Review - Mortedant's Peril by RJ Barker

Mortedant's Peril (The Trials of Irody Hasp, 1)

RJ Barker
Tor/ Pan Macmillan, 
Available as: HB, 432pp, audio, e   
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781035064274

I'm grateful to the publisher for giving me access to an advance e-copy of Mortedant's Peril to consider for review.

Meet Irody Hasp, Mortedant for hire.

In the city of Elbay, Mortedants aren't the power they used to be.

These celebrants - part confessor, part psychopomp - were once greatly respected for their ability to probe the last thoughts of the dead, reconciling lifelong quarrels, bringing peace to the dying... and locating hidden money and valuables. That last, however, has brought them down somewhat, as they're now suspected of profiting from a fraudulent trade. 

Hasp is a marginal figure even among this disdained group, shunned by his peers for his poor birth and questionable past. He scrapes a living. It's sufficient, however, for him to indulge his alchemical hobbies, probing the work of the spurriers, a more favoured trade, who create marvellous living devices. It's illegal for a Mortedant to engage in such work, so Hasp benefits from his obscurity.

Hasp's quiet life changes, though, when he's called out to attend to a city employee who has died suddenly.

Somebody doesn't want a Mortedant at this death, and pretty soon Hasp finds himself accused of murder and scheduled to hang (and worse - believe me, it is worse) - unless he can prove himself innocent in three days. With the city building up to its annual festival, nobody is interested in the troubles of a penniless Mortedant - except for his guard, Whisper, a woman of the sea-people, who he's been forced to accept (to prevent him fleeing injustice) and a young urchin, Mirial, who has her own reasons for sticking close to him.

Across those three days, Hasp must ransack the secrets of Elbay or suffer the consequences. 

Of course, nobody wants those secrets to come to light...

I loved this book. It has great - what's the right word? - verve. Elbay is a teeming, complex society, a city built on rigid social hierarchy but that also seems to be sitting on something older - older magic, older technology, a VERY old but curiously absent governor, the Roundhorn - and to conceal powers, barely held in check, that regularly scorch the ring of ground outside the walls. Hasp's explorations provide an excellent gazetteer. He really knows his way around, and Mirial knows hers even better. Clearly the first of a series, Mortedant's Peril shows us all sorts of locations and possibilities from the very highest point of the Dome to the depths of the citycore which I'm sure we'll learn more about in due course. It also details the convoluted social hierarchy, based both on wealth and on inherited distinctions, that keeps the poor in the lower tiers - and hints at strange, other-worldly powers. No, Elbay isn't your standard fantasy city. Nor is the society that flourishes inside. 

Hasp himself is an intriguing character. I started this book thoroughly disliking him. He is self-obsessed, arrogant, prone to dismiss everyone and everything around him as worthless, especially those outside Elbay (Hasp has never left the city) as barbarians - so Whisper is referred to in the earlier part of the book (by Hasp) as "it" until she gradually, grudgingly earns his trust until, when she's threatened and in danger he's beside himself. Hasp has, as becomes clear, though suffered loss and is perhaps still smarting from that (he'd never admit it) but he can and does change and shows himself brave, resourceful and determined.

It seems, after all, that there is more at stake than the life of one Mortedant, and Hasp's beloved Elbay (see the fuss he makes when he has to go beyond the walls, briefly) may itself be at risk.

More than just a series opener, Mortedant's Peril is a tense, gripping story of a race against time, as the chapters count down to Hasp's flaying and hanging. In his desperate search up and down Elbay's steep slopes there seems very little, really, that he can do to save his neck. Yet he carries on, refusing to give in.

This is, I'd say, a characteristically RJ Barker book, exploring a strange world through the eye of a flawed and marginalised character, taking the limitations of that (Hasp's poverty, his outcastness, his previous bad choices) and making them into real plusses.

Great fun, but more than that, Mortedant's Peril is fantasy with real heart.

For more information about Mortedant's Peril, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - Three Fires by Denise Mina

Three Fires

Denise Mina (Narrated by Jonathan Keeble)
Polygon, 3 August 2023
Available as: HB, 128pp,  audio, e   
Source: Audio subscription
ISBN(HB): 9781846976384

I have to say, I never expected to find myself reading a biographical account of a medieval Italian friar who became the populist leader of Florence in the 15th century. Such is the talent of Denise Mina, at not point did I find myself thinking, hang on, what IS this?

Girolamo Savonarola was a Dominican friar who had a vision of the world as corrupt, unjust and fixated on fripperies. His was the hand behind the original "bonfire of the vanities", when "trash" such as fine Renaissance paintings were burned as irreligious, irrelevant distractions. (This is one of the three fires referred to in the title). It's hard to argue that society, and the Church, of the time were not corrupt and Savonarola had a fine line in denouncing Popes and secular leaders alike, including speaking up for the poor. He also preached antisemitism and homophobia, whether from conviction or to provide scapegoats to ease his way to power, is hard to tell. Perhaps that distinction doesn't matter, but it does I think beg comparisons with authoritarian populists of our own day, a comparison that Mina makes explicitly towards the end of the story. Less explicitly we have by then already seen Girolamo exploit the communications technology of the day - the church pulpit, but also, the new art of printing which meant that his message, unlike that of earlier firebrands, was preserved for posterity.

Mina makes an excellent job of putting this divisive and consequential figure into his historical context, happily using anachronistic reference points such as referring to him as an "intel" in the episode where he clumsily fails to court an heiress marriage to whom his family relied on for future prosperity. She also depicts the times that Savonarola lived in, and some of the awful things he saw and experienced in the fractious Italy of the 15th century. It is clear that it was an age apt to produce hellfire preachers and millennialist sects - while these had hitherto been repressed or co-opted by the Roman Catholic Church, the coming of printing would end its ability to do that.

All in all a fascinating is often horrific story (it does have its moments of humour, too!) The audio is excellently delivered by Jonathan Keeble whose, who I last heard narrating a thriller about climate change so his career seems to be focussing on apocalypses and fires - but it has just the gravitas needed for such topics.

I would recommend this book, even if you think you have no interest in medieval Italy. 

For more information about Three Fires, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi

Boys in the Valley
Philip Fracassi
Orbit, 13 July 2023 
Available as: PB 335pp, audio, e  
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780356520551

I'm grateful to Orbit for sending me a copy of Boys in the Valley to consider for review.

Boys in the Valley is a horror novel that operates at two levels. On the surface, the life of Fracassi's Boys, orphans and delinquents living at a Roman Catholic institution in the US West at the dawn of the 20th century, is already harsh. They are fed the scantest of rations and are subject to brutal punishment for stepping even slightly out of line. It's also hinted that a lay brother, Johnson, who assists the priests, has a dark past and is a present danger. 

The boys already, then, endure something that most of us would see as a life of horror so the knowledge that things may be about to get worse creates fears of something very dark indeed. And Fracassi delivers, with things kicking off when there is a knocking on the door late one night and a disturbing guest appears...

I enjoyed the rather precise unfolding of what comes next. I was anticipating a fight for survival, for salvation even - the blurb for the book provides many hints of something demonic, but when it comes Fracassi is actually rather subtle, posing questions through the mouth of his rather intelligent antagonist that exploit all the divisions of St Vincent's and show up both the institution's morals and theology as rather shallow. 

That said, the relationship between lead character Peter, who has aspirations to the priesthood (but also eyes on Grace, a girl at the neighbouring farm) and his mentor Fr Andrew is also sensitively done and overturns any attempt to set things out as "abusive priests vs innocent children" - as does the later behaviour of some of those innocents. At the heart of the story are honestly portrayed, well constructed relationships and real ethical dilemmas. The abuse of power is never far away (and perhaps that's what gives the Adversary his foothold?) but so are good intentions (yet we know, don't we, what road is paved with those?)

In all of this, the lesson might be that appearances deceive. The twisted version of Christianity being proclaimed by some of the protagonists can't, in the end, hold out agains evil because, well, reliance on and deference to power structures rather than real goodness isn't a basis for faith. True goodness and love for mercy may do, even if they seem to make one vulnerable. There's a lot of food for thought here.

