Monday 14 October 2024

Review: The Viaduct Murder

The Viaduct Murder The Viaduct Murder by Ronald Knox
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Clever, but disappointing. The exact reason needs to be in spoiler tags, but, being as vague as possible: it frustrates the usual expectations of the genre. I think it's still worth reading, if you're interested in how genre books, and particularly mystery books, work (or potentially fail to work), but if you're wanting entertainment only, I don't recommend it.

Also, there's an intrusive omniscient narrator who has Opinions about how all of the characters are some sort of inadequate human being, about Society, and (at some length through the mouth of one of the characters, in a chapter that's marked as optional) about various issues of the day. These are the opinions of quite a conservative Catholic priest in 1925, so... be advised.

The amateur detective is a man who during World War I wasn't fit for active service, and instead got a minor clerical job in Military Intelligence, which he habitually overplays to imply he was some sort of operative. He conceived a contempt for the police, because they seldom followed up on the matters he passed on to them, so he thinks he can do better than the police at solving a murder that has occurred on the grounds of the golf club where he lives. He has no particular occupation; his friends are a vicar who thinks more about golf than faith (to the overt disapproval of the narrator, naturally), a retired professor who's an ever-flowing font of useless information and whom his friends mostly ignore, and a third man who's on a golfing holiday, is an old friend of the would-be detective's, and slips into the role of Watson.

The following really is a spoiler: (view spoiler)

The process is the familiar process of a detective novel: gathering clues, forming theories, laying traps for the murderer. There's even a chase after a fleeing suspect. It has all of the machinery of a classic detective story, right up to the end, but then that machinery slips a gear and grinds to a disappointing halt. It reminds me of a science-fiction story I read in which the characters are working desperately throughout to avert a planetary disaster, and then they... don't.

View all my reviews

Friday 11 October 2024

Review: Tress of the Emerald Sea

Tress of the Emerald Sea Tress of the Emerald Sea by Brandon Sanderson
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm not sure precisely what I was expecting from this, but it wasn't exactly what I got. What I got was better, though.

It's told deceptively simply, and has a 17-year-old protagonist, so is it YA? The author says in his afterword that it was aimed at adults (and I enjoyed it, but then I do enjoy YA from time to time). He also says that his influences included Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch , which I can totally see. I kept getting a welcome Terry Pratchett vibe off the absurdities, wordplay, and pithy wisdom about the human condition that the narrator provides us with.

The narrator is Hoid, a trickster figure who appears in various books set in Sanderson's Cosmere universe; I didn't remember him from any of his appearances, which are generally on the periphery of events, but then I don't have an encyclopedic grasp of the Cosmere (far from it). In this book, he's been cursed to absurdity by the Sorceress, who is a traditional-feeling sorceress with impressively fairy-taleish powers of cursing, despite her interplanetary origins and the general science-fictional feel that Sandersonian fantasy often has.

Yes, there is, of course, completely original worldbuilding. Sanderson is the exact opposite of the all-too-common author who effectively grabs a few left-over scenery flats from an old production of some other sword-and-sorcery novel (or rather, almost any other sword-and-sorcery novel) to serve as a mostly non-functional backdrop to their also-not-original plot and characters. Every world he creates has some clever, innovative, meticulously worked out point of difference (or, usually, several of them) which the characters exploit creatively to progress and resolve the plot.

This one has spore seas. The planet is surrounded by twelve moons, tidally locked and geostationary, each of which pours down a different kind of spore, forming twelve connected seas. Air bubbling up from underneath makes them behave like water, but they're not water; water, in fact, makes the spores sprout, explosively and dangerously, and, of course, each one has a different effect, whether it's growing sudden vines, burning fiercely, exploding in a puff of air, growing a crystal, creating sharp, dangerous shards, or even forming into creatures that can be controlled as familiars. (That's six; we don't get to hear about the other six, which presumably are on the other side of the planet.)

Our hero, Tress, lives on a small island in the Emerald Sea, the one whose spores grow into vines. She's shyly in love with the son of the local duke, who pretends to be the duke's gardener so they can meet on a more equal basis, even though he's no good at lying and both of them know that both of them know it's a polite fiction. When he gets captured by the Sorceress, Tress decides that nobody else is going to rescue him, so she has to (this idea came from Sanderson's wife wondering aloud to him what would have happened if Buttercup had gone after Westley instead of becoming the Princess Bride, a very fair question which addresses the biggest flaw of that wonderful film).

