Review: Elantris

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I've seen complaints that Brandon Sanderson writes generic epic fantasy, and I've never understood them. Take this book, for example.

A magical city has malfunctioned for unknown reasons, and instead of being like demigods, its inhabitants are now undead lepers. Anyone in the country can be taken by the transformation that makes them an Elantrian, and near the beginning of the book the Crown Prince is so afflicted. Refusing to lie down and degenerate into mindlessness, he rallies the hopeless inhabitants of the city and gives them pride and a purpose. (I particularly liked the way in which he recruited an old cleaner and treated him with dignity, as a man who could transform the filthy city into a more pleasant place to live.)

Meanwhile, his fiancee (who has never met him; it's a political marriage, but with some hope of love) arrives from the allied country where she is a princess, to find that her betrothed is reported as dead and a third country is about to launch an invasion, spearheaded by their fanatical religion. Highly intelligent and competent, she determines to improve the lot of the local peasantry, rally the fading resistance that was started by the Crown Prince to his father's misrule, and keep the fanatics from taking over.

Oh, and they can talk over long distances using magical floating spheres, which appear to be AIs.

From there, we get plot twist after plot twist, plenty of dramatic irony, many, many things that aren't as they seem, love, loyalty, devotion, shifting allegiances, betrayal, tension, last-minute escapes, the slow reveal of a remarkable magic system... This is what I've come to expect from a Brandon Sanderson story, having read the first two Mistborn books.

Now, right at the end there were a couple of twists and shifts that I wasn't totally convinced by. Avoiding spoilers, let's say that the motivation of a couple of characters boiled down to love, and I didn't really buy it given everything else we'd seen from those characters. I thought that their belief systems would have been adequate motivation by themselves. Anyway, apart from that minor quibble, I thoroughly enjoyed this.

The editing had a few glitches, mainly that italics were applied to whole paragraphs where they should have only been used for the characters' thoughts, not the dialog tags and description as well. There were the usual minor typos that creep in, but nothing major or dramatic.

Recommended.



View all my reviews

Review: Thieftaker

Thieftaker by D.B. Jackson

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I heard the author of this book interviewed on a podcast (I forget which one), and it sounded interesting: an urban fantasy set in pre-revolutionary Boston. It's certainly different from the usual, and I enjoyed it, but it does suffer from an excess of research in some areas and an apparent shortage in another.

Let's play the trope-spotting game first. We have the "protagonist has magic in a society where magic is forbidden" trope. That's usually an eye-roller for me (it's Standard Fantasy Plot #3), but because it's only one element here, rather than a large slice of the premise, I give it a pass.

Actually, saying that magic is "forbidden" is a bit strong. It appears that magic is about as forbidden as, say, prostitution: it's disapproved of, respectable people don't like to talk about it, the church opposes it, and under some circumstances you will be arrested for it, since it's technically illegal (though you're unlikely to ever be burned for prostitution, and that is a possibility for "conjurers"), but most of the time people uncomfortably look the other way. This set up a situation in which the possibility of being revealed as a "witch" was a threat that kept being used against the protagonist, but it never seemed as if it was going to be a real problem. (Also, why use "conjurer" as a name for a user of real magic? It seems odd.)

Trope number two comes from the noir detective story: the protagonist gets beaten up, a lot, in the course of his inquiries. The official police are both corrupt and incompetent, and are more of a threat than a help to his investigation; his professional rival, though, is responsible for most of the beatings (and, incidentally, most of the crimes she claims to solve).

The protagonist is also overmatched by a more powerful opponent, and only determination and cleverness enable him to stand up against the antagonist at all, but that's a trope I thoroughly enjoy, so I approve of it.

Other than that, the story wasn't too troperific. Magic has a cost, which is something I like to see. The mystery pace is good: not too drawn out, with progress always being made, but also not too quick and easy. The main character has a Tragic Past (which isn't fully gone into, and at the end of the book we still don't know the full circumstances of his fall), and it makes him empathetic and sets him up with a lost love and a full bundle of regrets. This helps him to be a fully rounded character, with contradictions and weaknesses as well as strengths. I liked him by the end, although there were moments when I didn't in the course of the story.

The minor characters are less fleshed out, but play their roles effectively and aren't simply cardboard cutouts. I got a sense of individuality from them, because they have characteristics which aren't just there because of the roles they play in the story or in the hero's life.

The problem is their names. I'm picky about names, and pay a lot of attention to them. Among the secondary characters that we meet early on are Kannice Lester, Devren Jervis (known as Diver), and Kelf Fingarin, which sound like made-up fantasy names to me, not names you'd encounter in eighteenth-century Boston. The author's note at the end reveals that he initially set the story in a secondary world, and I wonder if these names are left over from an early draft that wasn't in eighteenth-century Boston at all.

The first murder victim (at least, the first we encounter) is called Jennifer, a common name now, but very uncommon before it appeared in George Bernard Shaw's 1906 play The Doctor's Dilemma. I'm not saying a eighteenth-century Bostonian couldn't have been named Jennifer, but it's pretty unlikely unless her family were Cornish, and their surname, Berson, is German. I suppose the mother could have been Cornish, though.