As an unseasonal winter storm closes in, trapping the boys, their guardians, and their foes, in the orphanage, the stage is set for a violent, even visceral denouement, Fracassi sparing us little detail. Be aware that it's a very visual story, and innocence will be no protection. Yet goodness is not powerless.

An intense, involving story that demands attention and will remain with you long after you finish it.

For more information about Boys in the Valley, see the publisher's website here. 

#Review - Gods of the Wyrdwood by RJ Barker

Gods of the Wyrdwood (The Forsaken Trilogy, Book 1)
RJ Barker
Orbit, 29 June 2023
Available as: HB, 626pp, audio, e  
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(HB): 9780356517230

I'm grateful to Nazia at Orbit for sending me a copy of Gods of the Wyrdwood to consider for review.

This is one of those occasions when writing a review is simply daunting. I just want to say "buy this book, it's brilliant". I've come to expect a high standard form this author but really, it's just ridiculous how good Gods is. Whether you judge by characters, by setting, by the issues addressed or just by plain old-fashioned readability, Gods of the Wyrdwood amply delivers (and this, in passing, with the author making it deliberately hard by writing a book in a setting with no metal!)

Gods of the Wyrdwood doesn't mess around, but drops us immediately into its menacing, disturbing setting. Our hero Cahan Du-Nahare, known to most as "The Forester" since his real name attracts attention from powerful enemies, is an outcast living on the fringes of a remote village, Harn. Cahan is clanless and therefore pretty much despised by the villagers - near the bottom of the social pile in their harsh land of Crua, they're glad to have someone else to look down on, and as Cahan lives on the fringes of the frightening wild woods, he's also touched by the dread and superstition directed at that realm. So when the story opens with the Forester's death, it's a foretaste of what is to come in this violent land, riven by warfare between followers of different gods - and by a ruthless pursuit of any woman or man suspected of being a conduit for the wrong gods.

In this atmosphere of external persecution, the ruling faction - followers of the new god Tarl-an-Gig, the Balancing Man - are as divided internally as their enemies, and Barker quickly sketches a complicated polity where personal motivations - the desire for power, for safety or for revenge - can outweigh politics and duty, giving scope for all sorts of double dealing and chicanery. It's a world that Cahan has known and turned his back on, one of the themes of the novel being his desire to set aside power - and he's been blessed, or cursed, with considerable power - and live a quiet life, harming none.

If only the world would let him do that! Whether pursued by enemies or enlisted for help the desperate villagers - despite their fears of him - throughout this book Cahan is continually harried to aid various causes, including venturing into the depths of the Wyldwood itself when the son of the village's headwoman disappears. That episode introduces Cahan's unwelcome companion Udinny, a character who is just exquisite. I'd say that Cahan and Udinny are destined to be one of the great partnerships of fantasy, her enthusiasm and moral drive the perfect foil to his dourness and reticence.

Udinny is a monk, a former thief who has somehow fallen into the service of a powerful goddess - not a comfortable thing to be at all in a land under the dominion of Tarl-an-Gig - and a person who's just hugely inquisitive, self possessed and, above all, brave. The scenes between the two, especially where they are on their forest quest, are simply brilliant, a spiky bickering moderating into respect and even grudging admiration.

In their brilliant depiction, Cahan and Udinny are not though unique in this book - Barker is on top form here giving us real hiss-inducing villains (but then flooring us by showing us their relatable human emotions and drives), and complex, grey-shaded villagers, soldiers and artisans as well as epic battles, a whole bizarre ecology for both the woods and the deities that inhabit them, and - in glimpses - a slowly emerging backstory for Cahan. That last is possibly the most affecting part of the story, slowly showing us the basis on which he lived his life and what he lost along the way, leading to him being the reserved figure we see through most of the book. It's not just filling in background, what happened to the boy - and young man - Cahal could easily be a book, or more, in itself. Writing is about much more than "having ideas" I know but even so, there's a profligacy to the amount of material that Barker is happy simply to allude to here without needing to explore in detail, something that, to me, promises he's a got a lot more to come in this series. 

Gods of the Wyrdwood is a big book with epic themes, but also very personal ones, showing ordinary people forced to step up when their quiet lives are threatened by the games of the powerful. In its exciting finale the people of Harn, tanners, butchers and farmers are forced to defend their village against experienced troops. Like Cahan, they have been drawn into conflict and politics whether they like it (or understand it) or not and they just have to make the best of things. Quiet loyalty, mercy and kindness seem small things compared with armour and powerful magic, but they still, as Barker seems to show, have a value in themselves.

Just an incredible read, a corruscatingly good book, promising a standout trilogy from RJ Barker. 

For more information about Gods of the Wyrdwood, see the publisher's website here. 

#Review - Barrow of Winter by HM Long

Barrow of Winter (Hall of Smoke 3)
HM Long
Titan Books, 17 January 2023
Available as: PB, 352pp, e, audio
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781803360027

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of Barrow of Winter via Netgalley, to consider for review.

'Why am I creeping down a tunnel in an abandoned tomb, other than curiosity and the encouragement of an owl that isn't an owl?'

Barrow of Winter returns to HM Long's Hall of Smoke universe (Hall of Smoke, Temple of No God) but it rings some changes. 

The first two books focussed largely on Hessa, and saw her grow from a young woman in the first book to a mature warrior-priestess in the second. I had wondered whether the third would therefore show us an ageing Hessa. We don't get that. While Hessa plays a role in this story, she's not central to it - and still more than capable of fighting in battle. But the story mainly follows Thray, Hessa's sort-of niece, now a priestess in her own right but more significantly, a young woman who wants to know more about her own origins and nature.

Some twenty years after the cataclysmic events of the previous book - the deaths of gods and the overthrowing of empires and an old order of things - the land of the Eangen is now at (relative) peace and the worship of the newly ascendent god Thvnder well established. Life is calm for Thray... except when she goes out deliberately hunting deadly beasts just to find out whether she can die. As a descendent of the dead god of winter she may be immortal, but she doesn't want to see those she loves die before time after time, like some of her siblings. She therefore wants to know.

That impulse in Thray to push boundaries is established early on, and she lives up to it throughout the book (oddly reminding me of Hessa in Hall of Smoke). Despite being betrothed to a devoted young warrior and having numerous responsibilities as priestess for her village, it's clearly only a matter of time before Thray will find some reason to head off into the North to learn about her kin and where she came from. The opportunity, when it comes, takes us into whole new realms of Long's fascinating world - a country bound in darkness beneath everlasting winter, one where strange new gods and their priests, and Thray's own kin, the Winterborn, coexist uneasily in a fragile politics already threatened by climate change and hunger for power.

The political turns out to be very personal indeed for Thray. The Winterborn aren't to be trusted, but they possess knowledge and abilities that she needs to make sense of her life. Will she be able to coax those from them without giving up her own identity, her own future? What will the price be?

A novel of becoming, of growth, of loyalty, treason and of discovering what really matters, Barrow of Winter was very enjoyable, very fast-paced and laced with mysteries. Thray is a relatable and interesting protagonist and Long makes this book entertaining and fun in its own right even if you haven'r read the previous ones. For myself, I'd like to have seen more of Hessa, but I appreciate that as High Priestess of a flourishing cult her life is probably too admin-y for a thrilling adventure - she has responsibilities and is old enough to know she shouldn't abandon them unlike Thray does.

Recommended.

For more information about Barrow of Winter, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - City of Last Chances by Adrian Tchaikovsky

City of Last Chances
Adrian Tchaikovsky
Head of Zeus, 8 December 2022
Available as: HB, 512pp, audio, e
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781801108423

I'm grateful to Head of Zeus for sending me an e-copy of City of Last Chances via NetGalley to consider for review.

I think there is a theory that while science fiction is a literature focussed on change and development, fantasy is, rather, focussed on restoring what has been lost. "Space: the Final Frontier" vs "Return of the King", or something like that, with a good outcome seen either as transformative progress, or regression to The Golden Age.

In his new novel City of Last Chances, Adrian Tchaikovsky creates a whole world poised on the knife edge between these alternatives. He introduces us to Ilmar, also known as the City of Bad Decisions, a place with the reputation of being a last refuge for the unlucky, the stateless, the desperate. (I'm reminded of the nickname for Oxford, "City of Lost Causes"). There are rumours of a way out - a gateway out of misery - but the price of passage is high, leaving most of the malcontents, runaways and displaced populations stuck in Ilmar, their unique and disparate cultures decaying on that great compost heap of a town.

