Category Archives: A Fantasy Alphabet

G is for Green

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In A Fantasy Alphabet, G is for Green by Jay Lake.

 
 

I have to admit, my interest was piqued almost as much by the negative reviews I’d seen as by the blurb of this one. So there’s proof for worried authors – even bad reviews can sell books! Since people have varied tastes, one reader’s reason for disliking a book may be exactly what someone else is looking for.

In this case, several people complained of the structure of the novel, others didn’t like the protagonist, while still others bemoaned the sado-masochism. Okay, there may have been a touch of that, but that person who complained of “bestiality”? That word – I do not think it means what you think it means, to quote Inigo Montoya. I didn’t hear any cries of “bestiality!” about the movie Avatar when the hero got it on with the pretty blue lady with the tail. In fantasy, possession of a tail doesn’t necessarily make you a “beast”.

However – moving on! Green is the story of a girl sold into slavery as a very small child and raised to be the concubine of a tyrant, and how she manages to wrest her destiny back from the control of others. “Green” is the name she gives herself when her owner names her “Emerald”, as she refuses to accept his label but has been addressed simply as “Girl” so long she’s forgotten her own name.

This is typical of her fighting spirit. Though she loses most of her native tongue and retains only the barest memories of home, she is determined to get back there. She is ruthless and single-minded, and despite all the punishment a harsh system throws at her, she never lets go of her defiance and purpose. It is ironic that those who have enslaved her are actually creating the means of their own downfall in the skills they beat into her.

I had to take a couple of runs at this one. What I expected would be the plot for the whole novel came to a sudden climax about a third of the way through. Then it seemed a whole new story started as Green moved to a different continent where she met completely new characters and developed new story goals. It was oddly unsatisfying, and I stalled there on the first read. So those reviews complaining of the structure did have something of a point.

But the writing was good and the themes interesting, so I gave it another go a few months later, and found that the story did eventually circle back around to where it started, and what had seemed a little disjointed and episodic in fact was not. You have to trust Lake on this one. He’s not a formulaic writer, but he does produce a satisfying ending to an interesting story if you stick around for the whole ride. Worth persevering with.

F is for Fire

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Today in A Fantasy Alphabet we arrive at the letter F. F is for Fire, by Kristin Cashore.

I read this when it first came out, and remember being lukewarm about it, but on rereading it for this series, I think that was because I wanted more of the story we got in Graceling, her first book, whereas Fire heads off in a different direction with a new set of characters, though rather loosely set in the same world.

On rereading for this series I see much to admire in the story of Fire, a human “monster” in a world where brightly coloured versions of normal creatures are insanely seductive to others, and are known as monsters. Fire’s allure is so extreme she can’t even look at herself in a mirror, as she too feels the pull of her unnatural beauty.
Everyone wants to either kill her or kiss her, and her whole life revolves around dealing with other people’s perception of her and trying to mitigate the danger to herself and others. She is seen, particularly by men, as a thing to be possessed, not a person. Hers is an extreme case, but I can see parallels with the life of even ordinary women, ever-conscious of the male gaze and its effects, how society insists on defining women as women first and anything else second, whatever their achievements.
Fire’s case could be read as an interesting metaphor for that, but this is only one of the issues Fire must grapple with. As a monster, she also has powers to coerce people to do her will, which her dead monster father used to devastating effect. Fire is terrified she too will turn out like him, a “monster” in the true sense of the word.
When Fire is forced to travel to the capital city she becomes enmeshed in the affairs of the royal family, who are working desperately to stave off civil war. The weak young king is drawn in by her beauty; his brother Prince Brigan at first despises Fire, because of the association with her father, who aided and abetted the previous king in his atrocities. Yet Fire feels a growing attraction to the prince.
But there’s little time to consider romance, whatever her heart tells her, with spies to interrogate, a civil war to avert, and many personal revelations. Fire learns that little in life is black and white, as she grapples with difficult moral questions. Is it right to use her powers, which might be considered evil (and were often used for evil by her father) if she uses them for good, to try to save the kingdom? Or does that still make her a monster? How far can she go and still live with herself? On the other hand, can she live with herself if she doesn’t use her unique abilities to save lives and help the people she cares about? She’s also concerned with questions of free will and destiny. Does her genetic heritage define her, or can she be her own person by making different decisions to those her father made? Can she atone for her father’s atrocities by her own sacrifice?
If I’m making it sound as if the book is all about debates on morality, don’t worry, there’s plenty of plot too, and some great characters. In fact the only character I could complain about is Brigan himself – he’s just too damned perfect. I love him – but the guy has absolutely no flaws, unlike nearly everyone else in the cast, who are more nuanced and believably human.
But the fact that the leading man is so wonderful is hardly a turn-off, and there’s plenty of crunchy philosophical questions to consider if a fast-moving plot isn’t enough of an enticement. I’m going to give it to my daughters to read. A very thoughtful book.