So the research behind the names may not be up to the level of the historical and geographical research, which is, to be frank, at flood level sometimes. I appreciate a book set in a historical period which has a genuine sense of the time, but very few authors, having spent a lot of effort hauling water from the research well, are able to hold back from making the reader drink from the bucket. This author is not always one of those self-restrained authors.

That's a minor annoyance, though, in what is, overall, a well-written, well-edited, original and different book with a protagonist who I would follow through a series. It isn't my new favourite, but it's a worthy entry into the urban fantasy (and historical fantasy) field.



View all my reviews

Review: Orison

Orison by Daniel Swensen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



This is sword-and-sorcery done right.

Not only is the writing and editing almost flawless, the plotting, the character development and the worldbuilding are all at a very high standard. I seldom see a book this good.

Set in a grim world, but not grimdark, it's the story of hapless lowlifes doing the right thing, largely because of their friendship with each other, at personal cost. There's tragedy, but it's not all tragedy. (In fact, there are some wonderful wry comic moments in the dialogue, especially between the mage and the warrior.)

The characters have depth, and there are things they care about and will fight for. They're proactive and largely self-rescuing.

The world is the creation of powerful, arbitrary, even malevolent dragon-gods (and how cool is that?) who continue to interfere for their own amusement and to advance their inexplicable agendas, and against this seemingly hopeless backdrop the characters do the right thing anyway.

I normally only give five stars to books that have an extra layer of depth to them, that point outside themselves to deeper truths about the human condition, and/or those that are beautifully as well as competently written. Although the language here doesn't make it all the way to beautiful, it's certainly got the competent dial turned all the way up, and everything else is also so well done that I decided to award the fifth star - even before I worked out that this book does have something profound to say about the human condition and the perseverance of hope and friendship in the face of oppression.

I bought Orison because I'd seen several friends recommend it, and I wasn't at all disappointed. I recommend it very highly indeed.



View all my reviews

Review: The Order Master

The Order Master by Brian Rush

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



(Disclaimer: I was a beta reader for this book, and know the author on social media. I received a free copy as a beta reader. The author also beta reads for me.)

What I most liked about this book is that it isn't constrained by convention. It's making use of the freedom that is indie publishing to not produce another clone of whatever's currently fashionable, to try something different, new and unexpected.

First of all, it's science fantasy. The aliens have advanced technology, but they also use magic - not "sufficiently advanced technology that's indistinguishable from magic" but actual magic. There are a few authors doing this blend of aliens and urban fantasy (Lindsay Buroker in [b:Torrent|18524705|Torrent (Rust & Relics, #1)|Lindsay Buroker|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1379807952s/18524705.jpg|26228603] and Ilona Andrews in [b:Clean Sweep|19090384|Clean Sweep (Innkeeper Chronicles #1)|Ilona Andrews|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1385939257s/19090384.jpg|21910727] being two I've read recently), but it's still unusual. It's a bold move, but I think it works.

Secondly, the story is, in many ways, morally uncomplicated. I need to put a lot of caveats around that, though. There's a torture scene, there's underage sex and a teenage girl who tries to seduce an adult man (having been abused by her father), and the main character is, technically, a serial killer. (However, he's killing evil aliens, and is unhappy about it.) Even the "good" aliens are manipulative and can be ruthless.

What I mean by "morally uncomplicated" is that there's not a lot of ambiguity about what the right choice is for the protagonist, even though there are drawbacks to it. That's fine; the story isn't about making a difficult choice, but about a risky alliance made against a clear threat. I did think that there could have been more ambiguity for longer about whether the "good" aliens were actually good, and that it would have added to the tension, but again, this is a choice the author is making regarding what his story is about. There's a group of aliens that are into power, torture and domination; there's another group of aliens that not only want to stop them but propose to do so by helping humans not be like that either. Put like that, why would you need to debate?

No, the story isn't about choices that are evenly balanced, but choices that involve risk and danger. It's old-fashioned heroism. At the same time, there's enough modern (or maybe postmodern) awareness of moral ambiguity and messiness in the book that readers may stumble over the clarity of the good/bad divide in a way that they wouldn't in a work that never alluded to that messiness. We only wonder about the black-and-white nature of the two sides at all because there are passages of philosophical, political and religious reflection that question traditional black-and-white ideas.

This isn't a book of philosophy, though, any more than it's about difficult moral choices. There's plenty of action, well described, and the plot moves along swiftly. It's also one of the best-edited books I've ever beta read. I spotted only a few minor errors, which I, of course, passed on to the author, and which I believe he's fixed. There are plenty of books coming out from traditional publishers that aren't this clean, and they aren't this original, either.



View all my reviews

Review: Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain

Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain by Richard Roberts

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is one of those cases where I enjoyed a book despite very serious suspension-of-disbelief issues. Accordingly, it gets four stars.

