-age undertones, not a coming-of-age story with child-sleuth undertones.

I suppose my dislike of some stories is due to the fact that I was looking for a particular type, or types, of stories, and the ones I didn't quite enjoy simply did not fall into those types. Perhaps if I were to read the stories I did not enjoy some other time, when I'm in the mood for them, I might enjoy them then. But, regardless of how I might feel about the individual stories at a later date, A Study in Sherlock comes off as rather inconsistent to me - and probably always will. I would have appreciated a certain kind of cohesion to the types of stories that were included, and not just a grab-bag of Holmes-related, Holmes-inspired material. I did not particularly enjoy the uneven nature of the collection, jumping from one type of story to the other.

Overall, A Study in Sherlock is an interesting collection: a testament to the power Sherlock Holmes wields in the collective imagination. But the grab-bag nature of the collection, and general uneven feel as one moves from one story to the next, might prove to be a bit irritating to the reader who sits down to read the collection in its entirety, and not just one or two stories because it is by an author the reader recognizes. Individually, the stories are quite good, but together, they do not make for a very cohesive collection.

Several years ago, I stood in front of the Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, and stared. The Duomo, as it???s called in the city, is a magnificent structure, crowned by a brick dome created by the architect Brunelleschi, its interior decorated with paintings and sculptures by some of the most famous Renaissance artists in history???most of whom were either born in Florence or came to the city in the hopes of advancing their careers. The marble facade, however, is an entirely different story: a mostly nineteenth-century confection combining green, red, and white marble that makes it look, more than anything, like it was made entirely of candy. Staring at it I couldn???t help but laugh at first, because it???s rather hard to take seriously any building with a facade coloured like a candy cane. This made me wonder what it must have looked like before the facade was put in place.

Fortunately, Florence has many examples of what the Duomo???s facade would have looked like before the candy cane treatment, and most of them are within relatively easy reach if one travels on foot from the Duomo. For example, there is the Basilica di San Lorenzo, once Florence???s cathedral before the Duomo was built. Its facade is plain brick, and though there were plans to give it a new facade based on designs by Michelangelo, those plans never really pushed through, and so the facade remains the same. However, if one looks past the unprepossessing exterior and steps inside, one finds an exquisitely elegant interior. Some of the decorations are obviously from later eras, but strip away the Rococo gilding and Baroque paint, and one sees the church???s beautiful Renaissance bones.

Aside from its artistic history, San Lorenzo is important for one other reason: it was the parish church of the Medici family, and sat at the heart of that part of the city they considered to be their home turf. And if there is one name that is synonymous with all the glories of not just Florence, but the Renaissance as a whole, then that name is most definitely ???Medici???.

Much ink has been spilled about the Medicis, and much more will be spilled in the future, as historians continue to research the members of that family and rehash and reframe what???s already known about them. And why not? The Medicis are, in many ways, an excellent example of the classic ???rags to riches??? story, beginning as humble merchants before rising to the very pinnacle of European power, various members eventually wearing ducal, royal, or papal crowns. They were also famous as patrons of the best artistic and intellectual talent Italy had to offer, giving Florence a reputation for intellectualism and good taste.

But for all that the family itself is famous, and continues to be of interest to both historians and fictionists alike, only one member really stands out: the one everybody thinks of when one hears the name ???Medici???. That person is Lorenzo de Medici, otherwise known as Lorenzo the Magnificent. And Miles J. Unger???s book, titled Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de Medici is an excellent biography of a singularly brilliant man.

Now, one might expect Unger to begin at the beginning: with Lorenzo???s birth. But that would be predictable, would it not? So instead, he starts with this picturesque image of the Tuscan countryside, on a fine summer day:

Late in the morning of August 27, 1466, a small group of horsemen left the Medici villa at Careggi and turned onto the road to Florence. It was a journey of three miles from the villa to the city walls along a meandering path that descended through the hills that rise above Florence to the north. Dark cypresses and hedges of fragrant laurel lined the road, providing welcome shade in the summer heat. Through the trees the riders could catch from time to time glimpses of the Arno River flashing silver in the sun.

A beautiful image, and one that has been so often portrayed in film and television that it has lured about as many travellers to Italy as the museums and the ruins. But the beauty masks a much harsher reality, for August 27, 1466, is the day that Lorenzo de??? Medici, who is leading the horsemen mentioned above, narrowly avoids being murdered by the enemies of his family, who expected to ambush him and his father, Piero, as they returned to Florence to quell an uprising. Historical records are vague, but from what Unger has managed to piece together, Lorenzo escapes, not through force of arms, but through his own intelligence and diplomatic skill. Unger opens the book with this particular event because it foreshadows who Lorenzo would become in later years:

The confrontation at Sant???Antonio may provide the first instance when Lorenzo was able to deflect knives using only his native wit, but it will not be the last. Time and again he showed a remarkable ability to talk his way out of tight situations. With his back to the wall, and his life hanging in the balance, Lorenzo was at his most convincing.

This, then, is a clear indicator of the direction Unger takes in his biography: to focus on Lorenzo???s role as one of the greatest statesmen and diplomats of his time, as well as the troubles he had in those roles, both within Florence and without. He also deals with Lorenzo???s personal life, particularly where it contrasted with his public life, as this quote shows:

[Lorenzo???s] sense of duty was constantly at war with his natural zest for life, his desire to live up to the expectations of those whose approbation he craved in conflict with his taste for sensual pleasures. In the end he pursued all things to the point of near exhaustion. ??? More psychologically perceptive than the political theorists who remained perplexed by Lorenzo???s irresponsible side is the playwright William Shakespeare, whose portrait of the young Prince Hal wasting his days in the tavern with Falstaff and Bardolph uncannily resembles Lorenzo and his friends at the baths of Macerato or Bagno a Morba.

Unger???s reference to Shakespeare???s work shows the kind of writing one might expect from the rest of the book. He has a remarkably lively tone, dry in some parts but otherwise very readable. There are a lot???and I do mean a lot???of footnotes; it???s hard to say concretely (in terms of page numbers) just how much, as I read this in ebook format, but Unger appears to use footnotes as a way of talking about something that has very little do with the book???s main content, but which the reader might find interesting anyway. In the footnotes he talks about nearly everything, from the realities of Florentine political power:

??? At all times Florence was really an oligarchy in which power was held in few hands. Innovations instituted by the Medici systematised and rendered more efficient a form of government already in place. They also gave greater authority to a single man at the top. One aspect that drew the greatest contemporary comment and stirred up the most resentment was that the Medici reggimento had a less aristocratic, more populist flavour, even if the number of families wielding power remained the same. The greatest opposition to Medici rule continued to come from the old optimate families that were no longer close to the centre of power.

???to speculation on the manoeuvring of ordinary citizens:

One wonders if de??? Rossi [a Florentine businessman] slipped some coins into Bibbiena???s [one of Lorenzo???s secretaries] hands to arrange the meeting [with Lorenzo]; the narrator never tells us but that was often the way things worked in Florence.

???to details regarding where certain places might be found???or not found???in Florence today:

From the outside, the spot [where Lorenzo???s sculpture garden was located] looks remarkably similar today???a wall backed by cypress trees. The garden itself is now a commercial plant store.

Some readers might find these constant digressions irritating, but I, personally, find them entertaining. I???m one of those people who always enjoys that little bit of extra information that might otherwise have been edited out of a manuscript, so these footnotes were a pleasant inclusion. Unger???s narration also has something of a meandering quality to it: he tries to paint the picture???whether geographical, political, social, cultural, and/or psychological???for the reader, that they might better understand where Lorenzo stood at any given point in time, and to help said reader understand the whys and wherefores of the decisions that Lorenzo made. Again, these meanderings might irritate other readers, but he doesn???t let it get very out of hand and manages to bring the narration back to where it???s supposed to be: to Lorenzo, and to his life.

I???m also happy with Unger???s decision to focus on other aspects of Lorenzo???s life besides his status as an art patron. He does leave room for that, of course???an entire chapter, in fact???but the truth of the matter is that much of reputation with his contemporaries was just partially based on his art collection and artistic patronage. He was, above all, a savvy politician and diplomat, a shrewd player of the deadly politics that dominated Italy during his lifetime???a game he played without any military might of his own (Florence had no standing army of its own, and had to hire mercenaries if it needed one). He wasn???t without his flaws, of course, and he did make mistakes, but Lorenzo rose above those mistakes and those flaws, and in the end, stood triumphant. It wasn???t just because of his art collection or his wealth (which was dwindling anyway because he wasn???t much of a businessman) that Lorenzo came to be dubbed il Magnifico:

??? In time he was simply called il Magnifico, the term of respect used to denote any person of wealth and rank, now clinging to him almost as a title and testifying to his unique claim on the loyalty of his people. His authority had been built over years of careful manoeuvring, but in the end it rested on his countrymen???s recognition that, in the phrase of one of his critics, Lorenzo was the greatest Florentine in history.

