Kam

Full review coming on 08/13/2016.

Another theme that runs throughout the course of the novel is tied to Sunny???s connection to her spirit face, Anyanwu. One of the major plot points in the novel sees Sunny???s connection to Anyanwu tested in the extreme, but that trial forges Sunny into a stronger person as she learns to accept a key tenet in Leopard Society: what makes a person different is also what gives him or her strength. Sunny has long struggled to accept the many different facets of her identity, and this novel shows the beginnings of her acceptance of those facets. There are moments, even at the end, when she still doubts herself, but that???s all right; Sunny is still young, after all, and she still has a lot to learn. She still has time.

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

Books are, I've found, very much like people, in the sense that it's possible to feel some very strong emotions when it comes to them. It's possible to love a book blindly, for instance, ignoring all its flaws in favor of the things that one likes about it. It's also entirely possible to hate a book uncompromisingly, and just thinking about it can make one cringe or put one in a thoroughly bad mood. One can come to love a book one used to dislike, just as one can come to love someone over time, and the opposite is equally true: one can grow to dislike a book one used to love. Really, the only difference between books and people is that no one except oneself truly gets hurt when one picks up or puts away a book, and they will always be there to give one a second chance.

This is, in many ways, quite true with series. Though the broader story arc might link one book to another, many readers find that they grow to love a small number of books in particular, especially when the series is more than a trilogy. Harry Potter is my favorite example: of all the seven books, I am most enamored with The Goblet of Fire, while I could really live without The Order of the Phoenix. I know each is part of a whole, and I know that The Order of the Phoenix is just as important as The Goblet of Fire in the overall scheme of things, but I prefer The Goblet of Fire on the whole, mostly because it contains elements that I fell in love with about the Harry Potter series that I felt were lost in The Order of the Phoenix, or were at the very least muted. I understand that those elements had to be tossed out or put aside for the overall storyline, and I know doing so was necessary to furthering the development of the whole series, but favoring books, much like love, has a rationality all on its own.

The same goes for my relationship with characters. When I first read Lev Grossman's The Magicians I loved the whole thing: characters, plot, themes, everything. It was so well-written, so well-told, that I was riding on the high of the storytelling for quite a while. It was only later, when I started thinking about it more closely, that I came to realize that while I adored the novel as an overall package, there was quite a bit about it that I disliked - or rather, one person, in particular: Quentin Coldwater.

I should say that my relationship with Quentin is an ambivalent one. On one hand I love him as a character: he is quite realistic and human, and his mistakes are entirely human mistakes. In my review of The Magicians, I stated the novel is a version of Harry Potter and Narnia (but mostly Narnia) with all the idealism taken out of it, and in many ways Quentin is like the heroes of those novels with all the idealism but none of the will to get things done, always expecting things to happen to him when they he ought to be happening to the world.

But in many ways a character is an idea, something that one addresses as a reader entering a story and immersing oneself in it. When one begins to think of them as people, that's where my issues with Quentin arise. As a character, I like Quentin, but as a person, I came to absolutely hate his guts. If he had been narrating The Magicians in first person I don't think I would have gotten past the first few chapters, because when I thought about it he reminded me a lot of Holden Caulfield, and I really do not enjoy Caulfield's voice in the least. The minute he enters Brakebills he keeps expecting to become the hero of the story, to become Harry Potter or one of the Pevensie children, believing that his story is just around the corner. And he gets that story, all right - but at a steep, steep price.

It was because of this that I took my time getting to the next novel in the series, The Magician King. I knew that if I picked it up I would wind up reading about Quentin again, and I was still ticked off enough at him that I didn't want to run into him at all, if I could avoid it. I needed time to cool my head before I could so much as pick it up and read it. I might have liked the other characters, but Quentin was still the main character of the story, and I had to deal with him if I wanted to get through the novel. I was in no rush; the book would still be there to be read, after all, and I could get to it whenever I felt I was ready to look at Quentin's face again, so to speak.

It was Hope who finally nudged me into reading The Magician King. I had made plans to go into Jim C. Hines' Libriomancer, or maybe go back to proper epic fantasy with N.K. Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, but Hope was insistent that I read The Magician King, allaying my apprehensions about having to live in Quentin's head again by saying that Julia would be co-narrating the novel. That was enough for me to set aside both Libriomancer and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, and finally get me to pick up The Magician King.

Once again, Hope proved correct in her assessment of this novel, because The Magician King proved to be not only as good as The Magicians, but, to my mind, better. I attribute this to the fact that I don't have to spend so much time with Quentin anymore, but moreover to the fact that Quentin is actually a better person in this novel - somewhat, and mostly towards the end, but altogether he's not as irritating as he used to be.

The Magician King is an almost direct continuation of the events of The Magicians. Quentin is now a King of Fillory, along with his old Brakebills friends Eliot and Jane, and also, surprisingly, Julia. In the first book Julia had become a hedge witch, having picked up magic from somewhere, but since the first novel's told pretty much from Quentin's point of view, the reader has no idea how she came about her powers - powers that are strong enough, apparently, for her to become a Queen of Fillory right alongside the Brakebills kids, and strange enough to give said Brakebills kids the creeps. Quentin knows something's very wrong with Julia, but is unable to quite pinpoint what it is - at least until a new adventure starts for them in Fillory.

The novel is actually two stories: one is Quentin's adventure (though he would very much like to argue about that term), and the other is Julia's story about how she became what she is at the beginning of the novel. Of the two stories Quentin's is the most typical, the only difference being that Quentin isn't quite an idiot anymore - though to be quite honest I was very harsh with him in the first third of the book, carrying as I was all the biases I had from reading the previous novel. It was only a little later that I eased up on Quentin, and realized that he was aware of his mistakes and what they had done to not just Alice, but to Josh and Penny as well, and that while he regretted them, he was trying his best not to learn from his mistakes, and move on. There is still that sense of entitlement that he has, which comes to the fore when he learns that while he and Julia had been figuring a way to get back to Fillory after finding themselves trapped in the real world, Eliot had been on an adventure of the sort Quentin himself desperately wanted to have, but it's somewhat more muted now. He still isn't the sort of person I'd want to be friends with, but he's not as bad as he used to be.

Of course, my assessment of Quentin could be softer because he's no longer the only protagonist. He's no longer standing alone in the limelight, and so I can relax a bit when it comes to him because the other protagonist of this novel, Julia, has a story that is by far more interesting, and infinitely more heartbreaking, than Quentin's storyline is by a mile. Somewhere between Quentin finding out that Julia is a hedge witch in The Magicians and the beginning of The Magician King, Julia's powers increased more than a hundredfold - and it was the kind of power that Quentin and his fellow Brakebills graduates feared and respected. How she got there is told in parallel to Quentin's story in The Magician King, and it is, by far, more intriguing and more painful.

As a character, Julia is one of those I really like, but I also think a lot of people will find themselves turned off by her. Her storyline, as I said, is not the prettiest, nor is her attitude - some would call her incredibly selfish, but there are reasons for her selfishness, and her coldness, and her anger. She is motivated by all of those, yes, but at the same time she is determined, and methodical, and so very intelligent in ways that Quentin isn't. I suppose it's because she earned her way to her powers, whereas Quentin had everything handed to him on a silver platter over at Brakebills. Julia's school was much harder, much harsher, and while it's broken her, it's also rewarded her in ways that Brakebills didn't reward Quentin and his friends. Of course, the question becomes whether or not that was worth the price, but it takes reading the novel to determine for oneself whether or not that's true. And, I feel, that's the beauty of Julia's story, and the beauty of Grossman's writing of her story: there is no judgment save what the reader brings to the table.

Aside from Quentin and Julia, many of the familiar characters from The Magicians make an appearance. Eliot and Janet have already been mentioned, and Josh and Penny make their own appearances as well. Even Alice puts in appearances from time to time, in the form of Quentin's memories of her. But the most interesting character introduced in this new novel is Poppy, an Australian who's traveling around the world doing fieldwork for her thesis on dragons. Her dynamic with the original group is fascinating, not only because she's Josh's love interest, but also because she seems to make the most sense out of all of them in the story. She's the one who calls Quentin out when he complains about not having an adventure, asking him if his trip back to Earth to Julia might not his adventure after all. It might not have been the one he wanted, true, but it was the one he was best suited for. When she joins them in Fillory she also proves that she has one of the most level heads of them all, addressing things practically and as they come. She is in many ways the balance that Alice would probably have become had she survived the events of the last novel - or maybe not. It's difficult to speculate about the directions characters take in this novel, and that's when they're alive, never mind if they're dead.

If The Magicians had a somewhat narrow scope of the magical world, hinting only at the possibilities of magic beyond Brakebills and Fillory, The Magician King expands that world exponentially, presenting not only what lies beyond the horizons of magic on Earth, but in Fillory and the Neitherlands, as well. Julia's story showcases the world of hedge witches, those practitioners of magic considered dangerous or worse by those in Brakebills because they come into magic without the safety nets and systems afforded by the school to its students. It becomes clear that a lot of them aren't getting very far on their own, but Julia proves that that need not be the case. Without the limits imposed by Brakebills upon its students, hedge witches with enough determination and intelligence - both of which Julia has in spades - can gain access to magic the likes of which those in Brakebills can only speculate upon.

Now, to be fair, at no point is hedge magic shown to be superior to or weaker than Brakebills magic; it's just different, with a whole different set of pros and cons. Quentin paid his dues at Brakebills and in Fillory, and so did Julia - it's just that Julia's dues were paid in a different kind of currency from Quentin's. Some people might say that Julia paid much too high a price for her power, but that's something only the reader can decide for himself or herself.

Aside from the world of hedge magic, there's also the Neitherlands, where a great catastrophe has occurred and, by the end of the novel, been slowed down, at least. This is where the groundwork for the next novel is laid. It's become quite obvious that Quentin is following the Hero's Journey as laid out by Joseph Campbell. In The Magicians, it's about his trial, about proving himself worthy to be the hero. The Magician King is about his main quest. By the end of the novel, given the events that happen, it becomes clear that Quentin, now a hero, has to go home - and no, it's not Fillory. That point of his journey is over. I speculate that the third book will be about Quentin going home and dying - maybe a physical death, but more likely a metaphorical one. Heroes can die and live forever in legend, as Achilles did, but not all heroes go that way. Sometimes, they become gods.

But that's for the third book to show the reader: the groundwork has already been laid, both in Quentin's story in the Neitherlands and Julia's story about how she became who she was at the beginning of the novel. It'll take reading the third book - probably the last one, given how the arc is going - to see where Quentin finally ends up in all of this. Hopefully he finds what he's been looking for all along.

Overall, The Magician King is a more than worthy continuation of The Magicians, in many ways a whole lot better than the first book - a feat in the second book of a series, which generally tend to be as good as or (more often) worse than the first. As a story it stands up well, but it promises so much more to come in the third book of the series. Some stories that began in the first book are brought to a close here, but many, many more have been opened, and, given how carefully Grossman has balanced this series so far, they are bound to be explored and brought to a close in the next book. And this time, I know I'll pick it up as soon as it comes out. Quentin is more bearable now, after all.

So there was this post going around on Tumblr which started out by talking about how chickens eat meat and cannibalise each other, which soon led to other folks commenting that chickens are dinosaurs, which soon led to yet other folk confirming this to be scientific fact - that, yes, not all dinosaurs went extinct, because BIRDS are, technically speaking, DINOSAURS.

Now, I've known that this was the case for a while, but the book that blew my mind regarding this fact was published in 2009 (How to Build a Dinosaur by Jack Horner and James Gorman), so I'm not really updated on the science as it stands now. So I did some poking around and found this book, which was published in 2014 and, therefore, is comfortably recent enough for my tastes.

And it certainly delivers on the new discoveries, talking as it does about the cache of feathered dinosaurs being found in China, which prove that birds are dinosaurs, and that maybe feathers were far more common amongst dinosaurs than we ever imagined. It also tackles issues related to palaeontology, like how smuggling and faking fossils is very much an issue, and the ever-perennial problem of how the fossil record still has huge gaps in it that haven't been filled - at least, not YET. It also tackles the potential future for studying dinosaurs - up to and including the chance that we may someday reverse-engineer a chicken into a wee little dinosaur. I find this particularly pertinent because I am holding out hope that one day, some day, I'll have a pair of turkey-sized velociraptors on the ends of leashes as I walk about Manila. They will be cute, they will be smart, they will be fluffy, and they will be DANGEROUS.

All in all, this is a really fun and informative read. If you didn't know that birds are dinosaurs, this explains why; if you already knew that but are looking for something that'll summarise the latest research, this'll do just that.

Everyone has a few guilty pleasures: things we genuinely enjoy, but feel embarrassed to admit enjoying. It could be anything: trashy television, romantic comedies, chocolate-dipped bacon - basically anything that we think other people will look funny at us for if they knew we liked these things.

Admitting to a guilty pleasure, though, is a pleasure on its own, especially when that guilty pleasure is shared. There's a lot of secret giggling to be had, knowing looks to be shared - the kind that comes when one shares a secret with someone else, and knows there's no shame in having that secret.

Romance novels are my guilty pleasure. There was a time when I wouldn't have admitted that, but I've reached a point in my life where I honestly don't care who knows. I am, however, quite picky about the romance novels I pick up. I read historical romance, for the most part, but I also have a soft spot for urban fantasy romance novels, ever since I got into Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunters universe (a great series overall, with very few misses). I have yet to get into the sci-fi romance novels, but I expect I'll get round to them, eventually.

The reason I go more for the genre-specific romances is simple: I like world-building. Even historical romances require a bit of world-building, in order to set a sense of time and place - the precise reason I gravitated to them in the first place. And when I realized that steampunk had become popular enough that there were romance novels being written in the genre, I knew I had to find an example to try out. Moving cautiously through the morass (because sometimes just looking at the blurb on the back was enough to make me pass on some of the books I considered), I finally settled on The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook.

