Full Details
Recently Read Books in Brief
I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately, but haven’t had enough to say about each book to warrant a full-size review. Instead I’ve decided to write short capsule reviews for each.
The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss
There’s a lot to love in the latest installment of Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles, and I have to disagree with the fans who complain that the quality isn’t worth the wait. Good art is always worth the wait, and genre fiction is too often hurt by publishers who rush their authors into producing sequels. As one of his characters observes in regards to music, “Songs choose their hour.” Orson Scott Card described the series as “Harry Potter for Grownups,” but frankly the comparison would never have occurred to me; the University across the river from Rothfuss’s fictional Imre actually teaches real-world subjects, with the magical subjects slowly falling into disuse. The continuation of Kvothe’s story sees him traveling the world and growing in experience if not wisdom. Being a polymath, Kvothe picks up academic learning very quickly, and he is also apparently as physically adept as he is intellectually. He also makes a good deal of progress in sniffing out the origin and identity of his parents’ killers, setting up the Chronicler (and the reader) for the final installment of the series.
Not to say that everything is perfect with the novel. The sexual content is graphic when a more modest approach would have served as well if not better, sometimes veering into the realm of the perverse. Rothfuss also introduces an antagonist who is so unbelievably powerful and malevolent that he seems far too large for this story, especially being introduced halfway through the story. The character Denna is too unlikeably distant for the reader to sympathize with, though it’s understandable that Kvothe would admire her as an unattainable prize.
Still, this is a good read, and much better than what one usually finds in the fantasy genre, even from established writers. I look forward to the next volume in, say, 2014?
The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man, by Mark Hodder
I’ve never felt a great draw to the Steampunk genre, but Hodder is knowledgeable enough about the Victorian era that he can create an alternate version of that era which feels as rich and complex as the real thing. Unfortunately he does so by means of time travel. I realize I’m in the minority of WWEnd members when I complain about the inherent illogic of time travel and wish it were purged from all media, but I’ve learned to live with the fact that most other people love it. As mentioned in my review of the first book, The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack, Hodder uses the time travel as something of a gimmick to get things rolling, and I was hoping that in the sequels it simply wouldn’t be brought up again. Not only does time travel occur in Clockwork Man, but it does so in ever-nonsensical ways. The explanation for why things like occult powers and quick-and-easy genetic manipulation work is also somewhat belabored and silly.
Burton and Swinburne themselves are in top form, and as entertaining as ever. Their supporting cast grows noticeably in these pages, despite a number of bloody deaths, still for the most part using real historical personages in the fictional milieu. Hodder lets things become a little too chaotic by the time London starts to burn, introducing zombies, ectoplasmic houses and mad Russian monks before the story is through. One puts down the book wishing for a little more thematic unity.
Personally, I think I’m through with this series. Hodder seems overly anxious to toss in as many popular tropes as he can think of, while sidelining the characters a little too much. Frankly, I find the characters far more interesting than a mind-controlled corpulent cannibal fighting a robot with a sword (see the cover to the left). All the best to Mr. Hodder on his series, but I will have to pass on it.
Joe Hill, the son of horror master Stephen King, has written a great little novel that is both frightening and down to earth in its characterizations. The protagonist is aging rock star Judas Coyne, who is a collector of both morbid artifacts and lovers. Upon hearing of the sale of a dead man’s ghost on an auction site, he decides he must win the auction. Once the heart-shaped box arrives in the mail, the horror begins.
This is, I believe, Hill’s first novel, but it does not feel like an amateur story. He has a less florid style than his father, slightly less insane ideas, and a rather more hopeful approach to his characters and their fates. The pace is quick even when the characters stay in one place, and the prose is more than competent. The story has enough twists to keep you guessing at what will happen next, and just like any good horror story it has a few images that will haunt your nightmares.
All in all, a good read. Hill doesn’t break any new ground that I can tell, but it’s still worth the time.
Books in the Mail
Time to play catch-up. Check out these books we’ve received from Pyr in the last few months. There’s a whole lot of steam-punk goodness in this list.
Thirteen Years Later
The Danilov Quintet: Book 2
Jasper Kent
Aleksandr made a silent promise to the Lord. God would deliver him–would deliver Russia–and he would make Russia into the country that the Almighty wanted it to be. He would be delivered from the destruction that wasteth at noonday, and from the pestilence that walketh in darkness–the terror by night…
1825, Europe–and Russia–have been at peace for ten years. Bonaparte is long dead and the threat of invasion is no more. For Colonel Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov, life is peaceful. Not only have the French been defeated but so have the twelve monstrous creatures he once fought alongside, and then against, ten or more years ago. His duty is still to serve and to protect his tsar, Aleksandr the First, but now the enemy is human.