Overall, Magnifico: The Brilliant Life and Violent Times of Lorenzo de Medici delivers on what its title promises: a biography that depicts Lorenzo de Medici as the brilliant man that he was, and the dangerous times he lived in that made his brilliance even more necessary to the survival of himself, his family, and his city. Though he doesn???t delve too deeply into Lorenzo???s role as an art patron, Unger does explain how that aspect of Lorenzo???s life played into the more important role of politician and diplomat, and how Lorenzo could???and often did???used his reputation for excellent artistic taste to gain important political leverage both within and without Florence. Though Unger has a tendency to ramble, and though there might be more footnotes than are strictly necessary, the book is still a very fun and interesting read, showing the reader why Lorenzo deserves the title il Magnifico, and why remains, even today, one of the greatest figures in Western history.

... The Lucifer Chord is a novel that seems interesting, but turns out to be quite the letdown. Though the concept upon which the novel is founded will likely draw readers in, the rest of it just doesn???t function as it ought. The protagonist reads like a cardboard cutout of a person; the romantic subplot reads like something written by that ???white cishet man in your creative writing class??? type of person one sees so many memes made about; and while there???s a plot arc, the rest of the story itself just goes all over the place and makes one wonder if an editor looked this manuscript over before sending it to print. I also wonder if there is any other author who???s written a story around a similar concept as this one, and I find myself wishing that is the case, as well as hoping they???ve done much better than this ??? though I suppose, given how this novel has turned out, doing better won???t be very difficult, given how low this novel set the bar. 

Full review here:  wp.me/p21txV-L2

I was first introduced to the Trese series by a colleague of mine at the university I'm teaching at, who chose to discuss the comics as part of her class. She encouraged me to read them, and I was immediately hooked. I love mythology and folktales and horror, especially local ones. And I also love Mike Mignola's Hellboy, so falling in love with Trese really wasn't so hard.

But to call Trese a “Filipino Hellboy” would be doing a great disservice to its creator and writer, Budjette Tan, and its artist, KaJo Baldisimo. For one, the stories told and the way those stories are told are simply not in Mignola's style, or anyone else's for that matter. As I mentioned in another review, Tan's storytelling is very Filipino. There is a cadence, a rhythm, in the way he tells the stories that is rather unique to the way people tell stories in the Philippines, particularly the scary ones. And Baldisimo's art, while somewhat similar to Mignola's in that he also relies on chiaroscuro to create a specific look for Trese, his art is more fluid, less blocky, with fine, delicate lines adding and highlighting movement. To reiterate something I mentioned in the other review, Baldisimo's art looks like the city of Manila under the light of streetlamps, where those streetlamps exist. It's a very unique look, and Baldisimo captures it perfectly.

Three collections come before Last Seen After Midnight: Murder at Balete Drive, which introduced the world to Alexandra Trese, the Kambal, and the Manila they inhabit; Unreported Murders, which expanded on what was presented in Murders at Balete Drive and created set-up for what promised to be a collection full of revelations regarding the Kambal and Alexandra herself; and then Mass Murders, which did indeed prove to be very revelatory, explaining the Kambal's origins, as well as how Alexandra became Manila's newest protector.

With such excellent stories already told, it went without saying that readers wanted to know what happened next. Mass Murders raised many questions: where is Alexandra's grandfather? What happened to her brothers? Will any of them be showing up anytime soon? Is the Talagbusao gone for good or will he be making a comeback? Those were just some of the questions raised after Mass Murders, and many - or rather, I - was hoping I would get some answers.

Last Seen After Midnight turned out to be something else entirely, more like Murder at Balete Drive: a collection of cases with no connection to each other or to any greater story arc - or at least, a previously written story arc. While this is rather disappointing, the stories themselves are well-told, and fascinating all on their own.

Part of the reason why these stories are so interesting is that Tan draws upon Filipino pop culture and history - both past and recent - to form a basis for his stories, blending them with the eerie, shadowy creatures from myth and folklore for a world that is easy to get lost in. For instance, in the first story, “Cadena de Amor,” Tan references incidents as reported in the news, as well as the ancient, older folklore about engkantos, sets it in a familiar place (in this case, Luneta Park and the Bay area), and throws in a popular song by the Eraserheads as the cherry on top of all that goodness. This is classic Trese at its finest, and it's a very strong way to open the collection.

The next story, “A Private Collection,” did not prove as strong as the first one, mostly because it's central antagonist is not exactly a figure that's common in Filipino pop culture or folklore. The concept of a hunter who hunts for the next thrill, and is willing to do anything and everything to get that thrill, isn't one that's firmly embedded yet in the folkloric and pop culture memory of Filipinos. Sure, it's been featured often enough in TV and movies for it to be recognizable (the movie Predators will certainly ring more than a few bells), but it's not as interesting as the other Trese stories, which draw primarily from Philippine events, history, and folklore, and resorting only minimally to Western concepts or folklore. Had there been a similar kind of figure in the news, then perhaps it would have been more interesting, more relevant, but so far there has been no such thing reported. Despite that, however, the hunter in "A Private Collection" is interesting because he is not the typical sort of opponent Alexandra encounters. Alexandra fights ghouls, ghosts, demons, engkanto and aswang, but rarely does she fight humans - and if she does, usually those humans are controlled by something supernatural, as was the case in the Talagbusao storyline in Mass Murders. For Alexandra to fight a fully-human, non-supernaturally-aided opponent is extremely intriguing, and is hopefully something Tan and Baldisimo will keep in mind, for a better story later on.

Fortunately, the third story, “Wanted: Bedspacer,” returns to more familiar ground: the concept of the bangungot, known to science as Sudden Unexpected Death Syndrome, or SUNDS for short. Just like in “Cadena de Amor” and other Trese stories, the locations are familiar (especially to college students, who form a large bulk of the readership of Trese), and almost everybody knows what bangungot is. This is all well and good, and very familiar, but the way Tan has conceptualized the bangungot is a clear echo of Asian horror movies - something which might raise a few eyebrows. The idea that a bangungot is a spirit that clings to the brokenhearted (not necessarily brokenhearted from love), and essentially kills them by clinging to them and squeezing their heart until it stops beating, seems a bit like the Thai movie Shutter. Traditionally it is the batibat that causes bangungot by sitting on its victims, and Alexandra does mention this in the story, but then draws a distinction between the batibat and the bangungot.

Despite this similarity, however, “Wanted: Bedspacer” might be viewed as a more direct continuation of the events in Mass Murders than the other three stories in the collection. When curing the inadvertent victims of the bangungot, Alexandra chants a song she learned "while up in the balete tree" - a direct reference to the events of her rite-of-passage in Mass Murders. Also, the final discussion she has with the doctor who was treating the patients, a discussion about letting go and moving on, seems to be a reference back to the events in Mass Murders where Alexandra's brothers, save one, all disappeared into the underworld to continue the fight there, while her own father died protecting the balete tree she was in. If only for this link, any similarities to Thai horror movies might be forgiven.

But the intertextuality of Trese, already made clear in each and every story up until this point, reaches a peak with the last story in Last Seen After Midnight, titled “The Fight of the Year.” This story is unique in that it is set outside of Manila, in General Santos City - and the location should already give the reader a very good idea as to who the main character (aside from Alexandra, of course) is in this story. While the idea of selling your soul to the devil is nothing new, and has already been used in previous Trese stories, what sets "The Fight of the Year" apart from all the rest is its reference to Manny Pacquiao, playing on the commonly-held belief that, like heroes in epics and folktales, whenever he fights, he is doing something good for the nation - the reason why he is called the "Kamao ng Bayan," the "Fist of the Nation." With every fight he wins, Pacquiao saves his country - and his equivalent in "The Fight of the Year" does just that on a more literal level.

The level of intertextuality in “The Fight of the Year” - and indeed, in the Trese series as a whole - is the main reason why this series is so entertaining. Teasing out the references, reading the implied threads of meaning, is all part of the fun - and all part of why this series is as good as it is. To understand Trese, one has to understand, at least in part, the Philippines as it is today, but one also has to understand the Philippines as it was in the past. The reader can only see and appreciate the hidden threads of thought and reference in Tan's stories and Baldisimo's delicate black and white images if they are familiar with the Philippines - Manila, more specifically - as it was then, and now. And if the reader does not, then they are missing something great and wonderful indeed.