To be honest, the cover didn't inspire a lot of confidence in me at first. While I know that half-naked men seem to be the standard for romance novel covers, I was rather hoping that The Iron Duke would fall somewhere outside the typical run-of-the-mill romances I was used to reading. After finishing the novel, I'm rather glad to note that, while it does fall in line with typical romance novels at some points, it does not in some places, as well.

First, the places where it falls in line with the typical romance novel. The titular Iron Duke, Rhys Trahearn, doesn't strike me as being very different from the Standard Romance Novel Hero: tall, dark, brooding, with a chip (several chips, really) on his shoulder. He's done heroic things, but there's also a lot that he's not proud of, and it takes falling in lust at first sight, and then later on in love, with a woman to bring him some comfort and stability. These are the typical, standard patterns when it comes to the heroes of romance novels, established by Jane Austen with Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice and then expanded upon since then by numerous other writers. I was rather hoping there would be something different about him, but was not entirely surprised, either, when I didn't find it.

The love story, too, was rather typical. Heroine and Hero meet. Hero desires Heroine almost instantly but Heroine denies it. Several significant events happen that allow Hero and Heroine to expose their softer, more emotional underbellies to each other. Hero and Heroine have life-changing sex. Emotional conflict occurs, separating Hero and Heroine because they can't get over themselves. One of them nearly dies, forcing the other to realize that they really can't live without their beloved. Story concludes with the recovery of the one who nearly died, and the affirmation of their love as they pledge undying devotion to each other. This is an almost standard plot in a great many romance novels, and while I was hoping for something different, I was not entirely surprised that the pattern remained the same.

One of the reasons I find myself forgiving the use of the Typical Hero and a Typical Plotline in many romance novels is because they are practically par on course for the genre. A reader of romance novels really ought to expect that sort of thing, because while it's possible to make changes here and there to them, they will essentially remain the same because they pretty much make the genre what it is. While I'm sure there are many, many romance novel writers out there who struggle to buck this in their writing, I also understand that there are only so many ways one can alter the pattern. And besides, there's something very comforting about the predictability of this pattern: the reader knows that, eventually, the Hero and Heroine will make love, fall in love, and live happily ever after.

Given these factors, what makes a romance novel enjoyable in my eyes, then, are two things: a good heroine, and a great world to support the romance itself. In the case of The Iron Duke I was able to find both, but to varying degrees of enjoyability.

First, the world. The Iron Duke is set in a post-apocalyptic version of Regency (I think) England, wherein the populace has been under the control of a group called the Horde. Everyone in England is infected with nanobots, which the Horde are capable of controlling via radio waves. Recently, however, the Iron Duke managed to cut an enormous swathe through the Horde in England, finally succeeding in throwing off Horde control by destroying the radio tower that they used to manipulate the population. England has begun to rebuild, but still, lingering prejudice and old hurts remain.

What I found interesting about the world-building for this novel is that it's not given to the reader on a silver platter. There are hints and clues scattered all throughout the book that the reader has to catch in order to figure out what is going on. Take, for instance, the use of the world “Horde” to refer to the people who occupied England. It took me a while to figure it out and to put the clues together, but by the time I'd figured it out I realized that my initial assumptions about the term were correct: “Horde” is shorthand for “Golden Horde,” the term used to collectively describe a group of Mongol warlords who came close to conquering all of Europe during the Middle Ages. This means that, in the world of The Iron Duke, not only have the Golden Horde succeeded in doing so, they accomplished this because of their extremely superior technology - technology which includes not only radio waves, but nanotechnology and genetic manipulation, as well. As the novel goes on, more and more of this world is explored, again in bits and pieces. Something as large as the Golden Horse with superior technology conquering Europe has wide-reaching repercussions, and the way it has shaped the rest of the course of European history is made very evident.

While this technique of exploring the world in bits and pieces is pretty valid as a method of storytelling, I did find that it had some disadvantages. The chief of these disadvantages is that my understanding of the world in which The Iron Duke is set is patchy, to say the least. The world has shifted so much that all the familiar nations and groups of people have been significantly altered, so even if I was familiar with the period of history being used, I still had difficulty figuring out who was who and what was what and where was where. There is simply not enough time devoted to explaining certain aspects of the world - explanations I would really have appreciated. This is the same problem I had with The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson, though not to the same frustrating degree. I know the book's primary genre is “romance,” but if there had been a clearer, more comprehensive approach to the world-building, I might have liked this more. I also suspect that much has been left out for further exploration in the sequel, because there is indeed a second book after this one.

As for Mina, the heroine, she falls into the type of female characters I like the most, no matter what the genre: independent and capable of taking care of herself, and taking care of others at the same time. She has a very strong sense of duty which I find very admirable in any character I encounter, in any genre, and I also like how that sense of duty is also presented as something of a flaw in her. She's dedicated to her duty, that much is true, but she uses it as an escape, to avoid having to deal with her own personal problems. She's pragmatic, even if she takes it too far at times, preferring to ignore her emotions instead of simply succumbing to them. The explanation for why Mina is thus is explained and developed beautifully in the novel, and rather more than makes up for what I found lacking in the Trahearn's characterization.

As for the other characters, they too are quite interesting, and flesh out the world of the novel quite well. Scarsdale, for instance, is an intriguing character, and if I choose to pick up the second novel I'd like to see more of him again. Yasmeen, captain of the airship Lady Corsair, is an equally fascinating character who falls into the mold of female characters I enjoy (though she's a bit too high-strung at times for my taste), and as I understand it her story is told in the second book. The character known only as the Blacksmith is also particularly intriguing, and I'd definitely like to see more of him.

All told, The Iron Duke is not a bad romance novel: not as good as some of the ones I've read before, but certainly not as terrible as some of the other ones I looked at. For anyone wishing for a light, romantic, steampunk-y read, then this is definitely something that's worth looking into.

A lovely ramble - literally - through the so-called Dark Ages of British history. And I say “literally” because Adams basically talks about that history in the course of ten journeys (most done by walking, but some accomplished through other forms of travel - one of them by sailing ship) across the United Kingdom. It's a new way of talking about history and archaeology, but it's one that makes sense, given how so much of British history is generally just there in the landscape, but you have to know how to read it in order to understand it. It also helps that Adams is a good storyteller, though the book does get a bit dry in places. Protip: if possible, use Google Maps while reading the book so you can get an even better sense of the places Adams is talking about. It's not the same was visiting them yourself, but it does help fill in the imaginative gaps a little bit.

Of all American cities, none stand so tall or loom so large in the imagination as New York. The subject of novels, poetry, and music from Sinatra to Jay-Z, New York has become a symbol and a byword for bright lights, big dreams, and every aspiration achieved. And though this neon-lit, optimistic vision of New York is no longer as accurate as it used to be, it is still a vision enshrined in literature and entertainment, one that writers, musicians, and filmmakers still revisit every now and then.

If one were to go back and attempt to understand where this image came from, one would find that much of New York's mythology was made in the early twentieth century, particularly during the Roaring Twenties: the Jazz Age, as F. Scott Fitzgerald named the period, when flappers danced in speakeasies playing Harlem jazz, when the future seemed brighter than bright, when dreams really could come true, if one was willing to work hard enough to reach them. But the brighter the lights, the darker the shadow: racism ran deep in the fiber of New York during the 1920s, as did poverty, crime and corruption - as it still does today. Sometimes it seems as if all that bright, shiny optimism is necessary because the other side is so dark.

It is with this understanding of New York's dual nature that Libba Bray writes The Diviners, the first novel in a series (woe is me!) of the same title. The story is about Evangeline “Evie” O'Neill, a “bright young thing” (or so she likes to think) who would love nothing more than to live the flapper lifestyle somewhere far away from her provincial hometown in Ohio. She gets her wish after she causes a scandal in her hometown's tiny social scene, and gets sent to New York to join up with her mother's bachelor brother, William Fitzgerald. To a certain extent, she does get what she wants: a chance to live the glittering lifestyle of boys, booze, and parties that she's always dreamed of. But something much darker stalks the streets of New York, and Evie's secrets connect her to a larger web of people and events that begins the moment she arrives in the Big Apple.

One of the first things the reader will notice, especially if he or she has read Libba Bray's Gemma Doyle books, is how much brighter and crisper the writing seems to have gotten. Bray has always had a gift for creating atmosphere and bringing characters to life - the Gemma Doyle books are proof-positive of this - but it's like those talents have gained a sharper, more definite edge to them with The Diviners. With this clarity of writing she brings the settings of The Diviners into such sharp life that one could almost close one's eyes and imagine oneself into the story, right down to the smell of cigarette smoke and illegal booze in a speakeasy; or the cold wind blowing off the Hudson.

This feeling of immersion is enhanced by the dialogue, which makes liberal - and, more importantly, appropriate - use of the slang prevalent during that period in time. I have read some reviewers state that they had a hard time keeping up with the slang, while others found it outright irritating, but I personally found it very comprehensible and, moreover, enjoyable to read. Language and dialogue, more than long, descriptive paragraphs, are the real keys to truly creating (or recreating, in this case) the feel and atmosphere of any setting, and Bray does just that by using 1920s slang as she does. At no point does it feel overdone, at least to me, and once again shows just how far Bray's writing skill has gotten since she wrote the Gemma Doyle books.

But this newfound skill is most clearly seen (and best appreciated) in her characterization - and there are quite a few characters in this book, all of whom stand out in their own way. Evie and her best friend, Mabel, are the ones with whom a large chunk of Bray's audience will relate to the most, especially if they're coming over from the Gemma Doyle books. Evie and Mabel are young women in the process of growing up and finding themselves, similar in that regard to the protagonists of Bray's first trilogy, right down to having to deal with the consequences of having a mysterious, magical talent - or at least, that's what Evie has to deal with; it's unknown as of this first novel whether or not Mabel has any such gift. Even Theta Knight, a Ziegfield girl with a dark past, will feel somewhat familiar to anyone who's read Bray's first trilogy, echoing the older female characters in those books.

The similarities, however, are merely superficial: Evie, Mabel, and Theta are standouts on their own, and reading about them is a joy and a pleasure. There are also other female characters who prove just as interesting to the reader: Margaret Walker, for instance, or the Proctor sisters, (who I think might be related to or directly descended from the Proctors who were tried during the Salem Witch Trials), but there's no doubting that Evie, Mabel and Theta are three of the stars of this story. I say three, because they're not the only standouts in this novel.

Aside from the female characters, there are now some really interesting male characters as well. There were certainly male characters in the Gemma Doyle books, but for the most part they didn't play any major role in the course of the story. Even Kartik, who, due to his involvement with Gemma, might be considered a major character, pales in comparison to characters like Felicity Worthington or Ann Bradshaw. In The Diviners, however, there are three standout male characters right from the get-go: Memphis, a young man with aspirations to be a poet; Sam Lloyd, a smooth-talking thief; and Jericho, assistant to Evie's uncle William Fitzgerald. With the three of them Bray proves she's just as capable of writing male characters who are just as interesting as her female characters. There are other male characters, of course, like Henry, Theta's “brother,” or Uncle Will, or even Blind Bill Johnson, but they don't have central roles in the same way that Memphis, Sam, and Jericho do - not in this novel, anyway.

Another thing Bray is adept at is addressing issues of race and gender and how they work in society. She proved she was more than capable of this in the Gemma Doyle books, and she does so once more in The Diviners. I mentioned earlier that racism, poverty, and corruption ran deep in the fabric of 1920s New York, and in America in general, and Bray shows this in small, but clear, ways throughout the course of the story. Evie, for instance, is drawn to the flapper lifestyle because she believes it will grant her a measure of power and control over her own life that her conservative parents (specifically her mother) would not let her have. Memphis, as an African-American, struggles against racial prejudice whenever he leaves Harlem, and sometimes inside Harlem, too. What Bray is very good at is tackling these themes without getting too preachy; she did that in the Gemma Doyle books, and she does that again in The Diviners.

As for the plot, Bray has created one that is thrilling and entertaining. The novel starts out slow at first, mostly because Bray has so many characters that she has to spend a significant amount of time introducing them and setting up her world, but she does this so well and her characters are so interesting that this slow first third doesn't feel like a horrific slog. But slowly, slowly, the action builds up as things come to a head, going into a screaming dive that made me drop everything I was doing for the sake of knowing what was going to happen next. Bray's antagonist is a familiar figure to anyone who watches Criminal Minds or enjoys reading serial-killer novels, but the way she handles said antagonist will likely cause at least a few chills to go up and down the reader's spine. The novel's ending is not too much of a cliffhanger, but there are more than a few loose ends, even before the reader gets to the ending, and they lay the groundwork for what will (or may) happen in the upcoming novels.

Overall, The Diviners is an excellent, entertaining read. Bray's writing style is significantly improved, stylistically speaking, when compared to the Gemma Doyle books, but her gift for characterization and handling themes related to gender and prejudice is still there and very much in play. The novel is, admittedly, a long one, especially for a YA novel, but the plot is solid, and though slow, has a great payoff at the end with a promise for more. The only problem with getting to the end of the novel, is this: waiting for the next one to come out.

MISS GWEN GETS A ROMANCE! Honestly I remember reading the premise of this the first time and wondering who in the world would be a good match for the formidable Miss Gwendolyn Meadows. And then the summary mentioned Col. William Reid, and I knew this was going to be AMAZING. 

And fortunately, that judgment still holds up in this reread! Like with The Orchid Affair, the couple involved in this novel are on the older side of things (Gwen is in her forties and William is in his fifties), and it is such a wonderful reminder that one is never too old (or to crotchety) to find romance. And BOY do Gwen and William deserve it. They???ve both lived rough lives, and they???ve reacted to that in their own way, but it???s lovely seeing how who they are brings out the best in each other. It was also lovely reading about how William just accepted Gwen for who she was, and also pointing out (rightly so, imo) that the way the others had been treating her was rather cruel. They might not have meant it, but it was cruel regardless. And that just really emphasizes how much of a GOOD MAN he is, truly. 