The Ilmari themselves have their own problems, though, now being ruled by the Palleseen, who, recently invaded, hanged the Old Duke, made Ilmar part of their Sway,  and set out imposing their ideas of perfection. (The Palleseen idea is a thing called 'The Perfecture', a glorious model society which all nations should want to be part of - those that won't sign up are clearly backwards, disruptive and sorely need to be brought to help).

The participants in this story are many and varied; among them are refugees who have settled in Ilmar (some after escaping from the Pels); factions among the Ilmari - most of whom are notionally part of a 'resistance', something Tchaikovsky shines a rather merciless spotlight on; and the Pels themselves. There are also hints of darker, older powers perhaps best alone. That gives a great many viewpoints including - to mention just a few - the last remaining believer in God; a man who's stepped out of another world where he was prepped for a merciless war, but who's lost his wife and is set only on finding here; an idealistic student radical; a foot soldier for the criminal gangs; a union organiser who's seen and suffered; and an cynical old academic who gives a nod to revolution in his classes while cutting deals with the Pels in the shadows.

That last is something of a theme here. The disparate rebel factions - students, aristocrats, thieves' syndicates and smugglers - have quite different views about how to free themselves from the Pels' yoke, and when a seemingly innocuous incident blows up into riot and uprising, nobody has a plan, or much of an idea how to proceed (apart from  raking off all they can in the chaos). That unfolding response, and countermoves by the occupiers, forms the texture of this story, together with desperate attempts, by a number of the characters, to track down the missing artefact that sparked everything off. That's important, because an avenger seems to be hunting down all those who may have secured the treasure. The decisions made here, by everyone, will determine who lives and who dies as the flame of revolution spreads...

City of Last Chances is a weighty and absorbing book, one I'd place far, far away from the run of fantasy or SF. Tchaikovsky clearly isn't buying into that simplistic binary that I mentioned at the start. The past of Ilmar isn't a desirable state to be brought back, but no future looks bright either. Better perhaps to remain on that knife edge, maintaining a complex relationship with the Pels. But that takes a lot of work and has a cost. Perhaps it's easier just to bring out the banners from the days gone by?

Nor will you find heroes or villains here. More or less everyone is - as in real life - out for themselves (I'd exclude from that idealistic student Lemya) or at least heavily conflicted. Take that union leader, for example, Father Orvechin. He's focussed on improvements in the conditions of his workers and, in the longer term, perhaps the overthrow of the Pels. But the factory owners who oppress his people are native aristos, not Pels, and the factories are kept turning by demons who are themselves enslaved, oppressed workers - workers that Orvechin is willing to see kept in their bonds, because they're not his people, though he knows that one day this will haunt him.

This whole sense of Ilmar as a nest of collaboration, compromise and negotiation with power, and that maybe that is just about the best things can be, is revisited and reworked throughout the book. The Pels themselves are split into different blocs who are willing to cuts deals when it suits them. The aristocrats ('Armigers') desire one future, the siblingries (unions and workers' guilds) another. At times they cooperate, at others they don't. The same goes for the other actors here. Picture a giant game of repeated Prisoners' Dilemma, played out in real time, with magic, lost deities and demons thrown in too, and you get some idea of the complexity and fascination of this book.

That may make the story sound academic or dry, but it's really not. It's passionate, urgent and angry. Tchaikovsky's central theme of compromise and collusion is shot through it, pulling against and reinforcing individual motivation is countless ways, different for every character.While there are so many of these that one can't really anoint any as the focus, they are all intricately, convincingly realised and the business they are about gloriously integrated with the setting and the wider history that is sketched. There was only one point at which a particular strand seemed to me to jar - when a mysterious assassin, otherwise not included in the story, played a part on behalf of unknown employers whom we never hear any more about. Apart from that very brief interlude though, this book was a marvellous symphony of clashing goals, missing information and immediate danger that had me hooked throughout. I would strongly recommend it.

For more information about City of Last Chances, see the publisher's website here.

#Blogtour - The Stars Undying by Emery Robin

The Stars Undying
Emery Robin
Orbit, 10 November 2022
Available as: PB, 516pp, e, audio
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9780356519388  

I'm grateful to Orbit for sending me a copy of The Stars Undying to consider for review, and to Tracy for inviting me to join the book's blogtour.

Gosh. What can I say about this one? The Stars Undying really got its teeth into me - it made me resent everyday intrusions (eating, sleeping...) that stopped me reading it.

An achievement, I think, the more so since you'd think a book self-proclaimedly inspired by the empires of Ancient Rome and Egypt (ie the story of Caesar, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra) is going to have to work hard to overcome the reader's assumption that they know what's coming. Some pressure, perhaps?

Well, there's no way Emery Robin lets that pressure show, or that The Stars Undying seems to be straining for effect. Rather, this beautifully written, exciting and sensual novel of rulers, religion, warfare, empire and artificial intelligence (really!) drew me in from the very start. It's a lowkey opening - we see Gracia, a young princess of the planet of Sayzet, fleeing her sister and escaping off planet - but the wiring is immersive and enthralling from there right though to the when Gracia... well, that would be a spoiler, but it's an amazing scene. Gracia's development though all her tribulations and challenges is fascinating, sometime horrifying and always unpredictable: at the beginning she may seem out of her depth, a victim, a loser, but there are depths to her where she finds the resolve to beguile great men - and women - and to plot her own path forward.

Also fascinating is Ceirran, the Caesar figure here, a restless protagonist - I'd hesitate to call anyone here a hero - Commander of the forces of Ceiao, general, politician, schemer, a man in a hurry - but so much more. Both of these, however, are made richer as characters by the complex cultural, religious and political background which Robin sketches - here's where the inspiration from Rome and Egypt really counts, but you also have to  recognise the Hellenistic layer in the background to early BCE Egypt, which Robin also references: the sweep of empires and the deaths of gods and conquerers has left the galaxy portrayed here richly textured, with Gracia, Ceirran and many others having to negotiate a treacherous landscape of historic animosities, debts and paradoxes. 

This is nowhere more true than in the capital city of Ceiao, where Ceirran, an outsider on the make, clashes with the descendants of priests and kings. He's aided by his close supporter, Captain Anita who is one of the most fascinating characters I've come across in science fiction or fantasy for a long time - able, cynical, full of contradictions, equally at home on the training field, speaking in Council for Ceirran or dancing in a scuzzy bar, she attracts and repels Gracia from the start, and the tension between them crackles from the pages of The Stars Undying.

While this is a novel characterised by sweeping distances - it's not bothered about covering billions of light years - towering themes (love, treachery, loss and vengeance to name but a few) - and often, a sensuality that simply grabs - it is also a book where the small things count. Details of conversations. The voices here - Gracia and Ceirran, yes, but who is speaking to whom, and why? And actions on the margins. All matter to the working of a complex and satisfying story that satisfies on many, many levels.

All in all, a brilliant book I'd have no hesitation in recommending (and I'm counting down the days till I can read a sequel!)

For more information about The Stars Undying, see the publisher's website here - and of course the other stops on the blogtour which you can see listed on the poster below. 

You can buy The Stars Undying from your local high street bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, Foyle's, WH Smith, Waterstones or Amazon.

#Review - The Daves Next Door by Will Carver

The Daves Next Door
Will Carver
Orenda Books, 21 July 2022
Available as: PB, 277pp, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781914585180

I'm grateful to Orenda for an advance copy of The Daves Next Door to consider for review.

I did wonder if I should take the title of The Daves Next Door as being a bit close to home - though I'm a David, not a Dave, he doesn't (I think) live next door, and on a close reading I don't seem too be in here, I've learned never to trust Mr Carver's narratives to be what they seem...

Regardless, a return to the Carververse is always overdue, and in The Daves Next Door, we see the same moral noir as in Carver's previous writing (including a few clues to show that yes, this is the same world as that of Nothing Important Happened Today and Psychopaths Anonymous). Reading these books is like being a fly that's incautiously settled into a patch of honey: they pull you in, they'll be the end of you, but oh how sweet the process is.