I try not to be such a judgmental person when it comes to the things I read, and most of the time I'm not. But this book really tested my ability to “forgive and forget” because of one line in the first chapter, about “Sumerian” gods that weren't really Sumerian. That got my hackles up because, come on, the gods named were patently NOT Sumerian, and it was clear someone didn't do a good-enough fact-check, or was too lazy to do one - which annoyed me even more because as a Literature major, mythology is kind of my jam (it is more than just “kind of” my jam, but that's another story for another time), and it grates on me when a nonfic book about SCIENCE, of all things, which is BUILT on rigorous fact-checking, doesn't get this one thing right.

But aside from that, and aside from the fact that the first chapter really isn't as engaging as everything else (this has nothing to do with that mythological faux pas), this book is actually fun to read. Offit has an engaging narrative style, and his ability to weave together the strands of history, science, and current events is pretty fun to read. This book is also an important reminder to all of us that we should always, ALWAYS be skeptical of everything - yes, even science: an important lesson in this day and age, where the word “science” is increasingly more like a branding strategy than treated as the rigorous discipline it actually is.

I grew up with a mother who loved to read, and shared that love with her daughters. She wasn't a very big believer in TV as entertainment for her children, which meant my sister and I only had a handful of hours to watch TV when we were kids - usually Sesame Street and Batibot, a show similar to Sesame Street except in Filipino. On top of that, my mother had a shelf containing books she'd chosen for us, and was happy to let us go read whatever we wanted, anytime we wanted.

At the time, we were still living in the big house in North Greenhills with my grandparents, who had what I now know might be called a “private library:” a room set aside exclusively for the storage and reading of books. As a child I remember wandering into the room from time to time to stare at the shelves and inhale the scent of paper and dust, taking down a book every so often to see what was inside. I was, however, far too young to really understand what I was reading - as it turned out, most of it had to do with military history, biographies, and autobiographies: my grandfather's personal collection. Biographies and autobiographies were his preferred genre, and as for the military history, well, he was a retired brigadier general, so it stood to reason he'd have a lot of books related to his career.

Eventually, as I grew older and went to school, I realized that libraries were, hands-down, my favorite place at any educational facility I was at. At the preparatory school I attended prior to entering grade school, I experienced great frustration at not being allowed to read the research books that the school kept in the highest shelves - enough that I have a vague memory of my mother speaking to one of the administrators, reassuring her that I wouldn't chew on the covers or tear the pages. I was not an uncivilized savage, after all, and knew how to treat books with respect. I recall my mother's pride - clear in her tone and in the set of her shoulders - at the fact that she had raised her daughter properly in that regard.

When I entered grade school, the library made a great hiding place for dodging classes I didn't want to attend. Not only did my grades stay high (I regularly placed in first, second, or third on the honors' roll) because of all the reading I was doing, but I was able to dodge the bullies who made attending actual classes absolutely miserable for me. When I transferred to another school in fourth grade, I stopped dodging classes, but the library stil provided a refuge from bullies. The library was, for me, an escape from what troubled me, providing me with a multitude of avenues - via books, of course - that would help me forget everything that troubled me for an hour or so.

Libraries, therefore, have been crucial in my development into the person I am now. As a teacher, reader, and writer in my own way, I can say with great confidence that I wouldn't have become who I am now if it weren't for the libraries I'd entered, used, and continue to use throughout my life. It's because of this love of libraries that I picked up The Library Book, a collection of essays about libraries and how they have shaped and continue to shape the lives of the people who enter and use them.

Actually, to say that the contents of the book are all essays would be inaccurate: China Mieville's contribution is actually an excerpt from his book Un Lun Dun, while Kate Mosse's contribution is a short horror story. JUlian Barnes' piece might look like an essay, but it's actually more like a chunk of a longer fictional work. The rest are an interesting combination of memoir, humor, and prediction, but all of them are connected to libraries: what they were, what they are, and where they might be going. And, since it's such a grab-bag of genres and tones, the impact of the essays in question tends to vary.

The essays that I found the most touching were, in my opinion, the ones written by those who came from immigrant backgrounds, or for whom the library shaped them into who they are today - particularly if they are writers. Hardeep Singh Kholi's essay about how the library opened him up to the world in more ways than one was especially lovely to read, because it is impossible to be prejudiced when one is surrounded by the voices of humanity in a library (if it is, of course, a good library). Stephen Fry's essay, which I think is one of the best in the entire collection, is about how access to a library helped him to articulate his sexuality, and how that articulation led him to a wider world of reading.

There are also the really humorous ones. James Brown's essay, titled “This Place Will Lend You Books for Free,” almost feels like it was written by a hopelessly addicted soul who has found the best, fastest, and least dangerous way to acquire one's drug of choice. This is a sentiment that, I think, is very much shared by voracious readers everywhere, who are constantly confronted with the issue of not having enough space or money for all the books they want to read. The library, James Brown declares at the end, is “cheaper than Amazon,” and in the twenty-first century world of easy and relatively cheap online acquisition, this is really saying something - especially since borrowing books is, for the most part, free.

Lucy Mangan's essay is another gem of this collection. Titled “The Rules,” it's about what kind of rules she would enforce if she were to have her own library. There's a bit of polemic at the start and in some of the rules, but the way they are articulated won't get in the way of the reader having a good giggle at what she's trying to write. It allows the reader to start up their own little fantasy about what they would do if they were in charge of their own libraries, what rules, and how many, they'd have. Those rules, after all, say a lot about what reading habits are most valued by the rule-maker, and are usually as unique as the rule-maker herself or himself.

Another really amusing essay is Bella Bathurst's “The Secret Life of Libraries,” which is both informative and a little gossipy in a most entertaining way. It starts out with a discussion about what kinds of books get stolen from which libraries, and what those thefts say about the communities those libraries serve, but it also talks about the people in the libraries themselves, both the staff and the people they serve. There is talk about how the staff treat drunks or the homeless who walk in off the street looking for a warm place to stay; or how in one library a notable TV personality was found dead at his desk and how now the library regularly checks for and rouses sleeping people, just to make sure no one dies under their watch again. Libraries have their own characters of course, and that is what makes them unique and interesting places to be at - one never knows who or what is going to walk through those doors, or what they're going to do, or what they're going to read, or ask.

The rest are, as I said earlier, a grab-bag of memoir and polemic. One of the more beautiful memoir-style essays is “Baffled at the Bookcase” by Alan Bennett, who takes the reader through all the most memorable libraries in his life, and how each one was uniquely positioned to influence that particular point in his life. Some are politically-slanted, such as Zadie Smith's “Library Life,” Nicky Wire's “If You Tolerate This...”, and Karin Slaughter's “Fight for Libraries as You Do for Freedom” (which I felt was the best of those kinds of essays). That particular slant in these essays (and which are implied in the rest) are mostly because of why this book was made in the first place: to keep libraries in the UK open against further closure thanks to shifts in government policy.

The only pieces I had an issue with in this entire book were the pieces that were actualy fiction: Julian Barnes' “The Defence of the Book,” China Mieville's “The Booksteps,” and Kate Mosse's “The Lending Library.” I picked this book up because I saw Mieville and Fry's names as contributors, and while I was entirely happy with Fry's essay, I was disappointed to see that Mieville's contribution actually came from a book of his that I'd already read, instead of saying something new or personal about what libraries meant to him as a writer and a reader. Mosse's story, on the other hand, was meant to be a horror story with a library at its heart, but the library didn't turn out to be that vital, and the story itself was, frankly speaking, a bore. As for Barnes' piece, it was an interesting attempt to project a future where libraries no longer exist, but it was too short, and frankly, had too many shades of Fahrenheit 451 for me to find it particularly interesting.

Overall, The Library Book is a touching, and oftentimes funny, look at why people love libraries, and why they should continue to stand despite, or because of, the rise of digital books - Seth Godin's essay “The Future of the Library” makes an interesting point regarding how we should define the words “library” and “librarian” in the twenty-first century. It is, however, a bit of a grab-bag of pieces, and the three fiction pieces I mentioned earlier will likely throw the reader for a somewhat unpleasant loop. Nevertheless, anyone who loves reading, and who loves libraries, wil find something to enjoy in this book, and will come away quite satisfied with it.