That being said, something happens in this novel that really rocks the foundation upon which most of the series has been set. Won???t say what it is because spoilers, but suffice to say...that I am annoyed that the effects of the events in this book won???t really come into fruition until Book 12, because there???s ANOTHER book after this that isn???t quite related to the events of this one. I guess the author wanted a rounded out set of books instead of, I dunno, an eleven-book series? 

Anyway, I can see the end of the line in sight! Gonna have to charge through the next book so I can finally - FINALLY - read the last book and close out this series for good.

(Side note: Plumerias are also called frangipani, and in the Philippines are colloquially known as kalachuchi. Hereabouts they???re a flower associated with the dead; if you catch their scent on the breeze at night, and you can???t spot any nearby trees that could be the source, well...that just means the aswang are out to get you, and you???d better hurry on to somewhere safe. Oddly appropriate, given Gwen???s predilection for gothic fiction.) 

The name “Darwin” is likely one to ring a lot of bells for a lot of people, mostly because the most famous bearer of the name, Charles Darwin put forward the theory of evolution. His fame, however, casts a very long, very large shadow over the rest of his family, who may have had been remarkably notable in their own right, except now no one knows about them because of Charles Darwin's fame.

One such notable Darwin is Erasmus Darwin, Charles Darwin's grandfather. He was a highly notable physician, regarded as the best in his day - a reputation that led to him being invited to be Royal Physician in George III's time. Erasmus turned down this post. He is also noted as being the founder and key member of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, a group which counted such notables as Joseph Priestley, James Watt, and William Murdock amongst its members - men whose discoveries and inventions would help launch the Industrial Revolution. It is also speculated that Erasmus's musings on natural philosophy would eventually - along with the writings of other scientists - influence the development of his grandson's own landmark theory.

Charles Sheffield's book, titled The Amazing Dr. Darwin, is actually a collection of stories, dealing with the adventures of Erasmus Darwin and his friend, Colonel Jacob Pole (likely a stand-in for the real Erasmus Darwin's own friend, Colonel Edward Pole) as they solve unusual cases the length and breadth of England. In the first story, titled “The Devil of Malkirk,” Darwin and Pole (who meet here for the first time) head to Scotland to solve a medical mystery (Darwin) and to find treasure (Pole), though the two are actually linked in more ways than one. The second story, “The Heart of Ahura Mazda,” finds Darwin and Pole in London, looking into the curse supposedly laid upon a fist-sized ruby to protect it from thieves. “The Phantom of Dunwell Cove” has Darwin and Pole looking into the strange disappearance of jewelry from a group of wedding guests. In “The Lambeth Immortal” Darwin and Pole attempt to make sense of the existence of a murderous creature that supposedly inhabits the bottom of an ancient flint mine. “The Solborne Vampire” is, as the title implies, about a vampire - whose existence Darwin (and Pole, naturally) seeks to disprove, or at least make sense of. The final story, “The Treasure of Odirex,” starts out with Darwin being called to prove or disprove the mental condition of a man's wife, but it soon leads to something else entirely.

On the surface, with such simple summaries, the stories seem to be quite entertaining, and admittedly, they are. Each one has a touch of the supernatural to it, one which Darwin quickly dispels with his medical and scientific knowledge. Pole, in the meantime, provides a kind of support to Darwin; he might not necessarily be Darwin's equal in the mental realm, but he more than holds his own when there is any action that needs to be undertaken. This is not, of course, to be mistaken as any reluctance on Darwin's part to do anything beyond sit and think; merely a reflection of the fact that, due to his weight (a somewhat legendary thing, in his time), Darwin simply was not as capable as Pole in executing more physically taxing actions.

Despite their differences, Darwin and Pole are rather well-matched, despite Pole's credulity in all things supernatural, and Darwin's distinct incredulity (which he extends to religion). They are also rather entertaining in their quirks: Darwin with his prodigious appetite (well-documented by contemporary accounts), and Pole with his obsession for treasure (he claims to have chased it all over the world, whenever he could).

Unfortunately, for all the possible advantages that the above attributes present, they are not nearly enough to make these stories stand out, especially when one puts them alongside the stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - stories whose pattern Sheffield seems to have adopted or adapted for his own use in these tales. Though the characters themselves seem fascinating, after the first three stories the reader almost gets bored with them, mostly because they seem rather static: the reader already knows what Darwin will do in a given situation, because it's exactly what Darwin did in the last story. While there is certainly some pleasure to be derived in such predictability (after all, Sherlock Holmes is quite predictable in terms of how he will approach a case, at least in the general sense), there is no such pleasure in Darwin's brand of predictability. Also, while Darwin might have been quite interesting on his own, Colonel Pole is really not that interesting in the least. He is not nearly so entertaining as Watson - though I suppose one can get to like Watson because he is the primary narrator for the Holmes stories (for the most part, at any rate), and a reader must at least like the narrator if they are to make any kind of headway. His mania for treasure, especially, might grate on readers after a while, not least because of how predictable it makes him.

Another major flaw is the stories themselves. The potential for world-building is incredibly high, and yet the reader receives very little of it, with a significant amount of interesting information being condensed into a series of end-notes. It's possible to blame the fact that these are short stories, and so there is a very limited space for world-building of the detail I might like, but it might also be to blame for a host of other problems, including the fact that these stories simply never get as good as they could be. Each of the short stories, on their own, would make a pretty rip-roaring good novel - all the elements for one were right there, but they are never used to their full potential. The mysteries could have been made richer, deeper, and more involved than the simple puzzles they turned out to be. The chief joy in reading mysteries, after all, is to get caught up in a proper set of unusual events, and solve them alongside the protagonists, and to get sense of quiet satisfaction when, at the end, all is revealed and our suspicions are proven right - or wrong, as the case may be.

There is no such satisfaction in these stories. The short story form, while noteworthy and enjoyable when applied to the right kind of tale (some of the most notable Sherlock Holmes stories are short stories), simply does not work for the kinds of mysteries that are in The Amazing Dr. Darwin. They are too big for the short story form, presenting potential that is quite literally stifled and buried by the limits of the form they were written in. Character development, too, is constrained by the limits of the form, and so characters who might have been interesting to the reader given time are done a great disservice because there is no chance for them to truly grow.

The Amazing Dr. Darwin is a rather sad case: a case of six - six! - potentially intriguing novels, nipped in the bud because they were written in the wrong kind of form. As it stands, this book might be a worthwhile introduction to a young-adult reader seeking to get into the more “mature” (and by this I mean more intellectually challenging) side of the mystery genre, or for someone who is looking for something light and not too involved. But for someone looking for a serious read, for a book they can settle into for a while, then this is certainly not the book to read.

Some stories take a while to pick up speed. This appears to be something of a pattern nowadays in fantasy novels: Elizabeth Bear???s Eternal Sky Trilogy was slow in the first book, but picked up a significant amount of speed in the second book. Brandon Sanderson???s Stormlight Archive opened with what amounted to a (very long) book-length prologue before getting down to actual plot movement in the second. Brian Staveley???s Chronicle of the Unhewn Throne also took a while to gain momentum, with the first book acting as an introduction to the world and characters before the second book set out to make up for the lack of plot in the first book while throwing out more plot for both itself, and the books to come later in the series.

But those are, I suppose, planned delays on the part of the authors, because they already know where they intend to take the story and so are willing to hold back important plot movement in favour of developing the world and/or the characters. Some series, however, start out with an unimpressive novel, but have a sequel (and hopefully, sequels) that strengthen and patch up the weaknesses and holes in the first novel. Unfortunately, these series can be hard to find???mostly because I (and other readers, I suppose) aren???t very willing to give a series a second chance if the first novel proves to be lacklustre. After all, if the first book can???t impress us, what assurance do we have that any subsequent books will be better???especially when there are series out there that can not only come off well in the first novel, but sustain that energy into the later books? My general policy, as a reader, is not to waste time on novels or series that don???t engage me very much, and I???ve tried to adhere to this policy as best as I can. (I make exceptions, however, for truly horrible novels; even if I don???t like them, I try to find it in myself to finish them, so I can report back to the world about how bad they are.)

This was almost the case with Charles Stross??? Laundry Files series. I???d read the first book, The Atrocity Archives, late last year, and while I liked quite a few aspects of it, I was also unhappy with other aspects of it: specifically, the way the female characters were portrayed, and just how closely it echoed aspects of Mike Mignola???s Hellboy graphic novels (though that latter complaint is relatively minor, as only fans of Mignola???s work would be bothered by the similarities???and even then, maybe only a handful). But since I did like some parts of it (the world, mostly???I???m a sucker for anything that can play with the Cthulhu Mythos and spin it around into something different), I decided to give the second novel a shot.

And I have to say, The Jennifer Morgue has turned out to be something I can readily appreciate, with most of the previous novel???s ills somewhat fixed, and with a plot that doesn???t make me wonder whether the BPRD is off doing else more important in the background.

The Jennifer Morgue picks up some years after the ending of The Atrocity Archives. Bob and Mo are now living together and are in what appears to be a stable romantic relationship, albeit one that???s frequently interrupted by weeks-long training sessions; overseas meetings with their European equivalents; and the occasional mission. The novel opens with Bob in Germany, on his way to attend a joint-liaison meeting, and wondering why in the world he???s being made to drive a Smart car, of all things, on the autobahn. As it turns out, however, the joint-liaison meeting isn???t all it???s cracked up to be, and in no time at all Bob finds himself attached at the hip (after a fashion) to a deadly Black Chamber agent, with whom he must cooperate to find out how they can stop a multi-billionaire with knowledge of the occult from taking over the world.

The first notable thing about this novel is how it takes a clear and distinct step away from the content in The Atrocity Archives???no hint of Hellboy here, for which I am very grateful. It does, however, pay homage to something else entirely: the archetype of the super-spy, as created by Ian Fleming, and embodied by his creation James Bond. The entire plot of The Jennifer Morgue is basically built on the plot that Fleming frequently employed in the Bond novels, and which were also used (with modifications) in the movie adaptations and expansions of his work. The novel introduces the concept of ???destiny entanglement???, wherein a person or people can be made to go through the motions of a specific plot by being made to fit into certain archetypes specific to that plot. This has many uses???not least the fact that it can be used as a near-tight security measure to protect not just one???s assets, but one???s plans and activities as well. This all fits in with the way magic???s been interpreted in Stross??? universe, and made for a very interesting and rather fun read, especially if one is familiar with the way the story lines for the Bond movies and books work. What makes this even more interesting is that the person put into what would be Bond???s role isn???t exactly very Bond-like. Bob is, by his own admission, a geek: he doesn???t like real-world violence (something that showed in the first novel, and which is shown, again, in this one); he doesn???t like killing people; and he doesn???t like abandoning others to gruesome fates if they???re innocent. In fact, his idea of revenge is hacking into another person???s computer system and turning their digital lives upside-down; anything that involves actually physically hurting that person makes him mildly queasy, especially if he???s the one who has to hurt said person. While later on it turns out that he???s not exactly Bond in this scenario, I like how he tries to play the role (or is forced to, rather) even if he does his best to fight against it. Even more interesting is what Bob reveals about the super-spy stereotype. He is everything that James Bond (as per the novels, and to some degree the movies) is not: he wasn???t born to money, he???s not wealthy, he doesn???t like gambling, and without a computer he???s about as deadly as a bolster pillow. He is the very last person anyone would imagine in the role of super-spy. What he is, in essence, is a deconstruction of the stereotype that Ian Fleming generated via James Bond.

It???s this deconstruction that I liked the most about this novel. Bond is everything a proper spy should not be???if one wants to read about proper spycraft during the era that Bond was in operation, one should read the novels of John le Carre for a more accurate portrayal. Bob reveals the weaknesses of the super-spy a la James Bond just by inhabiting the role, however briefly: his cold-bloodedness, his snobbery, and his misogyny, to say nothing of his destructive tendencies and borderline alcoholism.

Another thing that this novel improves on from the first one is how Mo is written. In my review for the first novel I complained that Mo, for all her smarts and skills, was relegated to the role of Damsel in Distress, which I found most annoying because I felt she had a great deal of potential as a character, if only she???d been given the room to show it. In The Jennifer Morgue, she is most definitely given that room: she goes from Damsel in Distress to Badass of Last Resort, the one Angleton sends in to rescue Bob. She???s also portrayed as being more vicious than Bob, capable of doing things that he might not be able to see through: something Bob remarks upon, and worries about, in the novel itself. Though she wasn???t given a lot of stage time, so to speak, it???s becoming clear that she???s going to have a much larger role in novels further down the line. Hopefully she retains her status of Badass, if not of Last Resort, then at least as someone who can provide the necessary muscle and extra smarts that Bob apparently lacks. I would also appreciate it if she were given some more time to grow as a person, as someone who is not just Damsel in Distress or Badass of Last Resort, but as a genuine human being with feelings and motivations beyond that of Bob and the Laundry.

As for the other important female character, I???m mostly happy with the way she???s been written. Succubi and incubi are interesting entities to play with, especially in the context of Stross??? world, where they are portrayed as demons (in the sense that they???re alien intelligences summoned up via complex and dangerous mathematical formulae from another universe) that possess a host. They???re not necessarily independent entities, but despite this, there are many potential problems with writing a character who???s possessed by such a thing. In his portrayal of Ramona Random, it???s fairly obvious that Stross has tried to avoid the pitfalls when writing such a character, but there were a few moments wherein he???d slip briefly into them before managing to dig his way out. I suppose I???d be more forgiving if there had been one less sex scene, and less insistence on the fact that Ramona was on the verge of falling in love with Bob.