The Daves Next Door is perhaps a more fractured story that its predecessors, following a number of different characters who are less obviously linked by a location or involvement in ongoing events. Those Daves, sharing a flat and a disease in mutual loathing, a much overworked and put-upon hospital nurse with an adequate boyfriend, an elderly man who thinks he's died and gone to Purgatory, two grifters, a a sportsman brought down by a seemingly random injury, and others - including a suicide bomber, perhaps. 

They are though linked, and in two ways. 

First, Carver's concern for human motivation, consequences and character comes through as strongly as ever. For example, there's a man here who was devoted to his wife, and bereft since her death. His son, rather than seeing that devotion as the wonderful loving thing it was, is rather resentful, so he's drifted away and won't be there for his dad's torment, which we see depicted here. A little vignette about human nature and a dynamic that's central to one of the plot strands here but also tells us something dark about people, something echoed across all the other mini-stories.

Secondly, one figure - that maybe-bomber - holds the story together, functioning (perhaps) as an all-seeing narrator, recounting the lives of the other characters, so therefore (possibly) a God-like figure or equally (maybe) an Author. Their chapters are composed as questions - such a barrage of questions, from the profound to the trivial, pausing at all stops in between, but especially circling mysteries to which humanity has signally failed to discover answers. The Four Last Things - Heaven, Hell, Death and Judgement - loom over this story, especially, perhaps, Judgement which is passed not only on the characters and the world they inhabit (the world WE inhabit) but also, this being the Carververse, on the reader as well. No other author I know has quite the ability of Carver to involve his readers in the awkward moral failings that he highlights is his stories, though he does it in an utterly disarming, even charming, way. (That's the honey).

He does it, especially, by refusing to let the reader stick the blame on one character or another, even one who has behaved abominably (as many do). There are no neat endings, no convenient resolutions and retribution - people you'd grown fond of have terrible things happen to them, the unpleasant can simply stroll away.

Maybe that's not quite right though. As we would expect, one person who's given an especially hard time here is God, and of course, as They may feature in the story, many of the questions a certain character poses might actually be asked of Themself. (I apologise for the clunky language but given Carver's multi-layered portrayals here, words become rather slippery). This makes for a rather convincing self-prosecution which is genuinely unsettling both in terms of what it implies for the story and as an accusation against religion and those who follow it.

(I have to say that for me, the omnipotent, all-seeing, create-everything-in-seven-days version of God who's in point here is perhaps something of a straw deity. Alternatives are available, and less absurd. But maybe that is slightly mean-minded of me - after all there are plenty of people who hold to this picture).

In short, I'd come to expect from this author, The Daves Next Door is a vivid and thoughtful, and often  angry, book that tells a compelling and absorbing story (across its many threads) but comes with a real moral punch, real engagement with ideas, and shines with compassion even at its darkest moments (of which there are quite few). 

I'd strongly recommend, whether or not you're read any of Mr Carver's previous books: this is essentially a standalone though with some clear links, thematically and in plot terms, to them.

For more information about this book, see the Orenda website here.

#Review - The Justice of Kings by Richard Swan

The Justice of Kings
Richard Swan
Orbit, 24 February 2022
Available as: HB, 413pps e, audio
ISBN(HB): 9780356516424

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance copy of The Justice of Kings to consider for review.

Well. this is one of those books that's hard to review, I'm very tempted just to say READ IT, but that wouldn't be very useful, would it?

So I'll try harder. The Justice of Kings is a type of fantasy I don't often read - an epic, sprawling depiction of a world filled with magic, armies, politics and strange names. I think the reason I read few of these books is less that there aren't brilliant ones around, there are, it's more a feeling that this kind of thing has been done so much I will either be let down by a book being derivative, or by it trying too hard not to be. Does that make sense?

Fortunately, I also receive some excellent recs from a certain person at Orbit and when Nazia tells me to take notice, I know I should listen. So here we are and here's The Justice of Kings, a book that for me felt refreshingly different while not visibly straining to do that. 

This is helped immeasurably by the viewpoint. The story is seen from the perspective af young woman - Helena Sedanka - who is employed as clerk to an itinerant judge. Sir Konrad Vonvalt is a sworn upholder of the Common Law, travelling endless muddy backroads from village to village and town to town with just Helena and his assistant, Dubine Bressinger. This is a group of well-realised characters: the rebellious and slightly bored Helena, Sir Konrad, an ex-military man and the slightly mysterious Dubbing who's devoted to Sir Konrad and at times, treats Helena quite harshly when she seems to display and lack of respect for his master. The three know each other really well, and the blurred relationships here - colleague, boss, friend - and endless journeys create a lot of scope for both sympathetic understanding and for drastic misunderstanding. Helena and Dubine are, for example, often forced to share a bed in a scatty inn or leaky manor house, but nothing "happens" between them. A running gag has Helena desperate for something to eat on arrival, cold and saddle saw, at a stopping point but ordered instead to Sir Konrad's chamber to discuss an arcane point of law or politics. This girl really needs to eat, I found myself saying many times as I read the story.

Setting things up for a trilogy always takes a good deal of work, and I think the opening here is as goods as I've seen anywhere. A judge, of course, provides a way in to most parts of society - as part of the apparatus of an Empire, Sir Konrad has a function that allows him to ask questions, even of the functionaries of that Empire - and the nature of the role means there will be varied opportunities to do this, the larger part of this story focusing on one, the murder of a noblewoman in a trading port.

At the same time, Sir Konrad's powers aren't unlimited. They're bound of course by the law itself, but also by a standoff between state and religion, the latter being a vital part of the bonds that hold together a fairly young Empire. They're also limited by the dynamics of that society, formed from many separate, conquered nations (the wars are still fresh in many minds, causing resentment, prejudice and all kinds of frictions). That makes his job hard at times, as in this story where the murder investigation - this book is very much a "whodunnit" -  will tread on many sensitive toes, exposing political and religious schemes and leading in the end to a minor war.

Wider political turmoil is also prefigured from the very start, in Helena's introduction - she makes clear that she is writing this account from the viewpoint of old age, and that unspecified disasters have overtaken the Empire, so while we're assured that she will make it through this book (though not necessarily unscathed) there is a sense of coming darkness over everything, and Sir Konrad's role as the upholder of law and justice seems increasingly menaced.

In short, there's a lot going on in this book but the necessary scenesetting is done very skilfully and always supports the needs of an involving an ingenious immediate plot, while providing the groundwork for a much wider story. The depictions of authorities - whether legal, political or religious - is convincing and subtle and I enjoyed the book's recognition of the dark side of Empire as the characters here deal with the aftermath of war, the absorption or appropriation of natures and cultures, and with discrimination (in an apparently multicultural State) between peoples and groups.

The Justice of Kings was a joy to read, a properly immersive story that demanded attention but also a decent amount of time: there's a lot happening, the text is rich, the characters are well-rounded and don't always do what you expect or want (at times, teenage Helena is quite whiney, but I did sympathise) so the story takes time and attention, not skimming of fast reading. 

To learn more about The Justice of Kings, see the publisher's website here.

#Review - The This by Adam Roberts

The This
Adam Roberts
Gollancz, 3 February 2022
Available as: HB, 304pp, audio, e
Source: Advance e-copy
ISBN(HB): 9781473230903  

I'm grateful to the publisher for an advance e-copy of The This via NetGalley to consider for review.

'In the Bardo, subject and object are the same.'

As always with Adam Roberts' books, The This fizzes with ideas, the story illustrating, looping around, and developing, themes from philosophy, physics, popular culture, literature, religion, music (and doubtless more I didn't spot. Roberts is, in the best sense of the word, a clever author - not because, or not only because, of this incredible hinterland, but because he is able to share it without making the reader feel they've missed stuff. Rather, one feels gleeful about what one has spotted. 

It helps that while the background (as I learned from the Afterword) may be in Hegel, the actual argument and case developed in the book is very plain to see whether or not you have read that philosopher. The points we see made are about a person versus a collective society, about loneliness ('the odd thing about loneliness is the way it's both an intensely isolating , individual experience and the one thing most widely shared by human beings'), about the experience of loss, about that weird thing we call death. They are all integrated into a portrayal of modern life that feels right (right as in, convincing, real, authentic).