Tress is exactly the kind of protagonist I particularly love, and is about 50% responsible for the fifth star I'm giving this book; the other 50% is its depth of reflection on humanity. She's a deeply pragmatic, sensible young woman, unwaveringly courageous because she cares about her cause (rescuing Charlie), intelligent and creative in the solutions she comes up with, and wins practically everyone she meets to her cause because she's genuinely kind and decent without even thinking about it. I totally believed a duke's son would fall in love with her, if he had the basic sense to see what was right in front of him. She is, in a way, an "ordinary" hero - not powerful, not noble, not fated, not Chosen, which I always approve of in protagonists - and yet she's completely extraordinary. There's a lovely passage about how all the other girls she knew declared they weren't like everyone else, and she came to the conclusion that she (alone) must be "everyone else," in part because all the other girls were so good at being unique that they all did it in unison. In other words, she doesn't have a decal on her that says she's different, talented, intelligent and courageous; she actually is those things, but in a natural and unassuming way, and that makes her able to face her challenges without the author having to gift her any emergency last-minute powers that she hasn't worked for, like all those entitled Chosen One idiots.

The author does need to commit a couple of Fortunate Coincidences to get his cast together, but they're subtle enough - and troublesome enough for long enough - that I only spotted them when I thought about them afterwards, so I think he gets away with it by the Pixar Rules.

The minor characters all have things they want and pursue them in ways that make sense and, together with Tress protagonising away like mad, create the plot naturally. It's a strong plot, with sound emotional beats, dramatic moments, loss and perseverance, and character change that, again, feels organic.

As usual with Sanderson, who runs his books past a couple of dozen people at least before they're published, the editing is very clean. All I spotted was a page where the same word is spelled "eyedropper" twice and "eye dropper" once, and a dangling modifier which starts out talking about some golems in a sentence where the grammatical subject is not the golems, but Tress. It's a medium-large book, so this counts as practically impeccable.

I frequently give Sanderson's books five stars, more so than any other author, and it's not just because the characters he writes are exactly the kind of character I like to read about (though certainly that). It's because his craft is absolutely sound, and on that strong foundation he erects brilliant worlds that nobody else could think of, and that are absolutely integral to how the plot works out. There are other authors with sound craft, but without his wild creativity; sadly, there are a good many who have wild creativity, but without the proper foundation of craft (or basic writing mechanics) to live up to the potential of their ideas. Sanderson is a triple threat: he can tell an inspiring story with wonderful characters, can spell and punctuate, and can take you to a world of wonder you've never visited before.

View all my reviews

Monday 7 October 2024

Review: The Mystery of the Yellow Room

The Mystery of the Yellow Room The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The last time I saw something this French it had half a pound of butter in it.

French mysteries feel quite different from English mysteries. Where English mysteries are soaked in a consciousness of class and frequently proceed at a leisurely pace, with maybe a gentle and shy romance as a subplot that doesn't really affect the main plot, French mysteries are dramatic! and suspenseful!! and full of love affairs that are mostly unwise, unhappy, ill-advised, illicit, intense, and essential to the story.

This classic from the very early 20th century (set some years earlier, so there are no motorcars or telephones mentioned, and everything is still lit by gas or candles) feels very much like its close contemporary, Maurice Leblanc's stories of Arsene Lupin, and the respective authors probably read each other's books. I wonder if the young detective in one of the Lupin books, who Lupin mocks so mercilessly, was influenced by the young detective in Leroux?

The difference, of course, is that these Leroux books are from the point of view of the detective, not the criminal (though Lupin does eventually switch sides and become a detective). The detective in this case is an 18-year-old journalist, a brilliant youth who sets himself up to compete with a middle-aged professional detective from the Surete (please excuse my lack of accents). The criminal is eventually revealed as a Lupinesque swindler and master of disguise, who has hidden himself in plain sight in a very Purloined Letter way. The difference from Lupin is that Lupin would never assault a woman (or anyone else, usually, except in self-defence); he prefers to beat people in a battle of wits, where he is particularly well equipped.