Overall, The Jennifer Morgue is an entertaining continuation of what Stross began in The Atrocity Archives, but with far fewer Nazis and better-written female characters. The kind of magic introduced in this novel was rather fun and as far as one could get from the Hellboy flashbacks I got from reading the first novel, and even better, Mo got to do things she did not get to do in the last novel, proving that she is a force to be reckoned with???a force even Angleton has to tread carefully around. Though it???s still somewhat-problematic, this novel has sold me on the series, and I???ll get around to the next book as soon as I get it.

I???m familiar with Saint Joan of Arc, mostly thanks to a Catholic school education and a general curiosity about the lives of these people whom the Church seemed to think were pretty damn important, if they were powerful enough to bend God???s ear on behalf of us mere mortals. Like most Catholics I???m familiar with the general outline of her life story: how as a girl she had visions encouraging her to save France; how she spoke to the Dauphin and convinced him to give her an army; how she succeeded in battle until she didn???t; and then was burnt at the stake by the English for heresy. However, the memory of her victories continued to live in the memory of the French people (not least because her achievements were crucial to France winning the Hundred Years??? War), and almost five hundred years after her execution she???d be canonized as a saint, thus cementing her legendary status.

It???s a good story - a VERY good story. It???s why Joan is one of the most memorable saints in the Church???s immense roster, and why even non-religious folk know who she is and the general outline of her life and eventual death. It also helps that there are PLENTY of fictionalized depictions of her, both in print and in film, and there are almost as many non-fictional accounts of her life too. If you want to go down a rabbit hole of everything Saint Joan, you can easily do that and get lost down there for a good long while.

So: with all of these books and movies already out there, many of which are considered to be quite good, what makes Chen???s novel, in particular, stand out? Personally, I think it???s that her take on Joan is, firstly, very human, and secondly, there???s little of the divine to be seen anywhere in this story. Those two things are tied together: throughout the novel Joan???s perspective on her achievements is that SHE has accomplished them, no one else. Oh, sure, she???s aware that her talents are likely God-given, (and there???s a brief moment in the novel where she contemplates God taking those talents away and gets really scared), but more in the manner of a seed being planted in her - a seed that was nurtured under the abusive hand of her father Jacques d???Arc, and which she then found use for as she grew older.

This doesn???t mean she???s an atheist, of course, nor even an agnostic. No: Joan believes in God, but her relationship with God is different. Instead of begging and pleading to him when she prays, she bargains with him. There???s a couple scenes in the novel where she talks about how her prayers to God go, and it???s generally her talking about all these things she has done and wants to do, and then telling God ???So: what do you think? Maybe we can help each other out here.??? This is very different from the other depictions of Joan that I???ve seen, which have portrayed her as completely devoted to God and moving only as he (through her visions) commands her to. 

Speaking of visions: there???s none of that to be seen here. Oh sure, Joan has dreams, but not the visions (or hallucinations) of the saints that a lot of material out there says she had. Instead, Joan???s motivations are entirely - and heartbreakingly - human. I won???t go into the details because that way lie spoilers, but suffice to say that what gets Joan out of her home and to the court of the Dauphin has very, VERY little to do with divine inspiration, but A LOT MORE to do with entirely human (and, therefore, probably more relatable) motivations.

But that raises the question: where DID all those stories of visions and divine inspiration come from in the first place? In Chen???s novel, those are all part of a propaganda push, orchestrated by certain members of the Dauphin???s court, in order to get the Dauphin off his butt and moving in fighting back against the English and the Burgundians, and then later, after her initial victories, rumors and stories concocted by people who had encountered her and were looking for something hopeful to hang onto in the face of the despair and tragedy of the war. Again I won???t get into that too much because spoilers, but it soon becomes clear to the reader that in the novel, the legend of Joan was something other people created, and that she herself didn???t have much to do with its creation except through her actions - actions which were then taken by others and spun this way and that for their own purposes. In the novel, Joan is entirely aware of these stories, and how she deals with them is interesting to read about too. Interesting, too, is how she is aware she is being used, but decides to take that in stride and find her own way of using others in turn to achieve her own ends. 

Overall, this is a very good read, largely because I like this take on Joan: not  a saint, and not a madwoman, but someone thoroughly human, who wanted to do what she could with what she had - and accomplished a great deal, even as she went against the grain of what was expected of her as a woman. However, just as her own motivations and desires were entirely human, so too were the challenges that stood in her way - and while some she could overcome, there were more that she could not, like systemic misogyny and political maneuvering. Despite knowing the end of her story even before the novel begins, reading about this particular take on a familiar figure was quite fun, and I think other people will enjoy it too. 

Whenever I read books in a series, I have a simple policy: if the first book does not grab me, then there's no reason to continue reading the rest of it. But if the first book does grab me, I make an effort to read everything after it. This is especially true for series with more than three books; in general, I've noticed that such long series have high points and low points, and if I can come to the end of the series with a feeling of having encountered more highs than lows, I will gladly wait for the next installment. If not, I may decide to simply give up reading it for good.

In the case of the Mary Russell series, I enjoyed the first book, The Beekeeper's Apprentice, enough that I dove straight into the second one. However, A Monstrous Regiment of Women proved to be a severe disappointment, enough that I was almost reluctant to read A Letter of Mary, which was the third installment in the series. Nevertheless, keeping true to my policy, I read through it, and found it better than its predecessor, though not quite as good as the first. It was still enough, though, to restore some of my faith in this series, and so I picked up The Moor, the fourth book.

At first, the title brought to mind (in my case, anyway) visions of exotic, distant lands - mostly because I was thinking of the word “moor” with a capital, as in “Moor.” I had visions of Russell and Holmes going out of England and encountering mystery and adventure in Egypt, perhaps, or Morocco, or even in Spain, since the south of that country was an important center for Moorish culture before the Reconquista. I was, however, mistaken: the “Moor” in the title should have been read without capitals, thus referring to the cold, lonely wastes deep in the heart of England - exotic, to be sure, albeit significantly colder.

But this did not disappoint me - far from it, it rather excited me, because the word “moor” is crucial to the place-name of “Dartmoor,” and Dartmoor is the setting of what might arguably be called the most famous Holmes story: The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The story begins with Russell working away on a paper at Oxford, determinedly ignoring (at first) Holmes's demands that she go to Dartmoor. A few insistent telegraphs later, Russell decides that she's had enough, throws what she can into a bag, and travels on out to meet her husband. Once there they take up residence at Lew Trenchard Manor, where Holmes has been invited by his old friend Sabine Baring-Gould to work out the mystery behind the reappearance of the Hound of the Baskervilles - or rather, something very much like it. As in The Hound of the Baskervilles, things are never as simple as they seem, and what starts out as a favor to an old friend turns into something far different, with more to do with earthly crimes than supernatural curses.

It could be that I am biased towards the more “active” of the Holmes stories, but I enjoyed this more than A Letter of Mary, and significantly more than A Monstrous Regiment of Women. While frequent walks through the moors in all weather conditions might not be as exciting as, say, chasing fugitives down the Thames in a boat (as in The Sign of Four), or even dodging potential bomb threats (as was the case in The Beekeeper's Apprentice), those meanderings through the moors, and, in particular, the people Russell encounters, are incredibly interesting to me. Some might consider all this rambling and talks of hot baths and sucking mud and moor songs entirely uninteresting, but I find them incredibly fascinating, very much in the same way Baring-Gould himself might have found them fascinating.

I will admit, however, that the descriptions do slow the pace down a bit. I refer in particular to Russell's first attempt to go across the moor on a horse, gathering information as she goes. While gathering information is indeed crucial to the solution of any mystery, and though I did enjoy the way Russell described the places and people she encountered along the way, I did think the story got bogged down in that portion. Something more exciting could have happened, and though I will not complain overmuch, I do think it could have been improved a little, just to make the plot go a bit more quickly.

Unlike with the last two novels, I do not have any particular complaints about the perpetrators and their motives for this novel, despite the presence of a red herring. But in this instance, the red herring was not as central as the one in A Letter of Mary, and hence did not interfere overmuch with my enjoyment of the story. This time around, concluding the tale, and reaching that conclusion, were not as disappointing as in the last two novels.

Despite the rather slow pace of this book, it actually approaches, in terms to my enjoyment of it, the first of the series. It's not quite as good as the first, but it does go some way towards fixing the disappointment left by the second and third books in the series. Once more I can look to the next in the series with anticipation, and hopefully, it will be closer to the first than this one was - or, dare I hope, even better.

Another issue that bothers me about this novel is how the author has used the Mythos without questioning its racist and classist underpinnings. As I have mentioned in my other reviews, more and more authors are beginning to realise that the Mythos is not as uncomplicated creators used to assume (or wanted to assume), and therefore have begun to take steps towards addressing that, creating works that showcase the dark underbelly of Lovecraft???s politics, which are embedded throughout his work.Unfortunately, this novel does not attempt to do any of that. While Watson???s thoughtfulness regarding his privilege is laudable, echoing as it does Dickens??? own interest in and concern for the conditions of the poor in Victorian London, the lack of any such thoughtfulness where the Mythos is concerned bothers me. This lack of awareness regarding the darker side of the Mythos is a blind spot with a lot of creators ??? hopefully not a deliberate one, in the case of the author of this novel.

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

Ever since film became a viable, profitable storytelling medium, there???s been a trend towards adapting stories told in other media. Stage plays were first, for obvious reasons, but moviemakers were soon adapting novels for the screen, in the same way that some novels had been adapted for the stage. Gone with the Wind began life as a novel before it was adapted for the silver screen and became a hit, proving that book-to-screen adaptations could be incredibly profitable. Jane Austen???s novels (particularly Pride and Prejudice) have received the box office treatment many times over the years. Most recently, adaptations of such entire series of novels, like The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter and The Hunger Games prove that not just standalone novels, but entire series, could be turned into movies that could be both critically-acclaimed and incredibly popular.

The same trend occurred when television became popular. Since producers could run a series of episodes on TV instead of telling an entire novel???s worth of story in one film, TV became another avenue for adaptation, especially for entire series of short stories or novels. Mysteries, in particular, were well-suited to TV adaptation: the Sherlock Holmes and Ms. Marple stories, for example, have been adapted several times for the small screen, and were???and still are???immensely popular. A good example of the latest approach to TV adaptation is the HBO series Game of Thrones, an adaptation (at least as far as Season 3; more recent seasons might be more kindly and politely described as ???revisions???) of George R. R. Martin???s A Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series has proven that it is possible to throw a movie-sized budget at a TV series, and have it do very well indeed. Since then, more and more studios are adapting books using talent drawn from the silver screen and the pacing of TV to tell the story. The latest example of this is the BBC???s adaptation of Susanna Clarke???s Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

Perhaps because of this trend, some writers appear to think that writing a story first as a book, instead of going straight to TV or film, is a good idea. I suppose they view the bookstore as a testing ground, of sorts: if their story gains enough popularity as a novel, maybe that means it will continue to be popular as a TV show or movie.

The above is my personal theory as to why Justin Richards??? The Suicide Exhibition is a novel. Another theory is that Richards is more adept at writing novelistic extensions of TV shows???in his case, Doctor Who???and so that influence seeps into his other writing. Whatever the case, The Suicide Exhibition might work well as a TV show, perhaps as a miniseries, but it doesn???t function very well as a novel.

The Suicide Exhibition opens on the early years of World War II. The Nazis have come into possession of a mysterious weapon: an ancient, mystical power that could turn the tide of the war in their favour. However, the existence of this weapon is not as secret as they might like: British intelligence has gotten wind of it, and is doing its best to figure out just what it is the Nazis have, what they intend to do with it, and how to stop them.

However, neither the British nor the Nazis know the true nature of the power the Nazis have unearthed: ancient, yes, and mystical, yes, but capable of independent thought???and it desires nothing less than the destruction and subjugation of the entire human race.

The first thing that came into my mind when I started reading this novel was: Hellboy. Everything about it???Nazis, the Vril, ancient tombs, secret government organisations???all pointed back to the first Hellboy story arc, except with slightly less Lovecraft and slightly more Indiana Jones. At that point I started comparing the novel to what I remembered of Hellboy, and found the novel wanting. I realised later, though that the comparison was hardly fair to the novel: after all, there are only so many ways one can make use of the Nazis??? historical involvement with occult matters, right? Also, Hellboy was another kind of story entirely, and so, although the surface elements were remarkably similar (perhaps too similar, for my liking), I would need another, fairer point of comparison.

A bit more reading led to me decide that perhaps Indiana Jones was the better point of comparison. After all, this novel was shaping into an adventure story, and shared the Nazi occult element with Raiders of the Lost Ark. From there it was easy to spot the other elements that made this novel more akin to not just the Indiana Jones movies, but the Tintin comics and the Allan Quartermain novels???though hopefully The Suicide Exhibition would do away with the racism and misogyny inherent to the aforementioned examples.

But even with those adjusted expectations, I still wasn???t quite happy with it. The most immediate issue is usually the quality of the writing, but that didn???t seem to be the problem, since Richards is a master at world-building with a few choice phrases, as the quote below shows:

An artist???s likeness was circulated, but no one reported seeing a walking corpse. Possibly there were so many emaciated and sleep-deprived Londoners that he didn???t seem so out of place. Possibly people had better things to concentrate on, like surviving.

Although there are other parts of the novel that make clear that London is in the middle of the Blitz, the above quotes shows that Richards is able to succinctly capture what it was like for Londoners to live in constant terror of a bomb dropping onto them at any time. He does this with his other descriptions as well, such as this description of a very notable, very important man further on in the novel:

The General Secretary sat a large desk at the side of a huge office. He did not look up when they came in, gave no acknowledgement that he knew Mikhael and the three men with him had arrived. The four of them stood to attention in front of the desk, waiting.After several minutes, the Secretary put down his pen, and looked up. He fixed his deep, dark eyes on Mikhael, his stare so intense he might be looking into the man???s soul. Still he said nothing.???There was silence for several moments, then Secretary leaned forward to study the photographs again. It was obvious that the meeting was over. Mikhael waited for one of the others to move first, then followed them from the room. At the door, he glanced back at the man at the desk???still absorbed in his work. He could see why he had adopted the name ???man of steel??????Stalin.