However the Tsar knows that he can never be at peace. Of course, he is aware of the uprising fermenting within the Russian army–among his supposedly loyal officers. No, what troubles him is something that threatens to bring damnation down upon him, his family and his country. The Tsar has been reminded of a promise: a promise born of blood…a promise that was broken a hundred years before.
Now the one who was betrayed by the Romanovs has returned to exact revenge for what has been denied him. And for Aleksei, knowing this chills his very soul. For it seems the vile pestilence that once threatened all he believed in and all he held dear has returned, thirteen years later…
The Scar-Crow Men
Swords of Albion: Book 2
Mark Chadbourn
The year is 1593. The London of Elizabeth I is in the terrible grip of the Black Death. As thousands die from the plague and the queen hides behind the walls of her palace, English spies are being murdered across the city. The killer’s next target: Will Swyfte.
For Swyfte–adventurer, rake, scholar, and spy–this is the darkest time he has known. His mentor, the grand old spymaster Sir Francis Walsingham, is dead. The new head of the secret service is more concerned about his own advancement than defending the nation, and a rival faction at the court has established its own network of spies. Plots are everywhere, and no one can be trusted. Meanwhile, England’s greatest enemy, the haunted Unseelie Court, prepares to make its move.
A dark, bloody scheme, years in the making, is about to be realized. The endgame begins on the night of the first performance of Dr. Faustus, the new play by Swyfte’s close friend and fellow spy Christopher Marlowe. A devil is conjured in the middle of the crowded theater, taking the form of Will Swyfte’s long-lost love, Jenny–and it has a horrifying message for him alone.
That night Marlowe is murdered, and Swyfte embarks on a personal and brutal crusade for vengeance. Friendless, with enemies on every side and a devil at his back, the spy may find that even his vaunted skills are no match for the supernatural powers arrayed against him.
The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man
Burton & Swinburne: Book 2
Mark Hodder
It is 1862, though not the 1862 it should be…
Time has been altered, and Sir Richard Francis Burton, the king’s agent, is one of the few people who know that the world is now careening along a very different course from that which Destiny intended.
When a clockwork-powered man of brass is found abandoned in Trafalgar Square, Burton and his assistant, the wayward poet Algernon Swinburne, find themselves on the trail of the stolen Garnier Collection-black diamonds rumored to be fragments of the Lemurian Eye of Naga, a meteorite that fell to Earth in prehistoric times.
His investigation leads to involvement with the media sensation of the age: the Tichborne Claimant, a man who insists that he’s the long lost heir to the cursed Tichborne estate. Monstrous, bloated, and monosyllabic, he’s not the aristocratic Sir Roger Tichborne known to everyone, yet the working classes come out in force to support him. They are soon rioting through the streets of London, as mysterious steam wraiths incite all-out class warfare.
From a haunted mansion to the Bedlam madhouse, from South America to Australia, from séances to a secret labyrinth, Burton struggles with shadowy opponents and his own inner demons, meeting along the way the philosopher Herbert Spencer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Florence Nightingale, and Charles Doyle (father of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).
Can the king’s agent expose a plot that threatens to rip the British Empire apart, leading to an international conflict the like of which the world has never seen? And what part does the clockwork man have to play?
Burton and Swinburne’s second adventure-The Clockwork Man of Trafalgar Square-is filled with eccentric steam-driven technology, grotesque characters, and a deepening mystery that pushes forward the three-volume story arc begun in The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack.
Black Halo
The Aeon’s Gate: Book 2
Sam Sykes
The Tome of the Undergates has been recovered…
…and the gates of hell remain closed. Lenk and his five companions set sail to bring the accursed relic away from the demonic reach of Ulbecetonth, the Kraken Queen. But after weeks at sea, tensions amidst the adventurers are rising. Their troubles are only beginning when their ship crashes upon an island made of the bones left behind from a war long dead.
And it appears that bloodthirsty alien warrior women, fanatical beasts from the deep, and heretic-hunting wizards are the least of their concerns. Haunted by their pasts, plagued by their gods, tormented by their own people, and gripped by madness personal and peculiar, their greatest foes may yet be themselves.
The reach of Ulbecetonth is longer than hell can hold.