A so-so addition to the series, primarily functions as a vehicle for hot werewolf sex. Which is the reason I picked it up in the first place, but I wish it had a bit more meat on it. 

I had my first piece of sashimi between the ages of seven and nine. My father and paternal grandfather had taken my sister and myself out for dinner, and since my paternal grandfather was one of the co-owners of Saisaki, at the time one of the most popular Japanese restaurants in the Philippines, he and my father decided it was high time to introduce us to Japanese food. On that night, we had sashimi (but not sushi - my father isn???t a very big fan of it), shrimp tempura, and sukiyaki: not exactly a challenging set of dishes, to be sure, but good enough to get a pair of little girls out of their comfort zone so they can try something new.

Since I was just a child at the time, I don???t have enough memories to describe that meal in the way I could now. The strongest memory I carry from that time is the hard-earned lesson that one must not, under any circumstance, eat the entire lump of wasabi paste that comes with the sashimi. I still wince a little every time I remember the pain that came with that particular experience, to say nothing of how my sinuses seemed to drip nonstop for what felt like hours afterwards.

Despite painful recollections of eating nearly-pure wasabi, that initial introduction was successful, because I???ve enjoyed Japanese food ever since. From high-end delights to fast-food desperations (and occasionally regrets), I???ve tried to eat as much of Japanese cuisine as I possibly can - or at least, what???s available of it in the Philippines, which can be remarkably good, but isn???t quite the same as what can be had in its country of origin.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that when I saw a copy of Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japan???s Food Culture by Matt Goulding, my curiosity was immediately piqued. I enjoy reading about food, and travel, and since this book combined those two things in one volume while focusing on a country I???ve always wanted to visit but haven???t had the chance to, I thought it would be an enjoyable read.

Rice, Noodle, Fish is divided into seven chapters and a foreword, with each chapter titled after a particular area of Japan that Goulding visited over the course of writing the book, and over the course of his own, personal journeys through the country. Some of those areas might be familiar to the reader because of their popularity as tourist destinations (such as Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto), or because they weigh heavily in historical memory (such as Hiroshima). But Goulding tackles some unfamiliar places as well, places that might not ring any bells in the minds of some readers: Hokkaido, Fukuoka, Noto. Starting with the most popular destination (Tokyo) and working his way to the most obscure (Noto), Goulding eats his way across Japan, and through its food, and the people who make that food, tries to understand a culture that, in many ways, is still closed to outsiders.

The book opens with an exchange of letters between Goulding and Anthony Bourdain, in which the two of them discuss the feasibility of Roads & Kingdoms (a media outlet Goulding cofounded with Nathan Thornburgh) creating a book about food and travel in Japan. In those letters, both Goulding and Bourdain talk about the fascinating yet impenetrable nature of Japanese culture, attempting to answer the main question Goulding has about the whole endeavour: how does a gaijin, a foreigner, even begin to talk about a culture where he or she will forever be on the outside? Bourdain understands the challenge, but also the appeal, as shown in this quote from his response to one of Goulding???s letters:

In Japan you are confronted constantly, almost violently, with how much you don???t know. I liked that feeling. I liked that steep, virtually impossible learning curve. I liked, it turned out, that feeling of being a stranger in a strange yet wonderful land, not understanding the language, lost. Every little thing was a discovery.

In his response, Goulding acknowledges that he is entirely aware of his outsider status, and instead of attempting to rectify it, he will accept it wholeheartedly, and let the insiders do the talking:

There is no escaping my place as the most outside of outsiders here, so I might as well embrace it. There will be plenty of expertise proffered along the way, just not from me???from the chefs and artisans and families who have this cuisine in their DNA, and who have opened up many doors as I???ve begun to eat my way through this country.

Then Goulding asks what might probably be the second most important question of all: who is this book for? Bourdain???s response is straightforward:

And as I sit here and reflect on ???who this book is for and what its appeal might be??? I no longer care. The more layers you can peel back, the better. The deeper you dive into all those things that make Japan so fascinating and so pleasurable to us, the better for humanity.

In many ways, Bourdain???s response has shaped Goulding???s approach to the subject at hand: Rice, Noodle, Fish is a wonderful, delicious dive into Japanese food, certainly, but Goulding tries to go deeper than that. He uses food as a doorway to other aspects of Japanese culture, aspects that might be lost on tourists who are just passing through, or foodies who only care about ticking off items on a list of Things to Eat While in Japan. For example, in the chapter about Osaka, Goulding attempts to use the relationship of food and drink to the Japanese people as a key to understanding who they are - in this instance, the difference between the Japanese at work, and the Japanese after work:

It takes place every evening between approximately five and six in cities across Japan, as salarymen and women emerge from gleaming steel structures that hold them captive during daylight hours and beeline it to the closest izakaya to eat and drink away the sting of the workday. The same people who stood so quietly, so tensely in line behind you, soon grow animated. Ties are loosened, hair let down, and kanpais ring out in spirited choruses as rank and order dissolve with each passing sip. From soba to miso to raw-tuna red, the most aggressive transformers wear the stages of devolution on their faces. You want to be near this; this is the Japan that runs antithetical to the one you have constructed in your head. This is the beauty of Japan: it builds a set of beliefs and perceptions during the day, only to destroy them once the sun goes down. Rigid? Reserved? Formal? Find a table, fill it with food and beer and new friends, and watch as all those stiff postures slacken.

Goulding is not, however, just about wide-eyed wonder: he does have a few slightly-less positive observations to make about Japanese culture. For example, in this excerpt he addresses the way the Japanese treat immigrants:

The Japanese are heroically hospitable when it comes to foreign visitors, but for immigrants the welcome mat can be harder to find. Even if you do make it here, adapt to the culture, commit a thousand kanji characters to memory, denounce your birth country, and feel deep down in your soul that you are as Japanese as pickled fish and electronic toilets, you will always be an outsider.

He also points out the deep-seated misogyny in Japan, one so deeply embedded in tradition that it persists into the twenty-first century - this, despite the fact that the role of women in the preservation of Japanese traditions, especially food traditions, is vital to its coherency and continuity:

You won???t find many women in the professional kitchens of Japan. The traditional structure for a family-owned restaurant involves the father running the kitchen, the mother controlling service, and son and daughter???if involved???divided along the same lines. Deep-rooted domestic roles and the odd backward belief arguably make the gender division here worse than you???d find in other parts of the world??? There are, of course, women working hard to dissolve these divisions in restaurant kitchens across the country, but it???s mostly men you find slicing fugu, boiling soba, battering vegetables, and working the grills, griddles, and stovetops of Japan.But behind closed doors, women are the ones who feed this country. More than domestic cooks, they are the guardians of secrets, keepers of the culinary flame, the ones who work silently to safeguard Japan???s remarkable food culture. At the heart of this preservation is the mother-daughter relationship.

While these insights are interesting, and may perhaps provide readers with some new perspective into Japanese culture as a whole, this is still a book about food, and Goulding turns his ample writing talents towards describing the food he encounters in all its glorious, delicious detail, using language that is guaranteed to give the reader intense cravings for whatever it is he???s describing. Take, for example, this excerpt, describing the tempura course of a kaiseki meal he has in Kyoto:

A round of tempura comes next: a harvest moon of creamy pumpkin, a gold nugget of blowfish capped with a translucent daikon sauce, and finally a soft, custardy chunk of salmon liver, intensely fatty with a bitter edge, a flavor that I???ve never tasted before.

Those familiar with kaiseki cuisine - Japan???s version version of French haute cuisine - might say that a kaiseki course warrants such language, but Goulding applies that kind of language even to something as prosaic as ramen:

[Akira Yoshino???s] is a Goldilocks bowl: medium body, golden in color, made from all parts of the pig cooked over twenty-four hours with nothing but water from the Chikobe River nearby. It asserts itself, coats your throat on the way down, but it doesn???t stick to your ribs the way the most intense bowls do.

While there are plenty such descriptions, Goulding does leave room for gentle irreverence, such as when he attempts to briefly describe, for those who have no patience for long-winded descriptions, what a shokunin is:

In the Western world, where miso-braised short ribs share menu space with white truffle pizza and sea bass ceviche, restaurants cast massive nets to try to catch as many fish as possible, but in Japan, the secret to success is choosing one thing and doing it really fucking well. Forever.

This touch of irreverent humour extends to other aspects of dining, besides the food:

A ramen shop in full feast mode sounds like a car vacuum suctioned against your front seat. It will take a few scaldings and a few stained shirts, but until you learn to properly slurp, expect to be lapped by grandpas whose bowls are dry before you???ve had the chance to slip the first noodles past your lips.