Both quotes show that, whatever else might be problematic about his writing, Richards can not only turn a good phrase, but he can also incorporate historical events and figures seamlessly into his writing. This is a good thing, though also to be expected from someone whose bread-and-butter is mostly writing Doctor Who novels. Still, as someone who???s read some excruciatingly bad historical novels (even those touched by the fantastic, like this one), it???s clear Richards has taken the time to sit down, do research, and incorporate that research as seamlessly as possible into his story, and I can readily appreciate it.

However, although Richards??? writing itself isn???t bad, The Suicide Exhibition has one very large issue that gets in the way of everything else: its pacing. The novel starts very slow, and only really starts to pick up towards the end. Now, this isn???t normally an issue with me: I???m quite happy to have a book start out slow and then pick up towards the end, especially if it???s the beginning of a series (and The Suicide Exhibition is, indeed, just such a book). I expect that sort of thing because I understand the writer???s need to establish the setting and the characters, and to move necessary plot points into just the right position so that everything can move a bit faster in the sequels, thus keeping the overall story moving forward to the very end of the series.

But I don???t feel the same way about the slow start of this novel. Since Richards has already proven he can pack a lot of world-building in a very small space, and since the facts of World War II are well-known to most readers (thanks in large part to the many documentaries and movies made over the years), the slow start has nothing to do with world-building. Therefore, if it???s not about world-building, then it must be about character development: building up both protagonists and antagonists so that the reader can become attached to them, or at the very least interested in them.

Unfortunately, that???s not the case. There is very little development for any of the characters; they all fit into certain stereotypes, and never leave them (especially annoying in the case of the female characters). While I understand that a certain amount of stereotyping happens in adventure novels because of the focus on plot, what I do not understand is why Richards let such stereotyping happen at all when there was no urgent need to keep the plot constantly moving forward. The Suicide Exhibition is the first book in a series: the plot can understandably take some time off for other things because it has room to grow. Why Richards does not take advantage of that to truly build his characters into interesting, three-dimensional people worth spending time with is beyond me. As it stands, his characters are irritating to read about: the protagonists are barely fleshed-out caricatures of a list of character traits from TVTropes, and the antagonists (the human ones, anyway) are no better. The only good thing about the human antagonists is that they don???t cackle threateningly to themselves, although they do have a mysterious castle lair (which actually existed anyway: stereotypes must come from somewhere, after all).

Of course, my problems with the characterisation and pace wouldn???t be as much of an issue if this story were presented in some other manner???say, as a TV show. As I???ve said earlier, Richards??? bread-and-butter is writing Doctor Who novels, and all the characteristics of The Suicide Exhibition point towards the very heavy influence of TV. The pacing and characterisation are the most obvious examples of this influence, but even the way the story jumps from the point-of-view of one character to another so closely mimics the cinematography and editing of Doctor Who that I half-expected the TARDIS to show up at some point and for the Doctor and his companion to step out and take the Vril head-on.

This leads me to an interesting question: why did Richards choose to present this story as a novel, rather than as the treatment for a potential TV show? As it stands, it has all the potential elements for a good TV series???perhaps it could even compete with Agent Carter, after it???s been overhauled somewhat. Richards works with the BBC; he could have tried to find a way to pitch this whole idea as its own show. I imagine pitching it as a show won???t be as difficult for him, compared to someone coming in from the outside. So why didn???t he go that route?

Two potential answers come to mind: the first is that the idea for a TV show was rejected, and Richards decided not to waste the story so chose to publish it as a book instead. The second is that Richards chose to go with a novel first as a way to ???test the waters???, so to speak, for his story, and if it gained enough attention and popularity, he could then present it as a potential TV show. Or there may be some other, third answer at work that I can???t imagine because I???m not Richards and I do not work in the same industry he does. Whatever the true answer may be, it still doesn???t change the fact that this story, as Richards wrote and presented it in The Suicide Exhibition, doesn???t exactly belong on a bookshelf, but on TV.

Overall, The Suicide Exhibition has all the potential to make a great TV show, but it doesn???t work very well as a novel. While Richards??? world-building is well done, and it???s clear his research is solid, those qualities do not excuse the shallow characterisation and agonising pace of the first two-thirds of the novel, with the plot only really picking up speed in the latter third. The reader can easily imagine all the action happening onscreen (not least because of the way the point-of-view jumps are structured), so why this has to be a novel in the first place, instead of a TV show, is rather puzzling. Richards likely has his reasons, but it???s very clear to any reader that this novel should have gone straight to TV, and not made a stopover on the bookshelf???at least, not without some serious overhauling to make it better as a novel.

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

“However, while [there] are good reasons to pick up this book, there are other reasons that a reader might not want to. Chief of those is the plot, which isn???t as cohesive as I think it should be. To be sure, it starts out all right, and there???s something to be said for the breadth and varying viewpoints that following three different characters can achieve, but by around the midway point it becomes utterly chaotic. It???s like the reader???s equivalent of being in the back of a cart with the reins on the horses cut loose: uncontrollable and inescapable.

“Because of this, everything else that???s good about this novel suffers...”

I consider myself one of the lucky ones when I say that I have some good memories of college. I know that a lot of people don't, that there are plenty who look back at their high school years with more fondness, but in my case, it's my time as a college undergrad that I look back upon with rose-tinted glasses - or glasses tinted as rosily as I think is appropriate, because I'm very much aware that that time wasn't entirely perfect. Either way, I still think of it as a good period of my life, and if I could do it all over again, I think I would.

One of the best things that came out of that time was the friendships I made. Not all of those friendships last until today, but the few that do remain are pretty strong. Hope was one of the friends I made during that time who is still a part of my life today, and there's been a great many times when we've reminisced on what it might have been like if the state of our friendship today had been the same as the state of our friendship then. We've both agreed that if we shared a dorm room, we might have gotten along very well indeed: we share the same taste in books, food, and people, and our personalities make the other relatively easy to live with. We share this amusing scenario of a dream wherein we room together in an enormous penthouse loft in some ultra-modern, ultra-cultured city, like New York or Seattle, while attending some really fancy university. We'd be taking different courses, and would have friends who weren't mutual, but the currents of our lives would exist pleasantly alongside and commingle with the other's.

It was because of the above scenario (plus the fact that our reading tastes overlap significantly) that Hope all but threw Pamela Dean's Tam Lin at me, saying that if I loved her, and if I loved “Classics Boys”, I'd read it. At the time I was still getting through Pariah but it's not often that Hope reacts with such enthusiasm to a book she's just read, so I knew it would be more than worth my time.

However, I was not prepared for the fact that reading this book would be the equivalent of getting run over by a truck - and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.

Tam Lin is part of The Fairytale Series, a set of books that take old fairy tales and folklore, spun into something new by a host of notable genre authors. As can be inferred from the title, Dean takes the old Scottish ballad titled Tam Lin, and uses it as the base for a story that is not just a new take on an old story, but also a love letter to one's youth and college life. The protagonist is one Janet Carter, a freshman at Blackstock College, where she's determined to finish with a degree in English once she's done, and perhaps continue on to graduate studies if she feels like it. While there she experiences everything college has to offer: stress, friendship, love, and college legends, all at more or less the same time.

Now, there are a handful of caveats that the reader may encounter when picking up this book. The first is that it's long: for some people, that's enough of a problem already. If length is not a problem, then the next caveat might be slow plot buildup, because Dean really takes her time to build up everything up to the story's climax. The third caveat is that it's a novel which focuses on an English major who is friends with Classics majors, and so there's a lot of material here that might go right over the head of someone who didn't major in those subjects, or has no interest in them at all. Any of those three, in any combination, are the primary reasons why a lot of reviewers have either given up on it entirely, or have chosen to give the book negative reviews.

For my part, though, those three caveats are the three primary reasons why I kept on reading this book in the first place. I also think that there's a reason Dean takes the approach she does, but it does take some patience - and, all right, some small interest in literature - to truly appreciate what, precisely, she's done.

Now, it must be said that my opinion is colored by the fact that I am what would be considered an English major (though at my university the course is termed, correctly I think, as “Literature,” because we study more than just the typical English-language classics). I am familiar with many of the writers and works Dean mentions in the novel, even if there are plenty I've never heard of before, or have only a vague memory of. And I suppose it's this familiarity, this interest in these works, even if I haven't even heard of some of them until now, that drives much of my enjoyment of the admittedly slow build-up that is Janet's first year in Blackstock.

The same can be said of Hope, who, as I mentioned earlier, practically threw this book at me as soon as she was done with it. She doesn't have the same kind of formal training as I do when it comes to studying literary works, but she has a depth and breadth of reading that exceeds mine, and she shares the same kind of interest and appreciation as I do for the works Dean mentions and quotes from. It also helps that she has a character to parallel her in the novel: if I, as the Literature major, parallel Janet, then she, as the Biology major with an immense fondness for reading, parallels Molly.

That's another thing that drove my enjoyment of this book: recognizing not only myself in the protagonist, but seeing a good friend of mine in one of the other important characters. That sense of recognition is, I'm sure, one of the main reasons why I love this book as much as I do, especially since it fulfills, in a vicarious manner, the thing that Hope and I have talked about in wistful tones every now and then: the chance to experience what it would be like being roommates in college. To be sure, reading about it in Tam Lin is a pale shadow of what it would actually be like, but as far as sharing experiences go, it's certainly a lot more accessible than going back in time and tweaking the paths of our respective lives so that we wind up attending the same university and sharing a dorm room.

That pleasure of recognition extends to the works Dean makes use of throughout the book. When Janet mentions a list of books she's brought with her from home, the first thing I did was look those books up - and these aren't even the works she's supposed to be studying as an English major, just books she brought along with her to read for pleasure. As the book goes on and more works and more writers are quoted and referenced - Shakespeare and Keats are just two of the most-quoted and most referenced - the pleasure of recognition became a very fun game, and, more importantly, a key in laying down the groundwork for the concluding events of the novel.

Which leads me to another complaint that a lot of reviewers have about the plot: how the ending supposedly feels too sudden, and that all the literary references are “pretentious”. Regarding the latter, I think that anyone who calls Dean's constant allusions and quotation of literary works pretentious is either too lazy to broaden their reading horizons to include such works, or else is trying to cover up for the fact that they did not think to use those allusions in the way Dean intended them: as clues for what happens at the end. This is where being a Literature major (for my part) or being a reader with a very deep and very wide experience of reading (as in Hope's case) really helps out, because it is in the literary allusions and references in the first three-fourths of the novel that Dean lays down the clues that make it clear what happens at the end. It's easy to miss them if one gets lost in enjoying the slice-of-life nature of that part of the novel (as I did), or if one is simply missing them entirely due to a lack of familiarity with them, or one simply didn't think to use them that way - though honestly, how someone could have missed that is rather puzzling once one reaches the novel's midway point. At that point it's made quite clear that something isn't quite right (though sharper readers will pick it up much earlier than that), so I rather think only the dullest or most impatient of readers will miss all the clues entirely.

Overall, Tam Lin is an extraordinary book: entertaining and delightful in some rather unexpected ways, while at the same time feeling like the book equivalent of a cold day in bed: something to curl up in while ignoring the rest of the world, if only for the book's duration. However, it is not a book one can simply rush through and be over with in a few hours, no matter how quickly one might read. It is very much like a stern, but efficient, teacher: rewarding for the patient and the attentive, while punishing for the impatient and the sloppy. Pamela Dean knows her ideal readers, and like any writer worth her salt chooses to write with those ideal readers in mind. The question is whether one is part of that intended audience or not, and those who are not are free to leave as they choose - and miss out on all the wonders and joys of what has to be one of the finest stories I've read in a very long time.

Every time I pick up a new book, I go into it with certain expectations, especially if it's a book in a genre I enjoy and have a lot of books about, or have read a few books that I really, really enjoyed. Most of the time I try to keep my own expectations as low as possible, but sometimes that's very difficult to do, and wind up holding all new books to the (sometimes very) high standards set by the books I've read before. My professor would say that this is to be expected, that readers ought to expect the very best from the writers they choose to read, but I do really want to try to give all writers a fair chance - or not, if I already know the writing is going to be nothing short of a train wreck (as it was with Fifty Shades of Grey).

This is especially true with books that are compared to Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastards books, or to Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan Saga. When someone recommending a book to me says: “Oh, the protagonist is a lot like Locke from Lynch's books!” or “The lead reminds me of Miles Vorkosigan,” that already sets my expectations to somewhere at the higher end of the scale, as opposed to the more accepting middle range. So when my friend Matthew said that Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn trilogy had a protagonist who was like Locke Lamora, I expected the books to be just as good as Scott Lynch's books - which they were, though for very different reasons than just the protagonist being like Locke Lamora, and that's perfectly fine by me. If a book can break away from the premise in which it was recommended to me and still prove itself to be an enjoyable read, then that's a very good thing indeed.

It was with this in mind that I started reading The Crown Conspiracy by Michael J. Sullivan, the first book in his Riyria Revelations series. It was recommended to me by someone on a forum I take part in from time to time, when I asked for recommendations for books that were like the Gentlemen Bastards series (at the time I was in a post-Red Seas Under Red Skies hangover and was desperate for anything like Lynch's books to soothe me down from my high). It was recommended to me on the basis that the two protagonists had a similar dynamic to Locke and Jean from the Gentlemen Bastards, and since that dynamic is one of the things I find so fun about Lynch's books, I figured there was no harm in trying Sullivan's out.