The Greyfriar
Vampire Empire: Book 1
Clay Griffith and Susan Griffith
In the year 1870, a horrible plague of vampires swept over the northern regions of the world. Millions of humans were killed outright. Millions more died of disease and famine due to the havoc that followed. Within two years, once great cities were shrouded by the grey empire of the vampire clans. Human refugees fled south to the tropics because vampires could not tolerate the constant heat there. They brought technology and a feverish drive to reestablish their shattered societies of steam and iron amid the mosques of Alexandria, the torrid quietude of Panama, or the green temples of Malaya.
It is now 2020 and a bloody reckoning is coming.
Princess Adele is heir to the Empire of Equatoria, a remnant of the old tropical British Empire. She is quick with her wit as well as with a sword or gun. She is eager for an adventure before she settles into a life of duty and political marriage to man she does not know. But her quest turns black when she becomes the target of a merciless vampire clan. Her only protector is The Greyfriar, a mysterious hero who fights the vampires from deep within their territory. Their dangerous relationship plays out against an approaching war to the death between humankind and the vampire clans.
The Greyfriar: Vampire Empire is the first book in a trilogy of high adventure and alternate history. Combining rousing pulp action with steampunk style, The Greyfriar brings epic political themes to life within a story of heartbreaking romance, sacrifice, and heroism.
The Horns of Ruin
Tim Akers
Eva Forge is the last paladin of a dead God. Morgan, God of battle and champion of the Fraterdom, was assassinated by his jealous brother, Amon. Over time, the Cult of Morgan has been surpassed by other gods, his blessings ignored in favor of brighter technologies and more mechanical miracles. Eva was the last child dedicated to the Cult of Morgan, forsaken by her parents and forgotten by her family. Now she watches as her new family, her Cult, crumbles all around her.
When a series of kidnappings and murders makes it clear that someone is trying to hasten the death of the Cult of Morgan, Eva must seek out unexpected allies and unwelcome answers in the city of Ash. But will she be able to save the city from a growing conspiracy, one that reaches back to her childhood, even back to the murder of her god?
The Buntline Special: A Weird West Tale
Mike Resnick
The year is 1881. The United States of America ends at the Mississippi River. Beyond lies the Indian nations, where the magic of powerful Medicine Men has halted the advance of the Americans east of the river.
An American government desperate to expand its territory sends Thomas Alva Edison out West to the town of Tombstone, Arizona, on a mission to discover a scientific means of counteracting magic. Hired to protect this great genius, Wyatt Earp and his brothers.
But there are plenty who would like to see the Earps and Edison dead. Riding to their aid are old friends Doc Holliday and Bat Masterson. Against them stand the Apache wizard Geronimo and the Clanton gang. Battle lines are drawn, and the Clanton gang, which has its own reasons for wanting Edison dead, sends for Johnny Ringo, the one man who might be Doc Holliday’s equal in a gunfight. But what shows up instead is The Thing That Was Once Johnny Ringo, returned from the dead and come to Tombstone looking for a fight.
Welcome to a West like you’ve never seen before, where “Bat Masterson” hails from the ranks of the undead, where electric lights shine down on the streets of Tombstone, while horseless stagecoaches carry passengers to and fro, and where death is no obstacle to The Thing That Was Once Johnny Ringo. Think you know the story of the O.K. Corral? Think again, as five-time Hugo winner Mike Resnick takes on his first steampunk western tale, and the West will never be the same.
The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack
[There are spoilers throughout. This novel is difficult to review without referencing certain events in the story. In my defense, many of the later twists are strongly foreshadowed early on. Also, a special thanks to Pyr Books for providing WWEnd with a review copy of this book.]
Mark Hodder’s inaugural novel neatly rides the popular wave of pseudo-Victorian Steampunk while mixing in well-worn science fiction tropes like time travel and genetic engineering. It’s obvious Hodder has done his homework, as his depiction of the Victorian era is very detailed, both in its representation of the society as it actually was and in the minor and major changes that have taken place as a result of a time travel incident. It’s like reading a Dickens novel with ray guns.
The novel’s protagonist is Richard Burton, who in real history was something of a failed explorer (he made an early attempt to find the source of the Nile), a maligned statesman (tossed about from one consulship to another in later life) and a bit of a pervert (the least offensive thing he did was to be the first to translate the Kama Sutra into English). The main crux of the novel hinges on the fact that Burton’s career makes a major turn to the better when he is hired to investigate the mysterious Spring Heeled Jack by special assignment of the Prime Minister. In this new timeline Burton feels that he barely escaped a horrible fate, validated during a collision with the aforementioned Jack, who tells Burton that nothing is as it ought to be.