Rich lives that modern life. He's possibly one of the many lives (an entire page of them farmers! But also I think I saw Billy Bragg lyrics?) lived by the "you" that comes and goes from the Bardo in the bewitching opening section of the book. This section allows Roberts free rein devising inventive micro-stories (whole lives told in a sentence or a paragraph, many bringing in those references I mentioned above). Rich is, at least in this life, not really rich - that's more of a nickname - but he is comfortable enough, in his Putney flat, to survive on occasional bits of work from the gig economy. Sometimes he even has a bit of cash left over to pursue his hobby of collecting... cash, in the form of rare banknotes. (We get a couple of pages of digression musing on the nature of banknotes as essentially known lies).

Interspersed with Rich's story, Roberts has included chunks of social media, sort of. Status updates. Locations. Spam. Messages. Complaints. Puns (of course puns! 'He preferred Apple products to PCs, computer-wise. You might say: pomme? - cuter. You might say.' Roberts' way with puns is genius. They aren't just there to be funny, rather they're a tool that adds layers of meaning to the text). The way this material is arranged means that the flow of Rich's story is continually broken up. I had to keep going back and reminding myself where a sentence came from, before my attention was spammed, the whole experience of course redolent of the contemporary struggle for attention in the face of a torrent of jangling content - but also illustrating Rich's particular life as he twiddles and fiddles his days away supposedly working on his novel (an epic fantasy project). 

The story takes wing when Rich is allotted a job interviewing the representative of a company, the 'The This' of the title, which has developed an implant allowing social media to be literally pumped into the brain. Is The This a cult, as some allege? Rich is intrigued by his encounter, but soon discovers that The This may have plans for him. As the behaviour of the company becomes outright stalkery, it seems clear that Rich is somehow important - and not only to The This.

Several centuries on, Adan lives an, I suppose, even more modern life (it's the future so it must be more modern?) focussed on Elegy, an AI sex-toy that Adan is absurdly, sweetly, devoted to. But it's still a slacker existence similar to Rich's, buffered by his mother's money - until she defects to The Enemy. By Adan's time The This has metastasised into a formidable hive mind against which humanity - or parts of it - are at war. And Adan soon finds himself in the army. 

There are other strands too - a whole section set in the world of Nineteen Eighty-Four, expanding on the theme of the hive mind in an interpretation of that book that I'd never have considered but which fitted exactly with the idea of Big Brother. Some writers would take just that idea and make it into a whole story - by no means the only example in this book of Roberts' prodigality with ideas: basically he hoses the reader with them. Loneliness? Here is Father Mackenzie, caught as it were just out of the song, 'wiping his hands on his cassock and talking nervously about God's love'. Ah, we're doing Beatles, well, here is 'a car alarm... going off like Yoko Ono in full song'. The book is like a bulging sack of presents on Christmas Day, with treat after treat to unwrap.

Returning to Adan's story, though, Roberts uses it to add yet another thematic thread with a confused, panicked view of warfare - all fumbles and shock and confusion with comrades butchered and intentions muddled). It's a war in which Adan, inexplicably, seems to play a central role but his place - and importance - are no clearer than Rich's. I'd say the focus of the story switches from one to the other, Roberts giving us clear portrayals of both. Not necessarily people I'd want to meet or spend time with, they are both, nevertheless, rounded, actual characters, something that gives them a sort of edge over the various forces - the military, espionage agencies or The This itself - that are trying to manipulate them. The book returns in the end, I think, to deep questions: what it is that makes us human, whether mere happiness and contentment is enough to satisfy that nature, and what may lie beyond even something like The This which seems - in many respects - like a desirable endpoint for human evolution.

Clever, humane, absorbing and great fun, this is in my view Roberts' writing at his very very best. Just a glorious book to read. Get it now!

(The book also built my vocabulary. Evanishment? Haecceity? Velleities?)

 

#Review - The Mask of Mirrors by M A Carrick

Cover design
by Lauren Panepinto

The Mask of Mirrors (Rook and Rose, Book 1)
MA Carrick
Orbit, 21 January 2021
Available as: PB, 630pp, audio, e
Source: PB and audio
ISBN(PB): 9780356515175

I'm grateful to the publisher for a paperback copy of The Mask of Mirrors to consider for review. 

I actually "read" most of this book listening to it on audio, because my reading and scheduling is all over the place right now (and when I say "now" I means "always") and that way I can access a few more books. It might seem not the best choice because The Mask of Mirrors is more than 25 hours on audio, and so took a couple of months to finish. (Of course once I got within sniffing distance of the end I switched to the paperback because EXCITING FINISH).

In other ways it was a good choice because audio suits this story exactly. I generally find the experience of listening to a book more immediately immersive but it especially fits the complex, intricate world that M A Carrick (Marie Brennan and Alyc Helms writing together) creates.

We are in the city - the city state - of Nadežra, a merchant enclave with something of a feel of Renaissance Venice: Nadežra is a place founded on inlets and islands, a sort -of Republic run by noble houses with trading interests who govern though a council, the Cinquerat. A great deal of the background to the story is rooted in this hierarchy - we're particularly interested in one of the noble houses, House Traementis, whose fortunes have rather fallen, and there is a great deal of business with charters and commerce, involving a long-lost member of the family, Renata, who shows a singular ability to get things done and who may just be what Traementis needs to reclaim some of their lustre.

The only problem is... Alta Renata is actually Ren, a skilled con artist and former thief from the gutters of Nadežra, set on liberating some of that Traementis wealth and diverting it to more deserving causes (Ren, and her sister, Tess, who poses as Ren's maid). We only learn Ren's story gradually, in patches and from different points of view, but it is a sad one, evoking sympathy. I couldn't but admire Ren's and Tess's planning and audacity. In particular, Carrick makes clear how the whole thing depends on appearances: the right dress for the right occasion, with Tess continually stitching, ripping and reworking, all on a budget since the pair have no money. The styles and choices are described, and how they reflect or exploit the current fashions in Nadežra - all serving to make the city very, very real, almost tangible.

Gradually, as Ren becomes genuinely friendly with the serving members of House Traementis, her motives become cloudier and she seems less inclined to do them for every last coin she can and more to use her remarkable talents for mutual gain. She is, though, always in danger if her secret is revealed - imitating a noble is seen as a dreadful crime, and the penalty one of being trafficked in the slave ships. So throughout this story Ren (and to some degree Tess) are changing perspective and developing as characters.  

Through them, Carrick also explores a whole dimension of colonialism and class inequality in Nadežra, whose ruling nobles actually derive from Liganti invaders, the indigenous poeople of the region being Vraszanians like Ren and Tess. In the audio, this is marked by the switch Alta Renata's cool, very Standard English, accent compared with the thicker, foreign inflected accent used as Ren's 'own' speech. Ren uses this same voice when she's playing the part of a fortune teller, something she does quite often since the use of cards to divine the past, present and future is an obsession among the Vraszanians, a way to earn a little money and also a means the author uses to hint at where the story is going. This was where the audio was slightly frustrating because the system of cards as developed by Carrick is understandably very visual, and without following the words on the page that describe what's happening in the various readings (some of them real, some faked by Ren or other characters as the need arises) it can be hard to keep track of what's happening.

That in no way reduces the delight of this story, though, which simply teems with life. Carrick introduces us variously to police, haughty nobles, a dashing and daring Robin Hood style outlaw, 'the Rook', a faction of Vraszanian rebels, rival mobsters with their own street gangs and trading interests, and a couple of magicians (magic - numinatria - is a Thing here, although seen more as an offshoot of sacred geometry than an occult art). The conception of all this, the different viewpoints, the manoeuvring and skullduggery between the houses and the skin-of-her-teeth efforts of Ren to keep her true identity secret and present herself as the wealthy and privileged Alta Renata, give the first half of the book something of the air of a Dickens novel. There is simply so much going on, yet it's all so skilfully depicted that one never feels swamped. 

Above all it feels real.

The city and its residents established, with the second half, Carrick swerves hard in other directions. It's impossible to say much about this without some spoilers about certain shocking events, but what I will say is, Carrick is BRUTAL with some of what happens and, like Ren, she's playing a shell game. I certainly never suspected where the book was going and if the minutiae of the first half didn't suit you, well, the second part is very different (magic may be involved, is all I will say) and, as it were, scratches quite a different itch. There are more plots than Ren's at work and compared to some of what's revealed, she is pretty much an innocent.