And then I promptly forgot all about the series until very recently: after I read Republic of Thieves, the most recent novel in the Gentlemen Bastards series.

Feeling rather sheepish about the whole thing, I've realized that if I don't actually pick up the first book and sit down to read it, and since I was already feeling quite nostalgic for Locke and his crew, there was no better time to actually give Sullivan's series a shot.

The Crown Conspiracy opens with a pair of men: one is named Hadrian, the other is named Royce. Hadrian is the tank with a heart of gold, and Royce is the more classical rogue with grayer morals. Together they're the main team of a group called Riyria: professional thieves who can accomplish all manner of skullduggery, but only for the right price. But Hadrian can sometimes be honorable to a fault, so when he accepts a job without doing a thorough background check on the matter, it lands him and Royce in hot water - the kind of situation that could get them killed, unless they accomplish a series of seemingly serendipitous tasks that will bring them fortune, and hopefully a modicum of gratitude, if they can survive long enough to see everything through.

Now, reading the above, one could say that it looks a great deal like a blurb for the first two Gentlemen Bastards novels (though more accurately for the first novel, The Lies of Locke Lamora). However, any similarities end at the blurb, because while The Lies of Locke Lamora had me swinging between manic giggling and outright screaming (in delight, horror, and anguish) at the book, The Crown Conspiracy had me raising my eyebrow and questioning the wisdom and intelligence of the characters I was reading about - and I do not mean the latter in a good way.

One of the very first things I look for in a fantasy novel is world building. As I've said many times before, I don't mind having to work a little to understand a world, but the world itself must be interesting enough to make me want to learn about it in the first place. I didn't have to do this in the least with the world of The Crown Conspiracy, but not because it was so well-written that immersion and comprehension of the world came easily. I didn't have to work hard to understand it because the world felt generic: no different from the standard Western Medieval-esque setting that so many other fantasy novels take place in. I held out hope for a while in the beginning, because there were hints that it might turn out to be something akin to the world of the Witcher books but with a different sort of twist, but that didn't turn out to be the case. Nothing about the world stood out to me: not the geography, not the mythology (whatever precious little there was of it that was mentioned), not the people - nothing really stood out. Even the races are pretty standard: humans, dwarves, and elves, with no new spin on their culture to make them different from all the other iterations I'd already encountered, not just in books, but in video games, as well.

As for the characters, there is some light there, but not much. There's nothing wrong with characters slotting neatly into certain archetypes (Hadrian into the “honorable thief” slot; Royce into the “mysterious and brooding” slot), but it is problematic when there's nothing else to distinguish them. Hadrian and Royce are slightly interesting because they have the good fortune to be the series' main protagonists; everybody else, however, gets shortchanged - especially the women. Only one woman appears to have any agency at all in the novel, and then it gets yanked out from under her by a male antagonist, whereupon she needs rescuing by one of the male protagonists despite supposedly having certain abilities of her own she could have used to rescue herself. There are other female characters, but one is set up as the love interest for one of the male protagonists, and the other looks well on her way to being set up as such, so I honestly don't know what to make of them, except perhaps to feel a sense of disappointment that they could not have been characterized better.

And the plot. Oh, the plot. Given the title I was expecting something rather large, something to do with royals getting killed, or kidnapped, or swapped around in a deadly game of political musical chairs while the rest of the country got torn apart in rebellion and war. I was expecting dramatic escapes and amazing feats of derring-do. All of those things are in the novel - except crammed into a story that is far too short to really draw out the dramatic potential of the setup at the beginning. The entire thing is squeezed into ten chapters, and the whole plot spools out, one event after another, linked by flimsy coincidences and happenstances that allow the whole thing to lurch forward to its conclusion. There is no time taken to build suspense, or if there is an attempt to create tension it doesn't work very well at all, and every time someone's life appears to be in danger I never get any sense of genuine threat to their lives. There aren't any plot twists, either, and it's quite easy to predict plot events - all the way to the very end. And this is really, truly unfortunate.

Overall, The Crown Conspiracy is a disappointment on almost every level: the world building is weak; the characters are briefly interesting but in the end completely uninspiring; the female characters are a genuine disappointment; and the plot is predictable and far too short for what it initially promised. I suppose that the comparison made to Scott Lynch's books may have set the bar for my expectations extraordinarily high, but even if the comparison had not been made I think I would still have found it a disappointment. This is truly unfortunate, because I really did want to like this novel, but I simply can't find it in myself to find a reason to do so. This might be an okay read for someone who hasn't really gotten into the fantasy genre yet and is finding a way in, but veteran readers of the genre would do their best to stay far away from it.

The Merry Gentry books have been one of my personal guilty pleasures for a while now, so much so that I tend to reread at least one of the books at least once a year. To be sure, they're not the best kind of paranormal romance I could possibly pick up and read, but I'm fond of them regardless for reasons I can't really explain. So when I found that there was a ninth book in the series, and that it had been out since 2014, I got myself a copy and read it on one of those days when by brain just wasn't feeling up to anything too heavy.

Now, while my standards for my guilty pleasure reads are significantly lower than my standards for the other kinds of reading I do, I have to say that this book didn't quite meet even those lowered standards. The story seemed to ramble around pointlessly for three-fourths of the book, and then all the action came in a rush towards the end, reaching a climax that I didn't even particularly like because it just didn't make sense. If there's a sequel to this one I hope it's a lot better than this go-round.

This review is based on an ARC given to me for free by the publisher, Angry Robot Books. This does not in any way affect my review.This book is slated for release on September 4, 2018.

... The Wrong Stars dealt with a rather weighty set of themes involving history and identity via the alien race called the Liars. The Dreaming Stars, however, is not as weighty, since it focuses less on thematic underpinnings and more on the plot. While it does touch upon questions connected to the neuroscientific nature of morality and ethics, as well as briefly looks into questions of revolution and uprising (???storming the Bastille??? indeed), it does not really get into them very much. They are there for readers to find and think upon, but the story does not really get into them very much.

That does not, however, make the story less entertaining, nor does it mean that other aspects of the story are not explored. For instance, in The Wrong Stars many of the secondary characters like Stephen got a bit shortchanged in the development, with most of the focus put on Callie, Elena, and Lantern. In The Dreaming Stars, though, that changes a bit, with more emphasis placed on growing the characters based on their interactions with each other. Given the events of the previous novel it???s a given that a portion of the story would be devoted to Callie and Elena???s relationship (which is refreshingly healthy, incidentally), there is also a lot of space devoted to the other characters ??? to Stephen, in particular. Sebastien???s character is also explored, though the reader is likely to view him in a more ambivalent light, all things considered.

As a reader, I???m always looking for that little something extra: a kind of spark, a bit of bite, a touch of richness, that makes a book really stand out for me. For the most part, I???ve been lucky: many of the books I???ve read in the past few years since I started actively writing and posting reviews have had that little bit extra, and I can usually compile a nice long list of them at the end of every year.

However, it???s also true that there are plenty of books that don???t quite get there, either. Some are just bad, or boring: still worth reviewing, but with varying degrees of venom laced into the words. There are also some books that are so bad, I don???t bother reviewing them at all, because they aggravate me so much I???d just wind up writing in long, complicated circles that don???t make any sense at all. In those cases, I leave it up to others to do the writing, though if I???m asked, in person, what I think of a book I really don???t like, I???m more than happy to act the part of windbag and keep talking about how much I hate it till the cows come home. (Making sense is not always required in such instances, but I do try.)

Having just come off of a rather bad read, I was looking for something a bit more pleasant, something that would help me forget the fiasco I???d just read and put me in a better mood. Some restless flicking through my Kindle reminded me that I???d acquired a copy of Marshall Ryan Maresca???s The Thorn of Dentonhill not too long after its release, and I thought it was as good a book as any to (hopefully) start an upswing in my reading.

The Thorn of Dentonhill is the first book in Maresca???s Maradaine series, and is also his debut novel. Set in the fantasy city of Maradaine, it tells the story of Veranix Calbert, who by day is a magic student at the University of Maradaine, but by night is a vigilante who goes out and tries to break the drug trade headed by the infamous Willem Fenmere, one deal at a time. However, when Veranix spoils a trade and finds not drugs, but a pair of magical items, he realises that he now has the power to really put the hurt on Fenmere???and in doing so, draws the ire of an even more powerful and dangerous enemy.

The first thing I noticed about this novel???and the first thing that really lifted my spirits???was the world-building, though it could use some work. For example: the city of Maradaine. On the surface, it reads like an actual city: people engage in commerce, go to see shows, and street gangs work their territories according to unspoken rules. However, there is a certain lack of life, of vibrancy to the descriptions of the city that would actually make it live, so to speak, in the reader???s mind. I???ve said before that cities are characters in their own right (like Scott Lynch???s Camorr, for instance, or Ben Aaronovitch???s version of London in the Peter Grant novels), but Maradaine just isn???t quite that. It???s clear that it functions as a city, but it lacks a certain unique character of its own, something that really makes a city, a city. Hopefully that???s something that will change in later books, because Maradaine clearly has the potential to become a unique and interesting city, and I hope Maresca gives it its own character further down the line.

Another aspect of the world-building that worked, but not quite, is the magic system. For the most part, it makes sense, operating on a system that appears, for the most part, to be coherent: not everyone is born with the ability to use magic (or numina, as it???s called in the novel), but those who can, can both wield it and sense it???to varying degrees of skill. Some people are better at sensing numina than wielding it, while others are the reverse, capable of doing some wondrous things with numina while not being very good at sensing it. Working with numina, however, isn???t without its downsides: mages deplete their own physical energy when they work with numina, and if they push themselves too far, the results could be deadly. It???s not clear in the book if one can be good at both drawing and wielding numina, though it???s hinted that hard work and dedication can improve the weaker ability over time. There???s also quite a bit of talk about how certain objects can be imbued with numina, as well as the potential effects of specific astronomic events, but those aren???t really delved into, though they do form part of the plot???s backbone.

All of the above makes sense???and, more importantly, actually works in the context of the world itself. However, I do feel like the system could have been made a bit deeper, a touch more complex, in order to make it more interesting. I think this lack of depth has more to do with the general ???smallness??? of the setting, since there???s plenty of talk about how other people use numina in places outside of Maradaine, but the reader is never really shown what that kind of magic looks like. Hopefully that will change in later novels.

As for the characters, they???re a charming-enough bunch, and fit into their world remarkably well. Veranix is just fine as a character, for the most part, but he???s not as interesting as I think he could be. While his temper and impulsiveness are quite fun to read about, especially when they get him to scrapes, he didn???t feel as well-rounded as I think he ought to be. He???s not totally intolerant to read about, but I did find myself wishing he was more than just the charming student/vigilante with a dark past.

Fortunately, the other characters are interesting to read about???sometimes more so than Veranix. I have a soft spot for Colin, Veranix???s cousin, who is a captain of the Rose Street Princes, a gang who control the territory just outside of the University of Maradaine. The contrast he makes to Veranix???rough around the edges, but far more circumspect about his actions???make him very appealing to read about. I also really like Delmin, Veranix???s friend, who isn???t very good at manipulating numina but is exceptionally talented at sensing it. Again, I like that he acts as a balance to Veranix, playing the role of the bookish friend who really wants to stay out of trouble but is capable of doing extraordinary things when the need calls for it. And then there is Kaiana Nell. If Veranix has a real partner in this novel, it would have to be her: she and Veranix have the same goals (put an end to Fenmere???s drug trade), but unlike Veranix, she can???t really do anything concrete. As a Napa woman, she is doubly oppressed, both for her gender and her race, and this means she doesn???t have the same freedom as Veranix does to conduct a guerrilla war against the man they both hate. However, she is the one Veranix relies on to be there when things go wrong; throughout the course of the novel, he states, again and again and in various ways, that he trusts Kaiana with everything, his own life included. In fact, without her, he would be unable to conduct his war against Fenmere. It???s not certain whether or not she and Veranix will eventually go into a romantic relationship, but I really, truly hope that she and Veranix remain friends, not least because it would break away from the expected course and add them to the very short of male and female characters who are great platonic, instead of romantic, partners.Unfortunately, Kaiana is the only female character of any true significance in this novel: a dearth I felt keenly as I kept on waiting for more, equally interesting female characters to show up. A few women street gang members were presented, along with some drug addicts and a handful of prostitutes, but they weren???t around for very long and never appeared again. Although I???d be very happy to read more about Kaiana, I would appreciate it even more if there were other, equally significant female characters: a female student, perhaps, or a professor, or even a street gang leader???just someone with a role as important as Kaiana???s.I also found myself raising my eyebrow somewhat at the villains, with the exception of Fenmere, who was a rather pleasant surprise. Fenmere turned out to be more interesting after a while: worthy of the condemnation heaped upon him by Veranix and Kaiana and everybody else in the novel, to be sure, but there???s something about him that I find intriguing. I don???t expect him to become a sympathetic character, but he does, at least, appear to have more to him than just his brutality and sadism.The same can???t be said for the mages of the Blue Hand. They seemed rather cartoonish to me: the sort of villains who cackle in their lairs and yell ???You will pay for this!??? over their shoulders as they make their escape. Given that the Blue Hand are supposed to be a greater threat than Fenmere, I was hoping there would be more facets to their villainy, but there were none???or at least, none that I could see in this novel. Hopefully they???re developed into a true and proper threat in later novels.

As for the plot, like everything else mentioned so far it???s quite fun, but it could do with some improvement. It starts out somewhat slow, but doesn???t take long to pick up speed as the novel progresses, with Veranix???s temper and impulsiveness powering the whole thing along until the climax. There were a few twists thrown in there, but I found myself wishing that there were more, or that the ones that already existed were even more twisted and unexpected in their outcomes. As they stand, they aren???t all that bad, but I keep getting the sense that they could be more, somehow, that if Maresca had pushed just a bit harder, just a bit farther, then the end result would be something spectacular indeed.