Burton’s partner, the story’s secondary protagonist, is the minor poet Algernon Charles Swinburne. He’s quite the opposite of Burton in many ways—short, thin, unathletic, somewhat effeminate—but he seeks the sort of life-threatening adventure that he feels is necessary to make his poetry great. That and the fact that he can easily disguise himself as a young chimney sweep gradually makes him an indispensable partner to Burton’s investigation.
These two adventurers live in a world where Queen Victoria was assassinated on the same day Spring Heeled Jack was first spotted; a world in which the eugenics movement has progressed so far that super-intelligent dogs and birds act as message carriers; a world in which geothermal energy is tapped as a sustainable manner; a world in which cats act as living vacuum cleaners; a world where human brains can be transplanted into animal bodies and even into other human bodies to make double-brained beings; a world in which helicopter-like machines are common and genetic werewolves haunt the lower-class neighborhoods. This is the novel’s biggest draw but also, I would argue, its major weakness, for it all hinges on the changes caused by one time traveler from the twenty-second century who effects all these changes simply by feverishly talking about the scientific wonders of the future to one man who happens to be well-connected. None of his own technology is reverse-engineered; apparently all that was needed to make all these changes happen in a few decades was to plant the ideas in a few minds. (The time travel logic itself is also very convoluted and self-contradictory. Badly written time travel always throws me out of the story while simultaneously giving me a headache.)
The plot revolves around a group of scientists attempting to perfect their social and genetic engineering plans. They want to create a perfect world, and they aren’t afraid of murdering and causing widespread grief to bring this world about. This isn’t the strongest aspect of the novel, which excels in describing its imaginative alternate England and the antics of its protagonists, but the worst that can be said of the plot is that it’s just there to give our heroes something to do. One hopes that, now that the origin story is out of the way, the Burton and Swinburne team can proceed with their adventures without going through the motions of explaining why their world is the way it is. Honestly, the less time spent on that explanation the better, because it simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Burton’s major decision at the very end is amazingly cold-blooded and clearly defines his character as an anti-hero of ambiguous moral status. Even his fiancée Isabel is a clearly drawn character who could probably support a novel of her own. Swinburne is somewhat less defined since the novel follows Burton’s point of view almost exclusively, but one hopes that future installments will spend more time with Swinburne and his poetic response to the strange world in which they live. Hodder’s sequel The Curious Case of the Clockwork Man is due out this March, and this reader is definitely looking forward to seeing where he goes with the series.
Books in the Mail
Burton & Swinburne in The Strange Affair of Spring Heeled Jack by Mark Hodder
Sir Richard Francis Burton–explorer, linguist, scholar, and swordsman; his reputation tarnished; his career in tatters; his former partner missing and probably dead.
Algernon Charles Swinburne–unsuccessful poet and follower of de Sade; for whom pain is pleasure, and brandy is ruin!
They stand at a crossroads in their lives and are caught in the epicenter of an empire torn by conflicting forces: Engineers transform the landscape with bigger, faster, noisier, and dirtier technological wonders; Eugenicists develop specialist animals to provide unpaid labor; Libertines oppose repressive laws and demand a society based on beauty and creativity; while the Rakes push the boundaries of human behavior to the limits with magic, drugs, and anarchy.
The two men are sucked into the perilous depths of this moral and ethical vacuum when Lord Palmerston commissions Burton to investigate assaults on young women committed by a weird apparition known as Spring Heeled Jack, and to find out why werewolves are terrorizing London’s East End.
Their investigations lead them to one of the defining events of the age, and the terrifying possibility that the world they inhabit shouldn t exist at all!
Twelve – The Danilov Quintet: Book 1 by Jasper Kent
The voordalak — creature of legend, the tales of which have terrified Russian children for generations. But for Captain Aleksei Ivanovich Danilov — a child of more enlightened times — it is a legend that has long been forgotten. Besides, in the autumn of 1812, he faces a more tangible enemy: the Grande Armee of Napoleon Bonaparte.
City after city has fallen to the advancing French, and it now seems that only a miracle will keep them from Moscow itself. In desperation, Aleksei and his comrades enlist the help of the Oprichniki–a group of twelve mercenaries from the furthest reaches of Christian Europe, who claim that they can turn the tide of the war. It seems an idle boast, but the Russians soon discover that the Oprichniki are indeed quite capable of fulfilling their promise… and much more.