These are certainly not laugh-out-loud moments, but they are likely to elicit at least a chuckle, which is a lot more than some other food and travel writers can manage.

In addition to Goulding???s writing, there are plenty of lovely photographs - of the food, yes, of course, but also of the people who make the food. There are quite a few lovely portraits of the cooks and chefs whom Goulding speaks with throughout his journey. Some are clearly posed, but many of them are candid; I???m especially fond of a picture of Toyo-san, the one-man wizard behind a popular tachinomi eatery in Osaka. The photograph shows him grinning broadly, a cigarette dangling from one side of his mouth as he gives a thumbs-up to the camera, all while he sends an enormous jet of flame from a blowtorch onto some cubed meat resting on a grill in front of him. It is such a charismatic portrait that I???ve decided to look for this man and eat his food when I finally get the chance to go to Japan, if only because he seems like the kind of guy who makes the kind of food I like to eat.

It is this focus on the human aspect that I appreciate the most about this Rice, Noodle, Fish: the food is the way it is because of the people behind it, and the people behind the food are the way they are because of the culture that shaped them, and because of the way they view the future. From the father-and-son pair who are trying to move kaiseki cuisine forward into the twenty-first century, to the Guatemalan transplant making a name for himself as one of the best okonomiyaki chefs in the country, to the mother-and-daughter team working to keep alive age-old preservation techniques: Rice, Noodle, Fish reminds the reader that where there is good food there are, inevitably, good people who do the best they can, in the best way they know how.

Overall, Rice, Noodle, Fish: Deep Travels Through Japanese Food Culture is everything it promises on the cover: a journey through Japan???s psyche and history via its food and the people who dedicate themselves to making that food. Goulding???s writing is a delight to read: often funny, sometimes contemplative, but always entertaining. The pictures that accompany the writing serve to enhance the experience of the book, not only because it shows the reader the food Goulding describes, but also the people who make that food. This helps to keep the book true to Goulding and Bourdain???s idea of embracing the outsider status all foreigners bring with them when they come to Japan, and put the focus on the insiders - which is only as it should be. At the end of the book, it is almost guaranteed that the reader will dream of turning a corner in a sketchy part of Osaka or a country lane in Hokkaido, and finding, almost by serendipity, the delights that Goulding has described. I can think of no better encouragement to get onto the next flight to Japan than that.

Using [the Dungeons and Dragons alignment] chart, Ravi might be described as Lawful Good: he tends to see things in shades of black-and-white rather than grey, and always wants to do the right thing, both in accordance to morality and the law. Because of this, he is frequently at odds with the world around him: he wants to do the right thing in the right way, but the world prevents him from doing so, because reality is messy and sometimes, doing what seems to be ???the right thing??? doesn???t always translate to doing ???the lawful thing???. This constant moral struggle is what makes Ravi such an interesting character to read about: on one hand, it gives him an intriguing character arc, but on the other, it???s also fun to read about how Ravi reconciles his definitions of right and wrong and good and evil with what he actually does or says. ...By contrast, Ravi???s colleagues at Golden Sentinels fall under other categories on the alignment chart: some might be described as Chaotic Good (believe in doing the right thing but are unwilling to be restricted by laws or codes in order to do so); others as Chaotic Neutral (don???t particularly care about good or evil as long as they get to do what they want, even if it is against the law); and a few might be Lawful Evil (use the law as a tool to exploit others for their own ends). This tends to put Ravi at odds with them ??? not literally, of course, but in the sense that he sees them do what they do, and has to remind himself all the time that he does not want to become as amoral as they are...

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-xA

When I was younger, I was not overly fond of horror. I attributed this to watching Child's Play when I was probably far too young to be watching it, compounded by seeing Gremlins soon after. I have never been the same since, and if I am alone in a room with dolls (especially those giant “walking dolls” that were popular in the mid-‘80s - I had one of those and I was terrified of it after Child's Play), I get nervous. And do not get me started on Furbies: a somewhat-misguided aunt thought that I would appreciate one, and gave me one of the first models when I was in high school, giving another one to my then still-in-grade-school sister. I didn't so much as try to put the batteries in mine, though my sister did start hers up, and I nearly destroyed it throwing it down on the floor in a fit of fright when it suddenly started singing in the middle of the night and woke me up.

While I am still afraid of dolls and Furbies, I am now quite appreciative of the horror genre, and will happily watch or read anything in the genre, even if it does involve dolls and Furbies (though I have yet to see a horror movie or read a horror novel involving the latter - why hasn't anyone picked up on this yet?). Since then, I've developed my own criteria for horror. Gore does not scare me, so any book or movie that relies heavily on gore will not frighten me - I'm one of those people who can eat a steak dinner while watching The Walking Dead or Texas Chainsaw Massacre or any number of slasher films. In fact, I rather frown at books or movies that attempt to use gore to include a sense of fear - this is, I feel, hardly creative. I am aware that a lot of people find copious amounts of blood and guts all over the place to be quite terrifying, but as for myself, I find it a bit of a bore.

But what truly terrifies me, what gives me bad dreams and follows me around like a bad shadow, is a combination of supernatural and psychological horror: the type of fear created when the author or filmmaker reflects humanity's darkest aspects right back at the reader or viewer, the fear created by twisting reality around so that it doesn't fit quite right anymore. Psychological horror takes the fear humanity has of looking into its darkest aspects, while supernatural horror takes the basic human fear of the unknown and magnifies it through the lens of mythology and folklore.

Of all the writers who have mastered this heady combination, H. P. Lovecraft is considered to be one of the best - indeed, many horror writers and filmmakers say they owe much to Lovecraft and his writings. I believe they are right: I first started reading Lovecraft towards the latter of my undergraduate years at university, and have come to enjoy his special brand of horror, which plays around with both psychological and supernatural horror, though Lovecraft does not play with ghosts or spirits. Instead, Lovecraft has created his own unknowable horrors, such as the Elder Gods and other strange, disturbing creatures that populate what is now known as the Cthulhu Mythos. And since August Derleth and writers like him have adapted and expanded the Cthulhu Mythos, there has since been a tradition of other horror writers playing around with the mythos and putting their own spin on things. The novel That Which Should Not Be is part of this tradition.

Written by Brett J. Talley and nominated for the Bram Stoker Award's First Novel category in 2011, That Which Should Not Be is centered around Miskatonic University and tells the tale of Carter Weston, a student at the university who is sent on an errand by his professor, Dr. Thayerson, to retrieve a special book called the Incendium Maleficarum, ostensibly for safekeeping alongside the more notorious Necronomicon. Weston goes out on this errand, and along the way meets some people who have unusual stories to share, but all of whom point to the true danger that lies at the heart of Weston's seemingly innocuous errand.

I only discovered this novel about a week or so ago, and was quite excited to start reading it. Since I enjoyed Lovecraft's works, I was rather hoping this contemporary interpretation would prove enjoyable, as well. As it turns out, I'm quite wrong about that, and I am still rather sad that this had to be the case.

One of the things Lovecraft is fantastically good at is creating a sense of atmosphere. The Lovecraft novellas At the Mountains of Madness and The Shadow Over Innsmouth are the ones that stick out the most when I think about Lovecraft and his ability to create a vague sense of dread, one that lingers and follows the reader around long after he or she has finished reading the story. I had hoped That Which Should Not Be would be able to recreate the necessary sense of atmosphere, but it did not have that at all. It might be argued that there are stylistic differences between Lovecraft and Talley's writing styles, and therefore comparing one to the other is unfair. I agree with this entirely: Talley is not Lovecraft, and therefore while he can try to mimic Lovecraft as best as he can, there would hardly be any point to it because he is not Lovecraft. But I think Talley should still have been able to create that haunting sense of fear in his writing in whatever way he thought such might be accomplished, but this does not happen. There are a few brief moments when this seems to be the case, and during such moments I eagerly awaited the next development, but then something would happen in the story itself - some character's dialogue, maybe, or the description of an event - and I would lose the moment entirely.