Overall, <>The Thorn of Dentonhill is a charming, easy fantasy read, and altogether not a bad debut novel. There???s plenty of things that I think could be tweaked???richer world-building; better character development; and deeper plot???but as things stand, it isn???t bad at all. At the very least, it makes me look forward to the other Maradaine book coming out later this year, which promises to show more aspects of the city through the eyes of a new cast of characters. I look forward to reading about Veranix and his companions though, and I hope that when we next meet, things will have taken a turn for the better.

It???s supposed to be a compliment when one is capable of leaving another ???wanting more???. If one is to believe the fashionistas and tastemakers of the world, to leave another wanting more is a sign of one???s capability for restraint and discretion, whether in one???s clothes or in one???s manners. Leave them wanting more, so saith the experts, and they will keep coming back for more.

This is an equally appealing trait in storytelling. A good storyteller, regardless of the medium they choose to work with, will be able to create a narrative that leaves the reader wanting to know more. This is especially true when one is telling a story of some length: whether it???s a movie or television series, or a comic book story arc, or a novel series, there has to be something to keep the reader or viewer coming back for more. And a good storyteller will be able to find that hook, and not only find it, but sustain it for as long as necessary.

However, a good storyteller knows that a story can go on for far too long. Some television shows, for instance, go on for far, far longer than they ought, as do some comic books, and occasionally to novels. There is only so much length a given story can have, and if the storyteller attempts to overreach that length, it can lead to a great deal of annoyance and frustration.

The opposite???the potential story being too big for the confines finally imposed upon it???is somewhat rarer, but it does happen. I often joke that I turn a book over and shake it out to see if some more plot will fall out; occasionally I mean this as a compliment, to signify my eagerness for a sequel that will come out, but sometimes, I mean it because I feel a particular novel could have been longer, but isn???t. It was the latter, somewhat-less-flattering sense that I got when I finished Teresa Frohock???s Miserere: An Autumn Tale.

Miserere tells the story of Lucian Negru, once a famed exorcist and warrior for the Christian bastion on Woerld, who betrayed his lover and his leaders in an attempt to save his sister, Catarina. Unfortunately, Catarina tricked him, and instead made an alliance with the denizens of Hell to bring the forces of a Fallen Angel to World and from there, to Earth and then on to Heaven, in exchange for rulership of all of Woerld. However, he manages to escape from his sister, and sets himself on a path towards redemption???a redemption he is uncertain he is even worthy of.

The world building for Miserere is at once unique and very familiar. It posits that there are four worlds: Hell, Woerld, Earth, and Heaven, each lying next to each other in that order. Travel between them is possible, but there are varying degrees of difficulty: one can travel from Earth to Woerld with minimal problems (so long as one meets certain requirements), while travel to Hell from Woerld can be achieved by certain people with the talent for opening what are called Hell Gates (Lucian is one such person). As for what the worlds are like, Hell and Heaven are precisely what we imagine them to be, more or less, and Earth is as we recognise it now.

Woerld, however, is kind of different. On the surface it reads very much like the typical Western medieval-fantasy setting, but what makes it different is that every major religion on Earth is reflected there, but unlike on Earth, where they tend to fight with each other, the major religions on Woerld get on very well???mostly because they are tasked with protecting Woerld, and Earth, from intrusion by the denizens of Hell. Interestingly enough, what happens on Woerld has a ripple effect on Earth: for example, when the Zoroastrian bastion in Woerld was eliminated by the forces of Hell, it caused World War II to happen on Earth. The novel focuses primarily on the Church (the Christian bastion), but there are mentions made of the Mosque (Islam) and the Rabbinate (Judaism), and there are references to Wicca, Buddhism, and Hinduism having powerful and influential bastions, as well. Each bastion practices its own forms of magic, and fields its own warriors, called Katharoi, who are Woerld???s front lines against the constantly-encroaching forces of Hell.

This is, of course, incredibly fascinating, particularly to anyone who???s looked at Earth and wondered why humanity can???t just get over itself and get along. The bastions of Woerld are aware of the schisms between religions and within the religions themselves, and comment that because of reasons such as greed for power and money, the religions on Earth can no longer hear the Celestial Court (Heaven), leaving it especially vulnerable to the forces of Hell, should those forces manage to defeat the forces on Woerld. Interestingly, the character who makes the comment also notes that Earth faces no common enemy the same way Woerld does, and therefore the fractious relationships between and within the world religions is to be expected.

However, for all that it???s suggested that there is a very deep, very rich world, there isn???t really much done in terms of world building besides what I???ve already described. The details regarding the Church are relatively sketchy, and rely mostly on the readers??? own knowledge of how the Church on Earth actually works (which may be all right if the reader knows how it works, but may be problematic for others who don???t). As for the rest of Woerld, it???s not really talked about unless it???s pertinent to the plot. This is rather unfortunate, because this makes the novel feel narrower than it deserves to be.

That narrowness, however, is not something I can blame on the characters, who are quite strong in their own way. Some reviewers have accused Lucian of being a ???wimp???, but I rather like how he???s been written: a man who has been broken and betrayed, who realises that he???s made a great many wrong choices in his life, and wants nothing more than a second chance to make right those mistakes???and makes it very clear in his thoughts and actions that that???s all he wants. He???s not the ???traditionally??? masculine hero looking for redemption, but his quest for it is something I can believe, because his regret actually feels genuine (as opposed to other ???tragic heroes??? in fantasy whose ???quest for redemption??? appears to consist of killing every single person they meet along the way to forgiveness).

Rachael and Catarina, the two women who are most important to Lucian, could easily have slipped into lesser characters who exist just to give Lucian a tragic backstory, but fortunately, they stand up well on their own. I like Rachael, in particular, because although she???s clearly written as Lucian???s love interest, that romantic relationship doesn???t get in the way of the very real fact that he betrayed her, despite the trust and faith she gave him along with her heart. Throughout the course of the novel she acknowledges that yes, she does love him, but she???s also aware that she can???t find it in herself to love him again the way she used to. They have both changed so much as individuals that the dynamics they used to have might as well belong to other people, and though she gives Lucian a second chance, that???s all she gives him: a second chance. To his credit, Lucian acknowledges these changes, and is content with being given a second chance. Whether or not they fall in love again is not the point for either of them; what matters is that they are willing to give each other another chance, and whether or not their relationship goes back to what it was???well, only time can tell. It???s also interesting that she acts as the more ???traditional??? kind of fantasy hero, charging into danger and being the one who forgives Lucian for his betrayal, instead of the other way around.Catarina is also interesting, albeit in a rather uncomfortable way???which, in my opinion, makes her a good character, and an interesting villain. I do wish, however, that there had been more time to grow her into a true and genuine threat, because while I understand the whys and wherefores (to some extent) of her villainy, I don???t think it was really given a big-enough stage upon which to show how far it goes. The other characters talk about her villainy, but I would have liked to have seen it in action, and by this I mean really big action, something on the scale of (referring to Lord of the Rings>) the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, for instance, or at least the Battle of Helm???s Deep. I find it rather sad that Catarina has all the potential to be a very good villain, but she doesn???t get her stage.There is also the question of Lindsay, the foundling who Lucian saves and bonds with early in the novel. What sad about this is that I can???t really say much about her except that she???s interesting, and has all the potential to become a fantastic character???a potential that isn???t realised because, again, the plot doesn???t give her the chance to really grow and spread her wings. For the most part, she acts primarily as proof that Lucian isn???t such a bad person after all, a walking, talking piece of evidence of his true (good) nature. This is rather a waste of what could have been a great child character, which are rather rare in fantasy novels, particularly in novels as dark as Miserere. Had there been a bit more story, and the plot been a bit larger, I think she would have been just as much as a standout as Rachael, and doing so on the strength of her own character as an independent entity from Lucian.

This all points to what I think is the real problem with this novel: the plot is too small for the setting and the characters in it. It???s a good story, to be sure, suitably dark and dangerous (which I appreciate; I like it when an author can make it feel as if all the characters are genuinely in danger), but it could have been larger, more suitably epic to correspond to the potential of the world in which it happens. I find it mildly frustrating for Frohock to have this potentially huge world, and these potentially amazing characters, and then not utilise as much of that in the plot???a realisation made even more annoying by the fact that there are writers who are capable of writing a novel with a truly epic feel while confining it to one volume: Katherine Addison???s The Goblin Emperor and Robert Jackson Bennett???s City of Stairs being excellent examples. If I was aware that there was a sequel coming, I wouldn???t feel so frustrated, but since Miserere is a one-shot, I have no choice but to content myself with what I???ve been presented???which is, sadly, not nearly enough to be called truly satisfying.

Overall, Miserere: An Autumn Tale has all the potential to be an incredible novel: the world building is intriguing, and the characters appear to be well-written and interesting. However, the story Frohock chooses to write using these amazing characters and to set in this amazing world is far, far too small to really push the limits of both characterisation and world building. There is only so much oblique references can do, after all, to create a sense of depth for both a setting and characters, and the plot of Miserere is simply insufficient to show off the true possibilities of what Frohock???s created.

When a child is of a certain age, usually between seven and ten, the most magical, most wonderful thing in the world is a dinosaur. Many parents are familiar with the ???dinosaur obsession??? that hits children at around that age or somewhat earlier, and the almost never-ending demand for toys, books, more toys, movies, and on and on and on until the child outgrows the obsession, and moves on to other things.

But for some children???myself included???that obsession never really disappears. It grows quieter, yes, and gets buried under other interests, but it never really goes away. A very small handful of us become palaeontologists, but a greater majority of us grow up into adults whose eyes sparkle when we look at fossils; who catch The Land Before Time on HBO and still get teary-eyed when Littlefoot???s mother dies; and who rewatch Jurassic Park with the same enthusiasm we had when we first saw it. Though as adults we know that dinosaurs can???t talk and that the science at the heart of Jurassic Park has been disproven, such things don???t diminish the joy and sense of wonder we feel when we see or hear that magical word ???dinosaur???.

So, when Tor released the cover for Victor Mil??n???s The Dinosaur Lords last year, the excitement was palpable even through my computer screen???mostly because I was feeling it myself. After all, when a cover features what looks like a medieval knight in full plate armour mounted on what is clearly a carnivorous dinosaur along the lines of Tyrannosaurus rex, who wouldn???t be excited? As a lifelong fan of James Gurney???s Dinotopia books, the idea of humans living and working alongside dinosaurs has always appealed to me. However, though I love Gurney???s utopic vision, I???ve always wondered what it would be like to live in a world with dinosaurs that was less than utopic. The Dinosaur Lords promised to be just that: a bloody and violent world where dinosaurs are used not only for peaceful purposes like transport and construction, but also for darker, more violent things.

The Dinosaur Lords is set in a world called Paradise, but though that???s what its residents call it, it???s the farthest thing from the kind of paradise the reader might be thinking of. While the great lords of the land make war on one another with siege engine and dinosaur alike, and while they scheme amongst themselves in the great palaces of the realm, their people pay with their lives and their livelihood???both of which the lords spend without regard for those they crush under the hooves of their horses and the feet of their dinosaurs. In the meantime, beyond the sight and comprehension of humans, strange powers and entities are beginning to move for reasons that are entirely their own. One thing, however, is certain: Paradise will find itself rocked to the very core???and not everyone will survive.

When I finally got my hands on a copy of this novel, the first thing I wanted to learn about was the world itself. I wanted to know how dinosaurs would fit into the entire scheme, how humans would use (or not use) them, particularly in warfare. How would Mil??n configure his world so that both humans and dinosaurs would fit together in a way that makes sense? More importantly, would he be able to do so without making it read like a massive gimmick?

Unfortunately, Mil??n doesn???t get it quite right. The first sign was this Author???s Note, which opens the book:

One thing you should know.This world???Paradise???isn???t Earth.It wasn???t Earth. It won???t ever be Earth.It is no alternate Earth.All else is possible???

When I first read this, I was rather puzzled to see it because I was entirely aware, going into this book, that I wouldn???t be reading about Earth at all. The Dinosaur Lords had been marketed as fantasy, a perception reinforced by the blurb on the cover: a statement from George R. R. Martin, the author of A Song of Ice and Fire series, and arguably the most popular fantasy novelist currently writing. The blurb states that the novel is ???like a cross between Jurassic Park and Game of Thrones???, and while the comparison to Jurassic Park was inevitable given the novel???s content, it was the comparison to Game of Thrones that thoroughly convinced me, going in, that this would be a fantasy novel.

It didn???t take long for that belief to fall apart. I was expecting this novel to be a secondary-world fantasy???meaning, a fantasy novel set in a world all its own, with little to no reference whatsoever to our world and its history, except perhaps in very broad strokes such as in certain elements of culture, or language, or even plot events. The classic example of secondary-world fantasy is The Lord of the Rings; a more contemporary example would be A Song of Ice and Fire. Both series reference the real world (Tolkien in his languages; George R. R. Martin in his plot and to some extent his world-building), but what makes them true secondary-world fantasies is that, despite those references, the worlds they are set in still feel as if they are separate from ours. The best secondary-world fantasies transport the reader from the mundane, humdrum here-and-now to someplace else. Certainly, that someplace else might be the sort of place the reader wouldn???t survive a week in (example: Westeros), but what matters is that sense of being transported away from one???s own reality, and into another.

However, there are elements in Mil??n???s world-building that make me question if it is, indeed, a secondary-world fantasy. For example, the part of the world where most of the action takes place is called ???Nuevaropa???; certain nations are called ???Alemania???, ???Spa??a???, and ???Anglaterra??? (the latter, incidentally, is an island separated from the mainland by a Channel); and many of the words that are not in English have a distinctly Spanish flavour to them: many of them are in fact out-and-out Castilian Spanish, with some other European languages thrown in for good measure. While this might not be evident in the first few chapters, it quickly becomes obvious that, despite Mil??n???s note, his world actually feels a lot like Earth???specifically, Earth during the late 15th to early 16th centuries.