This criminal murderously attacks the daughter and assistant of a prominent scientist, who, unusually for detective stories, survives, though badly wounded and traumatised. The interesting part is that, at the time the struggle was heard, she was in a locked room - that favourite of detective writers - and an assailant could not possibly have escaped unnoticed from it. Later, the same man disappears from the midst of several people who have him surrounded. Is this a case of the scientist's area of research, the discomposition of matter? (He's supposed to be a predecessor of the Curies; the science is all bunk, as was not uncommon in stories of the time, but it doesn't play any real role in the plot.)

People being unwilling to talk in order to protect their various secrets is a theme throughout, which hinders the resolution of the mystery. The narrator takes the Watson role, assisting the brilliant young detective without understanding anything he's doing until it's painstakingly explained to him. There's plenty of drama along the way, and the solution to the mystery is brilliant and, to me, not at all obvious; it's revealed in a courtroom scene that makes up in sensation what it probably lacks in realism. (I can't imagine even a late-19th-century French court that was trying a highly sensational case being so forgiving of shenanigans as this one.)

If the author has a fault, it's writing in long, complex sentences that take concentration to parse, but that's mainly a problem at the beginning; the prose settles down a bit more as it goes on. If you enjoy the Lupin stories, you will probably enjoy this, and vice versa.

View all my reviews

Review: The D'Arblay Mystery

The D'Arblay Mystery The D'Arblay Mystery by R. Austin Freeman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

By this point in the series, Freeman is working a bit to a formula when it comes to setting up the story. There's a young doctor, a former student of the medico-legal detective Thorndyke, who comes across a mystery and takes it to his old mentor. There's a mysterious patient that the doctor is asked to see, who (at least not by coincidence this time) is at the heart of the plot. There's a young woman who's described as "attractive," but mostly not otherwise described, who the young doctor falls in love with inevitably and immediately, and who needs protection. (She is, at least, a competent woman who is supporting herself in a trade, but her competence doesn't extend to having any active impact on the plot; she's a purely passive character, like every other non-villainous woman in the Thorndyke stories.) Thorndyke plays his cards so close to his chest they're practically embedded in his ribs, but he needn't be so cagey, since the young doctor has taken the John Watson correspondence course and is as dense as a very dense thing, unable to figure out the most blindingly obvious clues. This is probably so the reader can feel superior to him.

All of these elements we've seen in the series before, some of them multiple times. The mystery itself, though, is a fresh one, and so is its complicated resolution. Thorndyke points out what I've often thought when reading mystery stories, that the failing of criminals is that they set out to make themselves safer after the initial crime and, in so doing, inevitably create more clues.

It's not the best of the series in my mind, partly because it's retreading a lot of ground in the setup if not the resolution, but if you don't mind the dated elements, it's a tricky and clever mystery with suspense and danger, and humane feeling towards the victims of crime.

View all my reviews

Monday 30 September 2024

Review: Good Neighbors: The Full Collection

Good Neighbors: The Full Collection Good Neighbors: The Full Collection by Stephanie Burgis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I enjoy Stephanie Burgis; she somehow manages to keep things light and amusing and cozy, while also having just enough of an edge to keep you from feeling like you're drowning in pink bubble-bath. I'm subscribed to her newsletter, in fact, which is how I found out about a sale on this collection.

Mia, a mad-scientist-adjacent inventor with magical power over metals, moves in next to a necromancer. Hilarity ensues, but so do romance, suspense, and a battle for justice. Mia, while being (to me) relatably introverted, turns out to be capable of social interaction when it's for a purpose she cares about, and while at the outset she only cares about protecting her father - injured by a mob who burned down their previous house because of her "unnatural" abilities - by the end she's extended her umbrella of protection much more widely.

Because Mia has the viewpoint, we don't get as much of the hot necromancer Leander's inner life, and he does feel a bit too perfect, even though he was emotionally damaged by his awful parents and his first master. (Seriously, those parents....) But he's brave and loyal, and fully on board with Mia's desire to protect other "unnaturals" from the "Purifiers" who are rising in influence in wider society. There's a bit of dystopian in the middle of the book when the pair go to a city controlled by the Purifiers, where neighbours are denouncing each other in fear of the authorities; it's an effective setup for the later section where the Purifiers come to the closest town to Mia and Leander's homes and try to pull the same tricks. (The book is made up of three linked stories, each of which progresses the overall plot arc.)