I'd wholeheartedly recommend The Mask of Mirrors if you love a well worked out, immersive fantasy world peopled by a gallery of obstreperous characters who may make temporary alliances but are, mostly, never going to get on.

And it's only the first 'Rook and Rose' book - the title suggests that the focus will be slightly different again from what we might expect based only on this one...

For more information about The Mask of Mirrors, see the publisher's website here.

Review - The Secret Commonwealth by Philip Pullman

Cover design by Tom Sanderson

The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust, 2)
Philip Pullman
David Fickling Books and Penguin Books, 3 October 2019
Audio, 686pp (also available HB, e)

OK: The Secret Commonwealth then!

I listened to this book via an audio subscription service.

It may be an exercise in vanity or futility to review a book whose launch was such a high profile event. The Secret Commonwealth may have been the most anticipated book this year (unless that was The Testaments). But we are where we are. This is a blog and I am a blogger. I don't think anyone is waiting for my say-so to buy The Secret Commonwealth (I certainly hope not) but I do have a few thoughts so I will share them.

And I have even done footnotes!

Warning - this may be a slightly more spoilery review that I would normally do. That's partly because (see above) I don't believe anyone who hasn't read the book will hear about it first from me, partly because when I cross post this to Amazon my review will be the (*checks*) 191st or something like that.

But most of all because I think the book demands it. I see for example that the most "useful" (how I hate that feature!) Amazon reviews wrestle with it, but fail to "get" it. Too long, one says. Too dark. Not for younger people. (This latter is something Pullman has been quite upfront about - READ THE ******* AUTHOR'S NOTE!) As to the length - I'm with Tolkein who lamented that the greatest failing of The Lord of the Rings was that his book was too short. I love a big book. If it's good, I want more.

As to the content - I think I do "get" it. And I won't say it is perfect (see below). But this book is trying to do something brave and difficult, and I think any decent review needs to engage with that and discuss it.

Yes, this IS a dark book. It is very dark in places - for example, there is (CW) an attempted rape, but even without that, the story would not be a happy one. Most obviously, The Secret Commonwealth undermines, contradicts, the hard-won sense of happiness we got at the end of His Dark Materials in a way that La Belle Sauvage didn't, it being set before His Dark Materials and also, as a more self-contained story than Commonwealth, ending on its own note of triumph, almost a prequel to His Dark Materials.

Yes, I know that Lyra and Will were to be separated for ever, sitting each on their own version of that bench in the Botanics. I know they would have to deal with the consequences of having been separated from their dæmons. But when we checked in with Lyra in Lyra's Oxford, set between The Amber Spyglass and Commonwealth, Lyra and Pan were on good terms[1].

Here, they hate each other. HATE.

The first half of the book is punctuated by furious quarrels between Lyra and Pan, the atmosphere this creates overshadowing even grim events in the outside world and what are clearly moves against Lyra herself by the Magisterium. (There's an irony here. In Amber Spyglass, we saw the death of the Authority, the gnostic-tinged demiurge which is behind religion in Pullman's world[2], and Lyra's and Will's victory over the Magisterium which made them into a kind of second Eve and second Adam. However news of that never - I think - came back to Geneva,  so in Commonwealth that body carries on much as ever, indeed in some ways worse.) We saw in La Belle Sauvage what could become of someone wishing ill to their dæmon so there is a tinge of horror to this whole process. As a parent of a young person (Lyra is in her early 20s) I admit that at times I wanted to take Pan aside and tell him just to give Lyra a bit of time and space. She seems taken with some fashionable nonsense, that's all, but she'll soon see through it. But of course he's part of her so that would hardly work.

If I had a criticism of this, it would be that - spoiler ahead! - this discord seems a bit confected, in terms of the book it seems designed to separate Lyra and Pan, to enable her to explore the consequences of "separation" which form a theme later on. Looking at the specifics of the fashionable nonsense Lyra has swallowed - a kind of ultra Dawkins-esque reductionist realism, on the one hand, and a solipsistic denial of reality, on the other, neither allowing any time for wonder, imagination or the supernatural - it's hard to believe that the girl, now a woman, who lived through the events of His Dark Materials would be taken in for a moment, because that lived reality so strongly contradicts both. So this whole conflict seems a bit, well, staged, and therefore, slightly annoying.

But never enough to detract from what is a pacey and exciting story. (I didn't mind too much that the main inciting event - spoiler! - the murder of a clandestine agent on the bank of an Oxford canal, seemed a bit familiar from La Belle Sauvage). Pullman's construction of his alternate Oxford is also, as ever, a joy. I am lucky enough to live near our Oxford, and the resonance, the reality, that Pullman extracts from little references and in-jokes (such as that 'Little Clarendon Street had been adopted by Oxford's jeunesse dorée as a fashionable destination') is impressive (there's even a callout to Boswell's, a much loved and venerable department store that is sadly to close in a few weeks). His wider world, too, makes sense - the smoky atmosphere, the Gyptians, the machinations of the remote Magisterium and the collaborationist bureaucracies, men (mostly) who are not "bad" as such (or not all) but want an easy life.

If the darkness in the first part of the book came from Pan and Lyra's squabbling, in the second, it arises much more from world events. Lyra's world is, as Pullman gradually reveals, in crisis. There is religious and political turmoil in the East and refugees are heading away from this, to be treated with the same lack of care and lack of welcome that has been shown in our world to those fleeing the troubles in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere.

We first hear about these troubles from a distance, as a cause of economic crisis, and then see them more closely as Lyra travels East. She first sets out because she's menaced, hunted, threatened at home - it's not clear exactly why, though Pullman gives us some hints through glimpses of the inner Magisterium - but her journey gradually acquires a focus, and it is one that takes her into the heart off the storm, into greater peril than any sage faced in the previous trilogy, I think. In the course of that we are shown and told many dark things, not least that the match between dæmon and human is less permanent than we might have thought. I think Pullman is slightly retconning his world here - in His Dark Materials, separation from a dæmon was so traumatic, so vile, that it seemed it almost led to death (poor Billy clutching his fish) or at least, to psychic damage. Lyra and Will seemed to be the exception to that and as we will see, many people still won't accept the idea of a human with no dæmon. But as Lyra finds out, it is much more common that you'd think. That troubles her, alongside the gathering clouds of war, the personal threat to her and the cruelty meted out to the poor, the weak. There is not much sign here that the Republic of Heaven, which Lyra and Will swore to build, is being established. Perhaps Lyra was sidetracked by those fashionable philosophies? Will the quest she's on, headed, ultimately, in the heart os Asia, put her back on course?

Unlike its predecessor, The Secret Commonwealth doesn't come to a tidy end but leaves things in the middle of the action, with Lyra, Pan and Malcolm Polsted (making a welcome return from La Belle Sauvage) all in danger and other loved characters suffering too.

I found it a gripping read. It isn't a book for children, but Pullman understands how to hook his readers - adult or child - and isn't above throwing in startling, nailbiting incidents which may deviate a bit from the main plot but which keep the tension high and allow his characters to shine - think of Alamo Gulch in His Dark Materials[3].

I did, as I have said, listen to this book rather than "reading" it and I found that the audio, narrated by Michael Sheen, really brought the story alive. Sheen uses dozens of voices, including giving Lyra a proper Oxford accent (the real, local accent, not the posh one) and imbuing the villains with appropriately menacing tones.

The story isn't perfect. I agree with those who think (more spoilers!) we would better have been spared the whole Malcolm-fancies-teenage-Lyra bit. While very tastefully achieved, told from a distance and with Malcolm portrayed as very honourably distancing himself form any hint of anything bad, it still comes over a bit icky. Just no.

Also, I could have done with more followthrough on some of those startling incidents - several times in this book, something startling happens, I mean something really AMAZINGLY salient (you'll know these things when then they happen) and then - nothing. No passing mention in the following days, no reaction in the (often overheard) secret councils of the Magisterium. Nothing.