Another thing that disappointed me about this novel was the plot - or at least, its organization. Many of Lovecraft's stories are capable of sucking me in, to the extent that I can read one of the novellas or around three of the short stories, look up at the clock, and wonder where the time has gone (while feeling a simultaneous shiver of fear at the lost time). While it is true that Lovecraft was not really known for creating engrossing characters, he was capable of creating some very engrossing plots. The blurb for That Which Should Not Be promised much, especially since it was being set in Miskatonic, and I do not recall Lovecraft setting a great many stories on its grounds - he mostly references it. And even when the story swiftly moved out of Miskatonic and to Anchorhead, I was quite all right with that - eager, even. But when I reached the three stories nested into the overarching plot of the novel, it felt as if the novel as a whole had lost steam, and I rather wished that they had not been in there at all. Do not get me wrong: I rather liked those stories, and had I read them separate from the novel I think I might have liked them. But I did not appreciate their inclusion, mostly because they felt a whole lot like filler to me: like Talley was trying to stretch a good short story out into novel length by including these three tales in the middle of it. If That Which Should Not Be had been presented as a series of interconnected short stories, I think I might have enjoyed it more, since the sense of fear in each story would not have been diluted.

Finally, I have some issues with the ending - more specifically, the role of what I suspect is the role of the Judeo-Christian version of God. At the novel's climax Weston stabs Yog-Sothoth in the back with a cross, which kills it (or at least banishes it), and one of the other characters states that the only way to put Cthulhu back into his slumber for good is to recite an incantation that concludes with the true name of God, which said character does at the cost of his own life. I feel that such things do not have a place in the Cthulhu Mythos. What makes the Mythos so interesting - and so terrifying - in the first place is that there is no possibility of redemption. There is nothing out there, no sympathetic entity whose power or name could conceivably halt the coming of the Elder Gods. One can only put them to sleep temporarily, but eventually, that evil will return, and will return in such a manner that there is no way it can be stopped. So this idea of the Judeo-Christian God being a potential source of power that can oppose the Elder Gods rubs me entirely the wrong way.

Overall, That Which Should Not Be feels like a loss. There was so much potential in this novel, and even when I read it under ideal conditions (at night, in bed, in a quiet room, occasionally with the rain pouring buckets outside), the sense of fear would come and go depending on what was happening in the novel. There were times when it was there, and I would sit in bed, frozen with terror, but then something in the novel would happen - some plot event, or a slip in the language - and the terror would disappear with a sudden pop, and I would be left to rebuild the feeling again. The plot and organization were problematic as well: this could have been a great collection of four linked short stories, but as a novel, it does not succeed quite so well. And then that ending - oh, that ending. While I can understand attempts to spin the mythos off in a new direction, that was entirely the wrong one, and is the main reason why this novel is such a let-down (and perhaps a clue that Talley is not as familiar with the themes of Lovecraft's works as he ought to be). This novel might work as an introduction to the works of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos, but I doubt it will do for hardcore Lovecraft fans - or even for those who know the Mythos well enough to know that that ending is entirely not in keeping with the way the Mythos works. I am all for altering and expanding upon what Lovecraft did, but just not in this way.

 Gosh but this was an intriguing journey. It kind of reminds me of the kinds of daydreams a person can come up with when they???re REALLY focused on an idea. I don???t know if this is something other people do, but there are people (myself included) who can build out entire scenarios in their heads and just play them out from all angles, from the perspective of all the characters, with all the possible outcomes that occurs to the daydreamer. This book feels like a very refined version of that. 
But with that being said: the dreamlike narrative is a result of the deliberately Borgesian thrust of the narrative. Because that???s what this is, at its core: a Borgesian take on a very specific historical event. There???s no certainties here, no hard, specific truths; it forces the reader to question the relationship between ???fact??? and ???fiction??? and address the fluidity and gray areas between the two. This story is a labyrinth, and the reader must navigate the labyrinth and meditate upon the story being told. 
Another way to look at this story is that it???s a reclamation, of sorts, of the historical narrative. In the dream that is this novel history is turned on its head, wrested away from the ???hard truths of reality??? as created and put forward by the colonizers, and instead put in the hands of the colonized. This feels extremely powerful and empowering in a way that can???t be replicated in straight historical fiction, and likely not even by alternate history narratives. 
Overall this was an utterly fascinating read. It might not be the easiest to get through, since not everyone is into Borgesian-style stories, but the payoff for those who DO enjoy that kind of style and for those who stick through it is DEFINITELY worth it. The experience will also be very interesting for anyone who???s from a country with a history of colonization, especially Spanish colonization, since the narrative brings up interesting questions about the interplay between fact and fiction, and how storytelling highlights thee fluidity between the two. 

Cliches become cliches because they're over-used, but that doesn't mean they don't hold a nugget of truth in them: in fact, the reason a turn of phrase becomes cliche in the first place is because it holds so much truth in it that it keeps being used again and again in a variety of situations. In that sense, cliches have a kind of power that makes them difficult to stop using.

The statement “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” is a hoary old warning, something everyone has heard in some way, shape, or form throughout life, and it's something one will continue to hear for the rest of one's life. It's meant to prevent one from meddling in another person's business, a reminder to leave a situation well enough alone unless one is invited to do so. Sometimes, poking one's nose into another's business, no matter how well-meaning one's intentions might be, can prove to be incredibly disastrous - especially if one doesn't know what one is doing. Actually, even when one thinks one knows what one is doing, it might be best not to interfere. The statement is a reminder that there's a time and place for everything, and knowing the difference of when to interfere, and when not to, can make a world of difference in a whole host of situations.

There are plenty of examples of this in fiction - really, all one has to do is pick a genre and an author and it won't be long until one comes across a situation that suits the spirit of the statement. It crops up a lot in nonfiction as well, but I'm biased to its interpretations in fiction because it often comes across as a little less moralistic that way.

At any rate, the latest work of fiction to play with the possibilities of that cliched but very true statement is Ravenor Rogue by Dan Abnett, the third and final book in his Ravenor trilogy. Set several months after the events of the second book, Ravenor Returned, it opens with Ravenor deciding to quit his hunt for Zygmunt Molotch, whom he thought dead at the beginning of the first book, Ravenor, but who was confirmed to be alive in the climax of Ravenor Returned. However, Ravenor is forced to return to Thracian Primaris to answer for his involvement in the destruction of Eustis Majoris, leaving the hunt for Molotch up to another Inquisitor and her retinue. Unfortunately, but typically, things don't turn out quite as they should, and Ravenor goes on the hunt again - this time as a rogue, since he is conducting it without the permission of the Inquisition. This decision leads him down a dark road that, though there is triumph at the end of it, is also poisoned by trust betrayed and secrets revealed too late.

I found it interesting that, in a way, this novel paralleled Hereticus, the last novel in the Eisenhorn trilogy. Just like his mentor Eisenhorn, Ravenor makes a decision that affects the lives of those around him, and which leads him down a very dark road. The only difference, however, is that due to the choice of narrative perspective Abnett uses for the Ravenor books, Ravenor's fate is not as clearly telegraphed as Eisenhorn's in the Eisenhorn trilogy. At the end of the second book Malleus, it's clear what sort of fate Eisenhorn is going to meet, what course of action he's going to take, and the events in Hereticus only serve to make clear to the reader just what happens to him, because the reader is already knows what Eisenhorn will do, but not how.

In contrast to that, it is only at the end of Ravenor Rogue that Ravenor's fate becomes clear - or rather, Ravenor claims to know what lies ahead for him, but it quickly becomes apparent to the reader that his journey hasn't quite ended yet. There's a very clear suggestion that whatever befalls Ravenor at the end, it is not what the reader thinks it will be, though how that might be the case isn't exactly detailed and is left as a cliffhanger of sorts. This comes as no surprise, since Abnett has started writing a third trilogy called the Bequin trilogy, and in the blurb for the first book, titled Pariah, it's made clear that Ravenor doesn't exactly meet the fate he suggests he'll meet at the end of Ravenor Rogue.

And speaking of narrative perspectives, I know that I complained in my review for Ravenor that I wasn't too happy with Abnett's decision to swing between third-person limited and first-person for the Ravenor books, but I revised that statement in my review for Ravenor Rogue, saying that once Abnett's reasons for his decision were made clear, both the second and first books made perfect sense. However, it is in Ravenor Rogue that Abnett's decision becomes, I think, legitimately questionable. I can understand why a third-person limited perspective would work great for the kind of story he tells for all three of the Ravenor books, but then why still use the first-person perspective at all when third-person limited would do just as well? The only thing that comes to mind that the first-person perspective would be useful for would be the psyker-versus-psyker battles Ravenor has to wage, but even those could have been told just fine from the third-person limited perspective. Even Ravenor's inner anguish over a whole host of things - from questioning his decisions to wondering at his own envy over Kara's relationship with Belknap - could have been worked out in third-person limited, without losing any of the power they have in Abnett's first-person narrative. I'm entirely aware that I might just be nitpicking, but it does make me wonder.