In terms of editing, most of the issues are with extra commas between adjectives - a very common blind spot even for otherwise capable authors - and occasional over-hyphenation.

It's a solid, enjoyable piece that's simultaneously in a Gothic aesthetic and cheerfully noblebright, and it slips easily into the silver tier of my annual recommendation list.

View all my reviews

Sunday 29 September 2024

Review: The Tinker's Daughter

The Tinker's Daughter The Tinker's Daughter by Josephine Angelini
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was surprised to discover that this is Book 2 in a series, though it doesn't end up mattering; it stands alone quite happily.

It's humourous, adventurous and romantic, and does well at all three. True, the romance is a bit rapid, but because both of the people involved are actually appealing, I forgive it. The female lead (and narrator) is the kind of competent, pragmatic young woman I particularly enjoy reading, and the male lead is good-hearted, brave, kind, generous and, when necessary, fierce in a good cause.

I did find that some of the minor characters, several of whom were introduced all at once, weren't easy to keep straight; repeating some of the key words from their introductions when they came back onstage would sort that out easily enough.

Its big weakness is that, whether because the author uses dictation software and doesn't check it properly or is just bad at spelling, it's full of basic homonym errors. Most prominent among these is, of course, "horde" for "hoard," since there's a dragon in it, and his hoard gets mentioned frequently; it is, at least, consistently spelled, which is something, even if it's always the incorrect version. We also get ringing for wringing, flair for flare, cantors for canters (which is one I've never seen before), enormity for enormousness (though we've probably lost that fight, which is unfortunate, because there's no other word that means exactly what enormity meant before everyone started confusing it with enormousness), you're for your, chord for cord (and chorded for corded), their for they're, anymore for any more (anymore only refers to time), apprising for appraising, beset for set, lest for unless, and birth for berth (as in "a wide berth").

Note that I had a pre-publication version via Netgalley, so if it goes past an editor who can spell between now and publication, these should all hopefully be fixed. Otherwise, there weren't too many copy editing issues; just commas after "of course" where there shouldn't have been (because it was just agreeing with the previous statement), and two queens calling each other "Your Highness" instead of "Your Majesty," plus a few sentences that would have benefited from a comma to signal the grammar more clearly.

The storytelling is strong, and hits the emotional beats well. The characters are appealing, the conflict is engaging, and the humour doesn't try too hard. It's a recommendation from me, and would be a higher-tier one (silver rather than bronze) if the author knew how to spell.

View all my reviews

Review: Craving of the Sands: A Runebreakers Novel

Craving of the Sands: A Runebreakers Novel Craving of the Sands: A Runebreakers Novel by Cearnach Grimm
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

I shouldn't have picked this one up. The blurb gave me little reason to hope that it would be good, and my expectations were not exceeded.

It's wordy, and not because it spends a lot of time on the inner life of the characters or on the setting; the characters are paper-thin, no more than their stereotypes plus (if they're lucky) their role in the plot, and the setting is bland, generic, and barely described. It's wordy because it takes a long time to cover every tiny detail of the mundane and obvious, sometimes repetitiously.

I found it even less funny than most "funny fantasy". There's a broad and obvious parody of Tik-Tok, and that's about it. Most so-called "funny fantasy" consists largely of silly names and fantasy cliches; in this one, even the names aren't particularly silly, and the fantasy cliches don't even seem to be being played for laughs a lot of the time.

Continuity is not a strength either. A red dragon becomes a silver dragon within a couple of pages.

I had a pre-publication ARC via Netgalley, and hope it gets a good deal more editing before publication, by an editor who is good with commas; I saw examples of just about every comma error I've ever come across, and even one or two I think are new, although they weren't in every sentence or even on every page. At the point that I stopped, 16% of the way through, there's an it's/its error, though otherwise it's fairly good with homonyms.

I've read worse books, but it just didn't do anything for me.

View all my reviews