Unnerved by the fact that so few can accomplish so much, Aleksei remembers those childhood stories of the voordalak. And as he comes to understand the true, horrific nature of these twelve strangers, he wonders at the nightmare they’ve unleashed in their midst….
Full of historical detail, thrilling action, and heart-stopping supernatural moments, Twelve is storytelling at its most original and exciting.
The Cardinal’s Blades by Pierre Pevel
Welcome to seventeenth-century Paris, where intrigue, duels, and spies are rife and Cardinal Richelieu’s agents may be prevailed upon to risk life and limb in the name of France at a moment’s notice. And with war on the horizon, the defense of the nation has never been more pressing.
Danger is rising from the south–an insidious plot that could end with a huge dragon-shaped shadow falling over France, a shadow cast by dragons quite unlike the pet dragonets that roam the cities like stray cats, or the tame wyverns men ride like horses, high over the Parisian rooftops. These dragons and their descendants are ancient, terrible, and powerful … and their plans contain little room for the lives or freedom of puny humans.
Cardinal Richelieu has nowhere else to turn; Captain La Fargue and his elite group of agents, the Cardinal’s Blades, must turn the tide. They must hold the deadly Black Claw cult at bay, root out traitors to the crown, rescue prisoners, and fulfill their mission for the Cardinal, for their country, but above all for themselves.
It’s death or victory. And the victory has never been less certain.
The Wolf Age – Morlock the Maker: Book 3 by James Enge
"Spear-age, sword-age:
shields are shattered.
Wind-age, wolf-age:
before the world founders
no man will show mercy to another."
Wuruyaaria: city of werewolves, whose raiders range over the dying northlands, capturing human beings for slaves or meat. Wuruyaaria: where a lone immortal maker wages a secret war against the Strange Gods of the Coranians. Wuruyaaria: a democracy where some are more equal than others, and a faction of outcast werewolves is determined to change the balance of power in a long, bloody election year.
Their plans are laid; the challenges known; the risks accepted. But all schemes will shatter in the clash between two threats few had foreseen and none had fully understood: a monster from the north on a mission to poison the world, and a stranger from the south named Morlock Ambrosius.
The Ragged Man – Twilight Reign: Book 4 by Tom Lloyd
Lord Isak is dead; his armies and entire tribe in disarray. As the Farlan retreat and Kastan Styrax mourns his dead son, it is King Emin who takes the initiative while he still can. The secret, savage war he has devoted his life to nears its terrible conclusion as Ruhen positions himself as answer to the Land’s problems. Before the conquering eye of the Menin turns in his direction Emin must take his chance and strike without mercy.
A showdown is coming and battle lines are drawn as blood is spilled across the Land. The specter of the Great War looms but this time the Gods are not marching to war. It will be men who decide the future now. But before victory, before survival, there must first be salvation-even if it must be sought in the darkest place imaginable.
With the tide turning against Emin and his allies the key to their survival may lie in the hands of a dead man.
Salute the Dark – Shadow of the Apt: Book 4 by Adrian Tchaikovsky
The vampiric sorcerer Uctebri has at last got his hands on the Shadow Box and can finally begin his dark ritual–a ritual that the Wasp-kinden Emperor believes will grant him immortality–but Uctebri has his own plans for both the Emperor and the Empire.
The massed Wasp armies are on the march, and the spymaster Stenwold must see which of his allies will stand now that the war has finally arrived. This time the Empire will not stop until a black and gold flag waves over Stenwold’s own home city of Collegium.
Tisamon the Weaponsmaster is faced with a terrible choice: a path that could lead him to abandon his friends and his daughter, to face degradation and loss, that might possibly bring him before the Wasp Emperor with a blade in his hand–but is he being driven by Mantis-kinden honor, or manipulated by something more sinister?
Tracato – A Trial of Blood and Steel: Book 3 by Joel Shepherd
For two hundred years Tracato has been the center of enlightenment, as the serrin have occupied human lands and sought to remake humanity anew. But the serrin have not destroyed Rhodaan’s feudal families entirely, and as Tracato faces the greatest threat to its survival in two centuries, old rivalries are stirring. Sasha must assist her mentor Kessligh to strengthen the Tracato Nasi-Keth, yet with one royal sister siding with the feudalists and another soon to be married to Tracato’s most powerful foe, her loyalties are agonizingly divided.
Worse still, from Sasha’s homeland the Army of Lenayin are marching to make war upon Tracato. Can she fight her own people? Or must she join them, and fight not only her lover Errollyn, but to extinguish the brightest light of hope in all the land–serrin civilization itself?
Our thanks to Pyr for their continued generosity.