Something I don't think I'm being too nitpicky about is the way the female characters have been portrayed. I've liked Kara Swole since she was first introduced as one of Eisenhorn's retinue, and I continued to love her throughout the Ravenor series, despite - or perhaps because of - her decision to keep secret something she learned in Ravenor Returned. I did, however, question the point of her relationship with the medicae Belknap in my review for the second novel, and I hoped that it would prove to be something more than just something thrown in for kicks and giggles. The events in Ravenor Rogue prove my worries were justified. While I am entirely aware of how people can change once they get into a relationship, I'm not entirely sure of how Kara's relationship with Belknap has changed her from someone who is usually far more sarcastic and sharp and flippant into-- Well, someone less all of the above. I know that a great deal of it can be viewed as consequences of the events and decisions she made at the end of Ravenor Returned, but I'm not entirely sure if it's just that, either. I know that people in love get softer around the edges, but I don't think someone like Kara Swole, who's been characterized in a particular way, would get that soft. I also don't appreciate how Kara's relationship with Belknap is used as a point of angst for Ravenor. And speaking of angst and Ravenor, I don't appreciate how Ravenor is a point of angst for Patience Kys, either, all things considered. I know that there's plenty of angst to be played there, and I really enjoy that kind of thing, but I do expect that any unrequited romances and angst to be done right. Eisenhorn's angst over Alizebeth Bequin in the Eisenhorn trilogy was done right; Patience's angst over Ravenor, not so much. I suspect this is because Abnett is trying to write complex emotions from a woman's perspective, but that's hardly an excuse: if he couldn't write it well, why write it at all? Why not just write it from Ravenor's perspective (and Ravenor does have some unrequited romantic feelings for Patience) and at least get it relatively right? I think this lack of ability to write complex emotions from a female perspective is the reason I have so many issues with his portrayal of Kara in a romantic relationship; it certainly explains a lot about how odd the whole thing feels, at any rate, especially since it's Kara who narrates that particular relationship.And then there is Angharad Esw Sweydyr. This is where Abnett's characterization of women really falls apart, because it's so very obvious that Angharad is meant to be nothing more than a further point of angst. She is the niece of Arianrhod Esw Sweydyr, Ravenor's lover who got killed in events just before Ravenor himself got burned and confined to his force chair, and is characterized as being like Arianhrod brought back to life - except now, instead of being with Ravenor, she's chosen to be with Harlon Nayl, one of the warriors in Ravenor's retinue. Theirs is one of those passionate affairs that they try to keep secret so as not to hurt Ravenor's feelings, but of course Ravenor knows about the whole mess, and angsts about it from time to time. Most of the time for Angharad's sake I wish she had been introduced in some other book entirely, or had simply not been created at all, because she seems like she could have been such a spectacular character in other circumstances - or in the hands of a more capable writer.The only female who escapes any of the above mess is Maud Plyton, who joins Ravenor's retinue after the events of Ravenor Returned. In many ways, she is who Patience and Kara were, before Abnett tried to write them having emotional complications, and I'm glad Abnett didn't try to give her any great emotional entanglements. She's possibly the only female character on the protagonist side that he hasn't spoiled.

The only characterization that I really appreciate in this novel isn't for any of the “good guys,” but instead for one of the antagonists. Orfeo Culzean was introduced in Ravenor Returned, but really comes into his own in this novel. Oftentimes, in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, characters have a very clear moral stand. To illustrate using the Dungeons and Dragons alignments chart: most characters are either Good or Evil, but rarely ever Neutral. Culzean is one of those - the first I've encountered so far, actually - who might be considered genuinely Neutral. He pursues his own interests at the expense of everything and everyone else: no one is more important to Orfeo Culzean than Orfeo Culzean, and all his scheming and plotting and manipulating all serve to benefit him, and him alone. I wish there was more of this character type in the Warhammer 40K books, but of course this could just be me and my fondness for rogues coming through - though surely, one book about a heist pulled off by a charming Rogue Trader and her crew would not be too much to ask for?

As for the plot, it's not as spectacular as the plot for Ravenor Returned, but it serves its purpose - and, more importantly, has quite a few really fun twists that I didn't really see coming. I thought that the whole plot line involving the magic door was a bit too deus ex machina, but I won't deny that it was ridiculously fun, and I was reading those parts with a smile a mile wide on my face because it reminded me so very much of Doctor Who - except more prone to error and with far, far more bloodshed.

Overall, Ravenor Rogue is a pretty good conclusion to the series. It's not as extraordinary as I might have wanted it to be, but it does deliver on its intended purpose, and it is a satisfying-enough read that I can let it stand as a decent conclusion to the entire trilogy. However, it isn't without its problems, particularly in the characterization of some of the female characters: Abnett proves that he's not a very dab hand at writing women experiencing complex emotions, and I hope that he learns how to write them well as soon as possible, since otherwise his female characters aren't all that objectionable. Everything else is relatively tolerable, even fun to a degree, and certainly there's enough incentive to go and find a copy of Pariah to find out just what happens next to Ravenor and his crew.

This is where the book fails: giving the reader a relatively good idea of the world outside of Enthait, especially where it relates to Talia???s past. What is the Forgotten Compass, exactly? Who are the Twelve Martyrs? What is their purpose? Why did the vordcha make them in the first place? I do not mind not knowing who or what the vordcha are, precisely, beyond the details that are given in the story, but I do wish that there had been a bit more information regarding the Forgotten Compass and the Martyrs. I think it would have made Talia more interesting as a character, as well as a lot more sympathetic, if the reader knows just what it really means to be a Martyr (aside from what the word usually means).

Full review here: http://wp.me/p21txV-xZ

Sometimes it's nice to read about a scandal that doesn't involve anyone or anything close to my heart, and this fit that bill perfectly. Since no one I care about was involved in the Bettencourt Affair or the upper echelons of French politics or L'Oreal's management, and I myself am most certainly not involved in any of those things, this was quite the entertaining read. Of course because of that distance I'm not entirely sure if Sancton is being absolutely impartial in his reportage, but I like to think so.

Sancton's narrative style is mostly coherent and easy to follow, though it's occasionally jarring in that he tends to jump back and forth across time and between people. More interesting, however, are Sancton's insights into the French people's attitude to immense wealth, and how that relates to politics.

I???m a sucker for anything set in the Italian Renaissance, and I???m an equally big sucker for a timeslip romance, so since this book basically squishes all those things together, I knew I had to read it.

And you know what? I enjoyed it! I wasn???t sold on a LOT of things though. I thought the protagonist???s extreme empathy that somehow allowed her to read minds (sorta) and travel through time (????) was a bit weird, but hey: I???ve seen weirder. The romance wasn???t as well executed as I might have liked, but it wasn???t utterly objectionable. Actually I think the reason I wasn???t all that sold on the romance is that and the male half of that romance could???ve done with some (a lot) more character development - actually everyone could have used some more character development. As for the plot, it had a lot of deus ex machina going on, and maybe a bit too much melodrama.

But I was sold on this book because of the SETTING. Medieval Siena, both before and after the Plague, is a character unto itself and it is FABULOUS - strong enough to support everything else, really.

So! Not a bad read, all in all, as long as you???re not asking for a lot, like I was. 

EEEEEEE~! Oh man, this book made me so happy on SO many levels! On one hand you've got Novo and Peyton's story, which does such a wonderful job (leastways as far as I can tell) of discussing trauma and loss in a way that's not condescending in the least, and feels (again as far as I can tell) pretty respectful of the kind of pain IRL victims go through, and is STILL a great HEA story. But my favourite story was DEFINITELY Saxton and Ruhn's, because OMG SAXTON DESERVES HIS HEA Y'ALL! And so does Ruhn, all things considered. So I am glad they got together and Bitty (the DARLING!) got to keep her uncle AND gained another one too :D. Fans of the BDB series are definitely gonna enjoy this one, for sure :D.