I found all of this bothersome, to say the least. While I was willing to make allowances for references to real-world history and culture???for example, in titles, and a few elements of language???I had a hard time getting around the fact that Mil??n didn???t really reference real-world history so much as lift from it almost wholesale. Take, for example, the excerpt below, which introduces one of the novel???s key characters:

Naked and still damp from her afternoon bath, the Imperial Princess Melod??a Estrella Delgao Llobregat sat on her stool while her maidservant brushed out her long hair, listening to the deep tones her best friend drew from the springer-gut strings of her vihuela del arco .

Save for a single element in this paragraph (the springer-gut strings), the entire thing could have been lifted right out of a novel set in Renaissance Spain. Other elements, like the names of Melod??a???s ladies-in-waiting and their countries and kingdoms of origin, as well as the due??as mentioned later on in the scene, can feel all too familiar to any reader with a fondness for history both fictional and non-fictional???something that???s repeated, over and over again, throughout the rest of the novel. This familiarity, present in this scene and in many others, interfered with my ability to simply sink myself into the world of the novel and accept it for what it was.

However, it wasn???t just the names and the cultures that interfered with my enjoyment of the novel, and convinced me that it wasn???t secondary-world fantasy. Take a look at the epigraph for Chapter 15, quoted below:

Cinco Amigos,Five Friends???We have five domestic mammals, unlike any others in the world: the horse, the goat, the dog, the cat ,and the ferret. Because all are listed in The Bestiary of Old Home, most believe that the Creators brought them to Paradise to serve us.

???A PRIMER TO PARADISE FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF YOUNG MINDS

This, and many other examples throughout the novel, are rather puzzling. If The Dinosaur Lords is a fantasy novel, why is Mil??n trying to explain in a rational (i.e. scientific) manner just why humans and dinosaurs are living together in this world when such explanations are unnecessary in a fantasy novel? When one reads in the fantasy genre, one expects to take certain things at face value because they are firmly established tropes of the genre: the existence of dwarves and elves and dragons, for example, or magic. Readers of fantasy require that the dwarves and elves and maybe even the dragons be fully-realised characters, and that the magic work according to a logical system, but they don???t question the fact that they exist in the novel in the first place.

The same applies to Mil??n???s dinosaurs. Since this novel has been marketed as fantasy, most readers???myself included???may have accepted the dinosaurs as a given, something that requires no explanation. At most, readers may require that Mil??n???s dinosaurs follow the latest paleontological findings (feathered raptors, for example), but beyond that, anything goes as long as everything else fits together in a way that makes sense.

So why does Mil??n go through the trouble of trying to explain the dinosaurs in a scientific manner? My theory is that The Dinosaur Lords isn???t really fantasy, but actually something closer to sci-fi. I won???t discuss what my theory is lest I ruin the whole thing for other readers, but suffice to say that I think Mil??n (or someone else) made a mistake in advertising this book as pure fantasy, instead of as some kind of hybrid. By marketing it as belonging to a specific genre, readers were given certain expectations that were quickly destroyed by the novel itself. This can be irritating for readers, even the more patient ones, because they are constantly being yanked out of their reading flow by some element or other that resonates with them in entirely the wrong way, and deters them from fully immersing themselves in the novel.

Aside from the above issues with Mil??n???s world-building choices, I also have some problems with Mil??n???s writing. They are not immediately obvious in comparison to his world-building, but there were moments when I had to pause in utter disbelief at what I???d just read, such as when I came across the following passage:

???We???re nowhere near ready,??? Karyl said, drying his hands of sweat on a twist of straw.

I had to put the book down and stifle my laughter after reading that passage, because it???s so utterly ridiculous. ???Hands of sweat??? indeed: was it too difficult to say ???sweaty hands??? instead? Truth be told, I???d be willing to chalk that one up as a minor (albeit hilarious) error that Mil??n???s editor accidentally missed, but it???s just the most egregious error in a whole host of other errors scattered throughout the book. Pointing them all out would be tedious, but suffice to say they are there, and readers will either find them funny (as I did) or irritating, depending on their state of mind and preferences.

At this point, it might seem that I???ve got nothing good to say about this novel, which isn???t exactly true. Despite the aforementioned flaws, Mil??n manages to pack interesting characters and an interesting plot into the novel. There are a handful of point-of-view characters who each take turns in telling the story, but the three primary ones???Rob Korrigan, Jaume dels Flors, and Princess Melod??a???are enjoyable to read, since they have their own distinct voices and viewpoints about the world. Rob Korrigan has a particularly interesting voice; it took me a while to recognise his accent (and he does have one), but once I realised where it was coming from I was grinning quite happily because it explained so much about who he was and his general approach to the world (though given Mil??n???s approach to world-building, this isn???t very flattering, either). Jaume, too, is interesting: an example of the do-gooder hero who is also conflicted about doing the right thing, and doing his duty. I???m looking forward to seeing what he does in the upcoming books, given what???s happened in this one.

Of the three, though, I???m pleased with Melod??a in particular: she???s intelligent, but naive, and very, very stubborn. Because of those traits she makes quite a few mistakes throughout the course of the novel, but what I like the most about her is that she owns up to those mistakes and tries her best to fix them. As I???ve mentioned in other reviews, I don???t particularly care if the character is a good person, but I do care if they???re a good character: meaning, complex and multi-faceted. Melod??a, fortunately, is one such character.

However, not all characters were created equal, and I was disappointed in the character I thought would turn out to be the most fascinating: Karyl Bogomirksiy. Given what happens to him early in the novel, I was looking forward to finding out what would happen to him and what he would do, but for the most part he remained something of a lump, good only for leading troops and interesting only insofar as he has terrible nightmares and a mysterious destiny ahead of him. I???m not sure if this characterisation was deliberate on Mil??n???s part; if it was, I hope Karyl gets more interesting in the upcoming books, and if not, then I can only hope Karyl doesn???t get as much screen time as the other characters, who are far more interesting to read about.

As for the plot, Mil??n does a fairly good job at creating a story that engages the reader and makes them interested and invested in the characters; the problem is that his writing and world-building interfere in what would otherwise have been a compulsively readable story. It follows a pattern that???s becoming increasingly common not just in fantasy novels, but in sci-fi novels as well: the plot starts rather slow at first, but by the time the reader hits the latter third things gain enough momentum to carry them headlong into the ending???that is, if the reader hasn???t already given up due to Mil??n???s world-building and writing style.

I also question Mil??n???s decision to end the novel the way it does. While I understand that he wants to keep the identities of certain characters a secret, laying out the conversation as though it were a script for a play implies that he isn???t capable of manipulating the scene sufficiently to disguise the nature of the characters involved, which doesn???t say anything flattering about his writing skills.

Overall, The Dinosaur Lords isn???t quite what the initial hype made it out to be. Mil??n???s world-building can irritate some readers enough into giving up the book entirely, while others might give up because of the uneven writing style. This is unfortunate, because those two rather large problems obscure the fact that Mil??n has populated his world with interesting characters, and created an equally interesting plot. However, given how the writing and the world-building have the tendency to destroy the reader???s flow and prevent them from fully engaging with the world, it???s entirely understandable if the reader gives up on this entirely, and does not wish to return to pick it up again. For those who choose to persevere, however, they will have something to look forward to in the upcoming novels???hopefully, something that includes a much-improved writing style and a much more cohesive and sensible world.

This review is based on an ARC given to me for free by the publisher, Angry Robot Books. This does not in any way affect my review.

Despite all of the above, though, this novel does have immense potential. It takes some patience to get through the rather rough first third, but once the reader is past that hump the story gets its legs and takes off running ??? albeit in a rather wobbly manner, since it does have its flaws. But again, despite those flaws, there is something compelling about this novel that shows that it can definitely get better if the author works at it.

Reviewer's Note: This review was written in exchange for an ARC given to me for free by the author in exchange for an honest review.

Some weeks back I started answering an Internet meme titled the “30 Day Book Challenge.” A Google search will likely bring up a host of variations, but the one I'm currently answering has the following challenge for Day 7: “A Book That's Hard to Read.” In my response to that challenge, I explained that I had read a lot of books that were “hard to read,” but I've never thought of that as a negative quality to any book I encounter, save for a very few. I tend to think this way because there have been quite a few books in my reading lifetime that I've thought were difficult, or which other people thought were difficult, but which I found to be enjoyable enough as long as one is patient or willing to embrace the text for the duration one is reading it. Such books are often very rewarding, and reaching the end of one tends to result in a satisfying feeling of accomplishment. Even better, many such books reward repeated reading, offering something new every time the reader goes back to read it.

This was most certainly the case with Madame Einzige: Amor Fati by Ismael Sarepta. Best described as a near-future dystopic cypher-punk novel, Madame Einzige is set in a bleak, war-torn scenario for the future based on the possible results of contemporary political, religious, and technological issues. All the events are set in Central Asia and parts of the Middle East: areas that have long histories written in the fire and blood of war, where conflicts that are only minimally covered, if at all, by major news outlets occur on a regular basis. In the near-future setting of Madame Einzige, various groups with various motivations but with the same goal - to secure power in the region - struggle amongst themselves and the larger, vastly more powerful presences of Russia and the United States.

Onto this bloody stage comes Madame Einzige, formerly affiliated with the military of Communist Germany, but now operating on her own agenda. She enters volatile Central Asia looking for a Magi (a term used to describe the elite hackers and cypher-punks of this near-future world) who has holed up somewhere in the area, and whom she must now rescue and bring to safety. En-route to her goal, she gets sidetracked by revolutionaries and rebels with their own agendas, intent on using her and unique set of skills in order to ensure that their own goals are brought into fruition - for better or for worse depends entirely on where one stands in the conflict.

The first thing I noticed about the novel was its unique formatting, meant to mimic corrupted files supposedly created from the memories of Einzige herself: files that capture her thoughts and memories as she experienced them. Now, I read quite a bit of sci-fi, but this is the first time I ever recall encountering a novel with that much computer code, and right from the get-go, too. I mention this because it is entirely possible for a reader to be thrown off by it, especially if said reader is not particularly interested in computer code, but I will say that it is possible to skim the coding without it interfering much with one's understanding of the rest of the novel.

What the average reader may value it for, however, is how it sets the stage for the rest of the nature of the novel itself: a combination of storytelling and philosophical musings as Einzige searches for the missing Magi, and contemplates on her own actions and the actions of those around her. If one does not grasp that simple fact - that this novel is, in essence, a collection of files drawn from the direct memories of the narrator herself - then the reader may find the rest of the novel a difficult proposition indeed.

Once the reader gets into the rest of the novel, he or she may find it quite dense, especially when Einzige begins delivering information on this or that revolutionary movement, or frames a situation in Nietzschean philosophy. This discussion can make for fascinating reading, particularly when one begins to draw parallels between today's events to their possible ramifications in the dystopic future projected by the novel, or if one is interested in the philosophy being discussed. In particular, I enjoyed the latter third of the novel, when Einzige has a rather intense philosophical discussion about religion and the nature of God with an imam in Tajikistan. Although one aspect of the novel's plot might form the basis for an excellent military thriller, there is also much that rewards slowing down and lingering to consider what is being said.

However, it is also possible to see the above as a flaw in the storytelling, as well. While it is understandable that the plot takes the form it does because of the nature of where it comes from (as suggested by the computer code at the very beginning of the novel), I found myself occasionally thinking that Einzige's information and philosophical musings could have been better incorporated into the narrative, allowing me to discover both more through the characters around her and her own actions, instead of having everything delivered to me like a lecture. As a frequent reader of genre fiction, I am accustomed to having to work a little to learn about a world and the characters in it, instead of having all the information dumped on my head before proceeding with the rest of the action of the novel.

As for Einzige herself, I think her to be quite interesting as a character, sure in herself in some ways, but not in others. It is obvious that she has seen a lot of conflict, and has very little tolerance for idiots (possibly my favorite quality about her), but towards the middle portion of the novel, and towards its end, it becomes clear that she is not as wise as she believes herself to be. It is made quite obvious that her thinking is grounded firmly (perhaps too firmly?) in Western concepts and Western philosophy, which is not always a good fit with the somewhat more mystical ideas of the Middle East and Central Asia. Again I refer to the conversation she has with the imam in Tajikistan, towards the end of the novel: grounded as she is in Nietzchean philosophy she has something of a hard time grasping what the imam is trying to tell her.

Overall, Madame Einzige: Amor Fati is an interesting read, if a little difficult to engage with at first. There is a lot of info-dumping going on, particularly in the first four or five chapters of the novel, but once the reader gets past that point it becomes a bit easier to take. The strength of this novel, however, most assuredly lies in its projections of the near-future based on today's headlines and current issues, as well as on the heroine herself. Anyone interested in philosophy as it relates to contemporary politics and religion will certainly find something to enjoy about this novel, and as for the plot, it is interesting enough that the reader will look forward to finding out if Einzige does find that Magus or not - or survives the next catastrophe on the horizon, whichever comes first.

This review is based on an ARC given to me for free by the publisher; it is slated for release on October 3, 2017. This does not in any way affect my review.

But less obvious are the theological references: callbacks to Milton, Dante, Calvin, and other theological authors and philosophers are littered throughout the text. Then there are other, far less obvious references that I cannot tease out due to my lack of knowledge of said texts. On one hand, this makes sense, since Catherine and Laon are meant to be missionaries converting the Fae to Christianity, but on the other the references go deeper than that. They all tie into the themes: questions about the nature of God, faith and the soul are obvious, of course, but there are also more philosophical questions buried in there, questions about how to define truth, and how stories and storytelling play into the creation of truth.