(The following could be considered a bit spoilery, since I discuss things that happen in the book that broke my suspension of disbelief.)

OK, so the main character, Penny, is the child of two superheroes. Her father is a supergenius technologist, and her mother is basically the detective aspect of Batman without the angst.

They're aware that Penny's mad science superpowers are starting to cut in, though they don't realise that they have, in fact, fully cut in. She uses them to give her two friends, Ray and Claire, superpowers as well.

Through a series of events involving their school's Mean Girl, who turns out to be a superhero sidekick, the trio end up getting labelled as supervillains in their super identities. They recognise the mean girl, but she doesn't, apparently, recognise them, despite the fact that Ray's costume is just his normal clothes (including a distinctive hat) plus a mask and a jacket, and the fact that he has a distinctive accent. The mean girl is even responsible for naming Penny's supervillain persona Bad Penny, even though, as I say, she apparently doesn't know that they are the same person.

Claire and Ray also have code names based closely on their real names.

Here's the suspension of disbelief problem. Although several other people, including a supervillain leader, figure out their identities, Penny's parents are clueless. No idea. This despite the fact that her mother's powers are ideally suited for figuring out exactly this kind of thing, and despite the fact that really, it's pretty obvious.

I mean, if there was a powerful "Clark Kent effect" mad science device involved, that would be one thing, though it would also spoil the plot point where the supervillain leader figures out the secret and blackmails them, but there is nothing in the book that makes this blindness of Penny's mother's remotely plausible.

Also, by a suspiciously convenient coincidence, the trio manage to pick up a powerful artefact that they didn't know existed because Penny randomly decides to pretend she's looking for jade as a distraction from something else, and this thing is made of jade.

Also, Claire is apparently extremely good at finding out things using Google that, if they could be found out using Google, would lead to crimes being foiled before they were even started. Probably by Penny's mother.

Also, the kids are way too powerful and successful for 13-year-olds - though I accept that as a genre trope.

So, suspension of disbelief: broken. Oddly, though, I found I didn't mind that much. The characters are fun (and reasonably believable as early teens), the superheroics are fun, the whole thing is enjoyable. You already have to suspend a lot of disbelief for supers in the first place; why not a bit more?

The editing is about what I've come to expect from a small press: not awful, but a long way from great. There are about 30 minor issues, mostly missing words and incompletely revised sentences (seriously, read it backwards, or upside down, or aloud, editors), but the author also appears unaware of the need for an apostrophe in expressions like "after a few minutes' wait", and uses this construction several times. Again, it wasn't bad enough to drop a star.

Definitely on the low end of the four-star spectrum, but overall an enjoyable light read.



View all my reviews

Review: More Than Somewhat

More Than Somewhat by Damon Runyon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



I've read this book several times, as my parents had a copy. This re-read was initially because I was writing a story in the style of Runyon and wanted to get it right, but I ended up finishing the volume because I was enjoying the stories.

The way a Runyon story generally goes is this: the unnamed (and unreliable) narrator meets up with some shady characters, and finds out about a way in which someone else has been mistreated. In the end, though, someone, often not the person you'd expect, does the right thing, to the comfort of the good and the discomfort of the heartless.

It's not just a formula, though. The situations are as varied as the slang, and the characters as vivid as their nicknames. Everything takes place in a relentless present tense, including the dialog.

Because this is low life around Broadway in the 1930s, there is considerable casual sexism and indeed racism, though generally the "dolls" (women) who are mistreated by men end up at least getting avenged, if not avenging themselves. Justice, however rough, is generally served. There's a strong sense, though, that tragedy is an everyday thing for the varied characters, and that they seldom expect any better.

All in all, a bittersweet mixture of justice and injustice, tragedy and comedy, told in a distinctive and inimitable style.



View all my reviews

Review: In the Kingdom of Dragons: Dwarf and Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Series

In the Kingdom of Dragons: Dwarf and Dragon: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Series by D L Burnett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I received a copy of this book via NetGalley for purposes of review.

I got not quite halfway through before I started skipping to see if it improved. As far as I could tell, though, it just went on in the same way: Unavoidable tragedy occurs. Main character feels bad about it, but there's nothing she can do. Repeat.

This doesn't make for a pleasant or interesting book. By halfway through, I want to see the main character of a book being a protagonist, taking decisive and at least partially effective action to improve matters and solve problems. I don't want to see more and more tragedies being piled up while she basically wrings her hands and feels helpless, despite being Fated, Cursed with Awesome and regarded as a goddess.

I think it was largely this that left me unengaged by the story. I honestly didn't care much what happened, because it was apparently going to be more of the same: the author rains down tragedy on passive characters, who suffer.

The editing has some small imperfections which I won't go into in detail. It's not bad for a small press. The style is no worse than most fantasy novelists produce, though it's no better. The worldbuilding is basic, and any time anything out of the ordinary happens it seems to be because of dragon blood, but it would have been adequate if the plot had consisted of more than a series of unfortunate events and the characters had any significant degree of agency.



View all my reviews