Now, for all that this book has its compelling moments (whether the reader is going into it for the schadenfreude, the education, or out of sheer curiosity), I do have one particular issue with it: the overall narrative flow. The author is primarily a writer of magazine articles, which are often short and snappy, and so is perhaps more used to working in the kind of short, snappy narrative timeframe often preferred for magazine writing. I think this has affected the overall flow of the book, resulting in a disjointed narrative that jumps from topic to topic and narrator to narrator without much thought for how the story flows from one point to another. It would have been better for the author to simply compile all the articles he wrote while covering the Rudy Kurniawan story, and then publish them as a single collection, instead of restructuring the whole thing into one continuous narrative. In fact, readers might prefer to simply read the articles themselves. Fortunately, they are available to read online, though it may take some sifting through the author???s index to find the relevant articles. Still, it might be a better alternative to reading the book.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-Fn

The Victorian period is considered by many to be a fascinating time. It was a time when all frontiers were being pushed - the westward expansion of America, for instance, or the incredible new discoveries made in science and archaeology. On the other hand, many other borders were being shored up in an attempt to maintain them: British power in its colonies, for instance, or the place of women in society. Despite the rapid innovations on every front that came up during this period, there was much that a lot of people did not want changed.

It is this contradition between the old and the new, pushing borders and maintaining them, that makes the Victorian period a popular setting for writers from many different genres. Many, many books have been written by many notable writers who were alive during the period (Charles Dickens being one of the most notable, of course) and even in the twenty-first century it is still a popular setting for historical fiction. Steampunk, at its most traditional, is often a version of the Victorian period wherein advanced technology akin to what is present in the twenty-first century is powered by steam and widely used.

I was looking for a new series to get into when I discovered Tasha Alexander's Emily Ashton series, and the first book And Only to Deceive. The blurb for the book provided an intriguing frame of reference: the Pink Carnation series by Lauren Willig. Although Willig's series is set in the Regency period, and Alexander's in the Victorian, I did not think they would be significantly different beyond that. I was, however, proven delightfully wrong.

Make no mistake: I really like Willig's books. They are a great deal of fun, with a nice touch of romance that makes me smile. However, it is very rare that I feel any real suspense in them. Though the characters often find themselves in danger, it does not often feel like it is enough. In every book, there is always something or someone who will pull the protagonist out of trouble. There are only one or two books wherein it really feels like the protagonist is going to die; more often than not, as long as one is sure that these characters are not the villains and/or are one half of the book's main romantic couple, then they are sure to survive until the end of the book, because Willig's books always have a happy ending for the couple at the center of the story.

If And Only to Deceive is any indication, it would appear that Alexander's books will not necessarily be like that. There is romance, to be sure, but it is not at the heart of the story. Mystery and intrigue take center-stage in this series, with the romance present but not quite the focus of the story. The novel concerns Lady Emily Ashton, recently widowed after her husband, Viscount Philip Ashton, was killed during a safari hunt in Africa. This does not bother her much, however: she married him so she could get away from her controlling mother, so the circumstances rather suited her, since it allowed her to remain out of her mother's reach, while at the same time having a source of income with which she could do as she pleased.

But as she becomes interested in her deceased husband due to the influence of his friends, Colin Hargreaves and Andrew Palmer, Emily begins to find herself engaging in things that she previously would not have engaged in: an interest in Homer and ancient antiquities, for instance - and finding out the truth behind her husband, for another. And as she continues to follow the thread of her interests - her husband counting as one of those interests - she finds herself caught up in a web of intrigue connected to the black market for antiquities: a world where money is paramount, and where talented artists turn out fakes so authentic-looking that even museum experts can be fooled.

Part of what makes historical fiction fun to read is how well it can conform itself to the actual circumstances of the period in which it is written. I am no expert on Victorian London, but from what I can tell Alexander has taken great pains to ensure that her characters and plotline fit in squarely with the period in which she is writing. The interest in antiquities from ancient Greece, Rome, and Egypt, especially, sets the tone very well, because it was indeed during the Victorian period that Britain began to take a great deal of interest in acquiring artifacts for its museums, and during which archaeologists were doing their digs in Egypt and elsewhere, bringing home notable antiquities for the museums. The case of the Elgin Marbles, for instance, is widely known and is still controversial today. It is only mentioned in passing, unfortunately, though I can only imagine what an interesting plotline that would have made had Alexander chosen to use it as one of the central plotlines of her novel.

But I can only imagine that such a focus would detract from the main storyline, and besides, I doubt that Alexander would have wished to tackle something so controversial as that. Nevertheless, she does raise some very intriguing concerns in the novel, such as the question regarding whether antiquities belong in private collections or in museums. It is quite obvious in the novel that Alexander believes artifacts - the real ones - belong in museums, while collectors must content themselves with replicas, so there really is not much argument on that score. But quite a few of the characters do not seem to entirely agree with that line of thinking, and so the acquisition of antiques and of replicating them so the fakes can be placed in museums, while the real ones remain in private hands, becomes one of the central plotlines in the story.

Of course, this on its own is quite interesting to me since I am a history buff, but if I wanted a straightforward documentary-style discussion of the topic, I would be reading a non-fiction book, not a novel. I acquired this book precisely because it was fiction, however, and it is as a work of fiction that I choose to judge it.

In that regard, it is quite a fun read. As with so many novels told from the first-person point-of-view, it is absolutely necessary that the narrator be endearing to the reader, and it is very easy to like Emily Ashton. She is very calm and not too easily flustered, and has a wryness of wit that I appreciate in any first-person narrator. If she is not quite as sharp as some of the other characters - the male ones, specifically - this is no fault of her own, but a fault of the fact that she is a woman of her time. It is enough, I think, that she shows any interest at all in doing things unconventionally. If she still seems to be groping around as to how to get about doing so, or if her efforts do not seem quite so radical as they could be, it does best to keep in mind that this is only the first book in the series, and so there will be plenty of time for her to truly break out of the mindset and roles imposed on her by Victorian society.

The female characters around her are intriguing as well, though some do strike me as a bit caricaturish. Her mother, for instance, is altogether too much like a stereotypical manipulative Victorian mother that, although I hate her for being what she is, I also rather hate her for being a stereotype. Lady Cecile, too, does not make me feel entirely comfortable, because she rather strikes me as entirely too much like a stereotype of the French libertine widow. To be fair, she does not go about crying “Cherie!” or other such things all the time, but she is entirely too close to that.

I am, however, rather hestitant to call these characters absolute stereotypes, however, particularly because of the fact that this is a first-person narrative. If there is any caricaturing going on here, I can blame it on the fact that Emily likely has biases, and biases can render other characters rather flat. I would be much harsher had this been a third-person narrative, but since it is first-person, I cannot truly call this for certain.

As for the male characters, they appear to be a bit better-drawn than the female characters, though again I blame this on Emily, since her interactions with men would likely have been rather limited, given the period, and so she is capable of viewing them a bit more sharply than the female characters. Nevertheless, there does appear to be a bit of stereotyping going on: Hargreaves, for instance, presents some of the qualities of the typical Byronic hero: romantic and dark in a brooding sort of way. Andrew Palmer, on the other hand, is so clearly the rake that it's almost not surprising that he turns out to be the cad he is at the end of the novel.

What balances all of this out, however, is the way the plot is constructed. I like a mystery that keeps me on my toes, and this one certainly does manage that. I mostly attribute this to the first-person narrative, since the reader only receives information at the same time Emily does, and moreover, is restricted to her ideas concerning the events that occur around her. She makes on assumption, which will often strike the reader as reasonable, since Emily herself is reasonable, and will go along with that assumption until something comes up to prove both Emily and the reader wrong. This happens quite frequently in the middle portion of the book; some readers might view this as frustrating, but I personally view it as a ridiculous amount of fun, not to mention proof that the writer is doing something right in the mystery department by keeping things mysterious. This sense of mystery does not hold quite well towards the end of the book, because by that point the reader will likely have their own assumptions regarding who the villain really is, and will likely be right, but at that point it is all about catching said villain, and that is a different kind of fun on its own.

All in all, If Only to Deceive is an enjoyable read, particularly for readers looking to graduate from or something similar to the Pink Carnation series. The lead character is a joy to read, and though some of the characters might not quite be up to snuff, the plot itself and topics tackled - including women's suffrage - prove intriguing enough to blot out any problems one might have with the supporting characters.

It???s been a while since I read a short story collection written by a single author. I???ve tended to read anthologies, mostly: the ones that are focused on a particular genre, or subgenre, or theme. I???d forgotten how pleasant it can be to read a collection with consistent quality, as opposed to the hit-or-miss nature of a lot of multi-author anthologies ??? and I???m glad that this book has reminded me of that pleasure. Cruz???s writing has a kind of music to it: one that, again, reminds me of the more literary stories I read back when I was at university. Though the lyrics change, the melody remains ??? and it???s a very lovely one to listen to. In this regard, the short stories in Beyond the Line of Trees have certainly done it right.

Full review here: https://wp.me/p21txV-IK