But this is still a better book to read than many that you'll see piled high on the bookshop tables this Christmas. I'd say it lives up to the expectations. It's fun, it's scary - deeply, morally scary - it's pertinent and warning (look what's happening to two of the main characters on trains towards the end). A book not to be missed.

[1] Do read Lyra's Oxford, before or after this - it provides a wealth of helpful hints and material that support The Secret Commonwealth.

[2] Don't ask me if by "Pullman's world" I mean, Lyra's world, or the whole set of parallel ones that includes Will's - but which is meant to be ours. I don't know. I would like to ask him (Pullman, not Will).

[3] Pullman loves his filmy references, doesn't he? Look at the title of the other "companion" book, Once upon a Time in the North.

Review - The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard

The House of Shattered Wings (Dominion of the Fallen, 1)
Aliette de Bodard
Gollancz, 2015
PB, 402pp

I bought my (paper) copy of this book from my local independent bookshop. I also listened to it via Audible.

The House of Shattered Wings - for first in de Board's Domain of the Fallen series - was only published four years ago, but is already, I think, one of those SFF books you really should have read, an instant classic.  And I hadn't.

So, to catch up, in advance of the third book being published later this year, I have been listening to Wings as an audiobook while driving to and from the station. That gives me 50 or so minutes a day, enough time for a decent length book over several weeks. I'm therefore specifically reviewing the audiobook, though I must admit, as I came towards the end, I picked up my paper copy and finished it that way, I couldn't wait for my next drive.

The first thing to say about House of Shattered Wings it that it's a triumph of worldbuilding. De Bodard creates a haunting, ruined Paris, gutted in a magical war some decades before, with a 1920s vibe, although I think that chronologically it's set more or less "now". The history of France - Europe - has had grafted into it the presence of "Fallen", literally angels cast out of Heaven in what's alluded to as a Miltonic rebellion. They arrive in Paris (and elsewhere? That's not clear) actually falling - the opening of the first chapter gives a snippet of the background to this - and liable not only to be damaged by that fall but immediately at the mercy of rival "Houses", and of gangs who will gut them for their magical "essence".

Angel magic is all in this Paris. It's both a curse - having ruined and polluted the City - and a source of power to the magicians of the Houses, which are presided over by those Fallen. And it's also a drug, sought after by addicts to whom it provides comfort, warmth, an illusion of safety. That's something needed in this dangerous world, needed for example by Madeleine, alchemist of House Silverspires, where she took refuge twenty years before after House Hawthorn was the scene of slaughter, an event that has traumatised and haunted her ever since. Madeleine is therefore an addict, hooked on the dangerous Essence, flouting the rules of her adopted House.

If the book was only notable for worldbuilding, that would be great, but not make for a satisfying read. But there is much more here. Another brilliant feature of this book is that while nobody here is very likeable, or at least few of the main characters, they are fascinating and complex as characters. While one may feel sympathy for Madeleine, she's not - or wasn't to me - a very pleasant person.  Selene, Head of Silverspires, is grouchy and frequently interrupts people from whom she might otherwise get useful information. Isabelle, a new Fallen who arrives early on, quickly becomes enigmatic and moody. Asmodeus - Head of House Hawthorn - is a vicious bully, only partially disguised by his being charming and mannered. Yet they all compel attention.

Possibly the only exception, in that he is more pleasant, but still complex,is Philippe, a (seemingly) young man from the Far East, trafficked to Paris by the colonial power to serve as cannon fodder in the War. I'll say more about Philippe in a moment, but first I just want to say how much I enjoyed this bunch of grumpy, spiky characters. Through them de Bodard weaves a compelling story without ever allowing it to turn into a mere struggle between Good and Evil. They are all fascinating, flawed creatures, plausible even while annoying (or perhaps because of it). Everyone here is capable of doing - has done - monstrous things. The system of Houses ensnares them all, and they are knowingly complicit in it, all except Philippe who, as an outsider especially sees its rottenness.

Even Philippe, though, perhaps mainly sees the effect on him personally and his country. In a neat encapsulation of colonialism, the Fallen's power has enabled France - presumably Europe at large - to overturn indigenous belief systems (by which I mean, actually existing systems of divinity and divine power) and in particular that of the Jade Emperor, who Philippe previously served. And none of the Fallen who we meet here recognise or rate Philippe's, rather different, grasp of magic because it's "foreign" or "primitive" compared to their own. The power of the Fallen is therefore both the cause of, and in the service of, a colonial attitude. They are strong, but also ignorant.

And in keeping with that, throughout this story Fallen mistrust each other, misjudge the situation, decline to share information, and leap to conclusions (often wrong) about what is going on. There is a threat in play here, a curse whose effects unfold, at first in minor ways then more and more strongly. And there is someone behind that threat. But, as I've said above, it's not a traditional evil, there isn't some Dark Lord here seeking power, there is no band of good magicians getting together to save the day. Motives are characterised by muddle, partial understanding, and personal prejudices.

All of that, perhaps surprisingly, makes for a brilliant story, gripping, convincing, often sad, sometimes wryly funny. One may not like these characters but it's hard not to sympathise with them, to wish that, somehow, they could break the wheel, could escape from the circles they have to keep going round - no less confined for believing they are in control.

So - a blisteringly good story, great fun to listen to though I will admit there were many moments when (as I was alone I the car) I was shouting out for Philippe or Madeleine to share some key bit of info, to be a bit less rigid, for Selene to shut up and listen instead of pontificating. You know they won't do it, and that's what gives the story such a tragic direction, but you wish they would.

Deservedly, then, one of those books you just HAVE to read. On to The House of Binding Thorns for my next listen!

Review - La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman

La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust, 1)
Philip Pullman
David Fickling Books/ Penguin, 19 October 2017
HB, audiobook, 546pp

This is the second in my occasional series "books I bought but hadn't read yet". As with the last, the reason is the sheer mass of "now" books coming along.

For La Belle Sauvage, I did something I'm increasingly turning to - bought it again as an audiobook and listened in the car on the way to and from the station. I'm not commuting every day right now, so that means I took several weeks to hear it all - then got frustrated and devoured the final 150 pages in an evening.

The narration of this by Michael Sheen is perfect: resonant, clear, authoritative, almost as if one could hear the author writing the book aloud. Beyond that, of course, the story itself shines. As with His Dark Materials, the character of Lyra's world (for want of a better name) is felt, rather than told, from the start: that slightly sulphurous, peppery feel of a dangerous, subtly different universe. All the detail - the superficially old-fashioned Oxford, the familiar-but-different vocabulary, the terror of the Consistorial Court of Discipline, the horrific sneaks of the League of St Alexander, the vile obscenity of Bonneville - only fills in that picture and confirms it.

And so we're away, into a perfectly realised world, a perfectly realised Oxford, in the midst of, basically, a spy story. Malcolm, our hero, is a softly spoken, intelligent, resourceful boy upon whom impossible burdens will be thrust but who never thinks to refuse them. Only at one stage towards the end do we catch him thinking, I'm not old enough for this, but even then he remains brave, remains loyal. Yet Malcolm isn't a cardboard hero, he develops through this story, observes, learns, deduces, arguing things out with his daemon. His changing relationship with Alice, the strange, sulky kitchen girl from the Trout - the inn his parents keep - is a joy to behold. (And there are depths to Alice). Neither really understands or trusts the other at the start, I think, yet they find themselves having to depend on each other all the same, negotiating the relationship even amidst heartstopping dangers.

The two kids are very much at the centre of this story. There are others we see a bit of - especially Dr Hannah Relf, but also Lord Asrael, the nuns at Godstow Priory (reimagined here standing still, across the river from the Morese-less Trout Inn) - and of course Mrs Coulter Herself - but these are very much supporting parts, however important those adults may be. (They may feature in further books of this trilogy, who knows?)

Pullman does an excellent job of keeping up suspense and creating a real sense of things going on, despite our knowing, in a sense, how it will turn out - that baby Lyra will survive, that she will inherit an alethiometer, and what she will achieve in His Dark Materials. There are clearly many conflicting parties here, with the nightmarish, theocratic regime operating through numerous, often conflicting, arms and the forces of good, if I can call them that, lacking understanding of what's going on. (I say "if I can call them that" because Pullman is under no illusions that Oakley Street - his undercover resistance - will use ends to justify means when it suits them).

It's an excellent, very readable, very listenable story. My own children are grown up now but I'd happily have read this to them as a bedtime story - as I did the earlier trilogy - from say age 10 or 11 on: yes there's some swearing in here, some troubling themes but nothing one shouldn't be ready to explain (and a great deal that one ought to want to explain - Pullman's illustration of creeping Fascism in everyday life is chilling).

As the first trilogy referenced Paradise Lost, so I understand this one does The Faerie Queene. Big confession time: I haven't read that - so I can't say how relevant it is, although I can see, in the final third of the book, a rather more fantastical atmosphere than earlier, one that dallies with river gods, Fae enchanted realms. One might contrast this with the very down to earth, workmanlike tone of the early chapters - whether Pullman's writing about spyycraft or woodwork, he values competence, skill and application and at first this seems a far remove from negotiating one's way down the Thames amidst the awoken spirits of Albion. But Malcolm shows as much determination and wisdom at the latter as the former - you'll cheer him on as he manages one deadly situation after another, always gracious, modest and kind. So there isn't as much contradiction here as you might thing. take things as you find them, Pullman seems to be saying. Understand the rules. Learn how to get where you want. Do your best and never give up. Always be kind, never be cruel, never be cowardly (you might recognise that last bit and it isn't directly stated here - but is very much in tune with Pullman's themes, I think).

To sum up - I'm SO glad I finally turned to this book and now I'm just desperate for the next as, 15 years ago (15!) I waited for The Amber Spyglass.

Review - Fictional Alignment by Mike French

Cover by Tony Allcock

Fictional Alignment (An Android Awakes)
Mike French
Elsewhen Press, 2 April 2018
PB, 381pp
Source - Review copy kindly provided by the publisher.

What to say about this book? There is so much in it that it's hard to know where to begin...

A sequel, of sorts, to French's An Android Awakes (my review of which, here, is quoted in Fictional Alignment) this book follows the young woman Sapphira, lover of Android Writer PD121928, after the latter is killed and destroyed on the cusp of an android rising that will overthrow the humans.

In a turn of affairs that somewhat recalled The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, ten years later, Sapphira joins up with a mixed group of humans and androids who are trying to enact the contents of her best-selling novel, Humans. They are doing this because, as a work of fiction, it must be eradicated, but the last copy cannot be removed from the Digitised Treasury, the androids' repository of all facts.

The choice is therefore made to make the story "happen", turning it into "truth", employing time travel and enormous resources in a process rather like making a film. Since some of the episodes in the book are bizarre to say the least, this does present problems and dangers.

As Sapphira, Heisenberg, Anna Lincoln, and this others criss cross back and forward through time, encountering real and fictional characters and setting up the plot turns of Sapphira's (actually, PD121928's) story, there is plenty of scope to muse on the nature of fact, fiction and truth, the deeper realities of religion (Sapphire dreams of PD121928 being crucified on his stack of rejection letters) and much else. A summary would be impossible, but the storytelling is dazzling, veering between surrealistic scenes (the Arctic Circus, which takes place on an oil rig; the exploits of Umberto Amundsen, allegedly a descendant of the great explore but in reality, the man himself, kidnapped out of time; a noirish detective episode), dreams, and revelations about what was really going on in An Android Awakes. It takes aim at various SFF tropes (such as the tendency to fixate on women' breasts) along the way.

Rereading what I've put above, I'm afraid I might be taken as saying that the book is a bit overwhelming.  But here, I think, French comes to the reader's rescue. It is not, we are told, facts that constitute ultimate reality, but story. While the facts might indeed overwhelm, perhaps as in a Christian parable or even a Zen puzzle, it would be fatal to try to understand the sequence of events as facts, to tidy them up and make them into things that might or might not happen - even if that's exactly what Heisenberg, here, is trying to orchestrate. Heisenberg fails in that, but has the insight to see a way round the failure, the answer being to just... well, dive in, in the fashion of the Amazing Arctic Sinking Man, and let the story carry you.

Fictional Alignment is indeed at times not an easy read. Recognisably in the same style as An Android Awakes, it is also a much more complex work, one that needs some time to digest - but is still very rewarding. And it all does kind of circle round and make a certain sense in the end, -although the abiding point of this remarkable book is I think not in that sense but more in the impact it makes as you read it.

As with the earlier book there are plenty of illustrations (also by French) which have their own spare beauty and add a great deal to the text.

For more information about this book see the publisher's website here.

Review - The Rig by Roger Levy

Design by Julia Lloyd

The Rig
Roger Levy
Titan Books, 8 May 2018
PB, 615pp

I'm grateful to Titan for an advance copy of this book.

How to sum up The Rig? The Godfather in space, but more tricksy? A SPACE noir? The apotheosis of social media?

None of those are quite right - but they all have a bit of truth.

In the future, Earth is abandoned to ecological catastrophe and humanity has migrated to the System to live on terraformed worlds. It's a hard life (one of those planets is simply called 'Bleak' and it lives up to that) and a short one, fifty being a good age. Contradicting shiny expectations of the future, disease hasn't been conquered (several of the characters here suffer form incurable cancer) and corruption is widespread. Star Trek this isn't.

But with things so hard, and religion - 'goddery' - generally disdained, people need something to believe in and this role is taken by AfterLife, a system of preserving the near-dead in stasis until their condition is curable. Memories are harvested first, and when cures are found, public votes - based on the lives of the preserved - determine who will receive them.

Against this background, two very different boys meet on the sole remaining 'religious' planet, Gehenna, a place of harshly fundamentalist beliefs. (Actually there is another - referred to as 'the unsaid planet', a place so fiercely protective of its secrets that even to mention it risks death). Pellonhorc is cruel, mercurial and obsessive. Alef has difficulty empathising and thinks in numbers. (I sense the author has autism in mind but he doesn't say so). They seem an odd pairing but, forced together by events, go on to be friends - of a sort - and, as the book's blurb says, to remake the System. Certainly their relationship is at the centre of this book. It's complex, incomplete and at times baffling, but drives both men.

The book follows Alef's life forwards through 'SigEvs' - significant events - which are supposed to be what the voter will use to decide whether a subject is to be cured or left in suspended animation. At the same time, we see a separate story unfold, told from various points of view in the hardscrabble town of Lookout, on the planet Bleak. The main characters here are a policeman (Bale) a journalist/ writer (Razer) and an engineer  (Tallen).

Bale has been suspended from duty after joining the pursuit of a serial killer while off duty, and while drunk. Razor has been sent by her AI, Cynth, to record Bale's 'TruTale'. And Tallen, well - Tallen wakes up one day in hospital and is never the same again.

This part of the story is twisty and - with its grim streets, hard bitten cops and air of sleaze and corruption - supplies the nourish tinge to the book, as Bale and then Razer attempt to work our what's been going on. Some kind of cover up, seemingly - but of what? And why? Whatever it is, it's worth killing for and everyone who gets near it seems to be in danger. There's a real atmosphere of menave  here and a distinct sense that nothing is what it seems: trust nobody, not even yourself.

It's a violent book, with plenty of death. Some of this is foreseen (all that disease) or foreseeable (given all that gangsterism), some of it comes out of the blue (despite the efforts of the Lookout policy). There's no saying who will be next, and doubly so once the two parts of the story emerges, which only happens slowly. Indeed it's not till the last hundred pages or so that it all really begins to fit together. If you love a slowly unfolding, satisfying mystery then you'll enjoy this, likewise if you're a fan of convincing, well thought out world building. On the evidence of this book, Levy excels in creating beautiful, and believable, worlds and it helps that this is a longish book, so he can take his time to build up the atmosphere, whether of the seedy town with its dives and pre fab housing, the underground racetracks through which hurricane winds blow, or the heaving seas containing the rigs which are the key to Bleak's economy. He warps language itself to indicate the alienness of the System, even if it is peopled by humans - so, we have, as well as 'doddery', 'putter' and 'screenery' and a slew of tongue twisting character names (Pelonhorc, but also Pireve, Dixemexid, Maerleyand and so on).

Overall a weirdly thrilling slice of SF, with a great deal of human reality to it and some great characters. One not to miss.

For more information about The Rig see the publisher's website here.