E is for Elantris: Review of Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

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Today in my book review series A Fantasy Alphabet I’m looking at Elantris, the debut novel from prolific writer Brandon Sanderson.

It’s hard to believe this book was only published in 2005. Brandon Sanderson has become a huge name in the sff world since then, deservedly so in my opinion, and he has more books out than many authors who started years before him. It feels like he’s been around forever.
And some of those suckers are big – his latest, Words of Radiance, comes in at a whopping 400,000 words. So he’s certainly worked hard to get to where he is today at the top of the sff heap.
Elantris is a lot smaller than that, though still fairly meaty for a first novel, and it shows the great flair for worldbuilding that has been a large part of his success. Not that he’s not good at everything else – his plots are interesting, his characters well-realised – but it’s his worldbuilding that really stands out for me. You always know you’re going to get a really cool magic system or society in a Sanderson world, and Elantris is no exception.
The city of Elantris was once a place of wonder, inhabited by silver-skinned, god-like people. These people had once been ordinary folk, but they’d all been blessed by a random transformation that came upon them in the night. New Elantrians gave up their old life and moved to Elantris to live in bliss for eternity.
But ten years ago something went wrong, and the transformation became a sickly curse, and the power of Elantris was lost. At the beginning of the novel, Raoden, the crown prince of the neighbouring city, suddenly becomes an Elantrian, and is hurled into what is now the nightmare world of Elantris, where people exist in eternal suffering and eventually go mad.
Talk about bad timing – his fiancee, a foreign princess who he’s never met but is kind of half in love with already from their correspondence, arrives for their wedding a few days later. Poor Sarene is met with the news that her fiancee is dead, but the betrothal is nevertheless binding, so now she’s a widow in a strange city.
And it is a strange city – Raoden’s father’s only been on the throne ten years, since the revolution when Elantris fell. No one’s happy, especially not with a neighbouring country threatening war or at the least forcible conversion to their dark god. The priest Hrathen arrives to try to convert the city, and at first he seems the stereotypical “evil priest” bad guy, but there’s a lot more to him than that.
These three characters – Raoden, Sarene and Hrathen –  share the narration, and the way their stories wind around each other and ultimately collide is very well done. There’s a lot of depth to the characters, particularly Hrathen, who is the most nuanced antagonist I’ve seen in a long time. He’s not really a “bad guy” at all, just a person with a different agenda to the two protagonists.
Raoden seeks answers to his personal problems and those of his country in researching the ancient magic system of Elantris. In the process he discovers what caused the problem ten years ago and how to fix it, in a race-against-time climax that occurs as his country is invaded. The answer is very clever.
There’s a lot happening in this book – magic, romance, human relationships and their dilemmas, humour, drama and mystery – and it makes for a satisfying read. It’s like a whole three-volume fantasy saga packed into one exciting volume. If you haven’t read Sanderson before, this is a good place to start. Highly recommended.

D is for Divergent: Review of Divergent by Veronica Roth

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Before we begin, I have a confession to make: despite knowing full well the difference between fantasy (Magic! Wizards! Mythical beasts! Cool stuff!) and science fiction (Strange futures! Aliens! Space! Scientific cool stuff!), I seem to have stuffed up.
A Fantasy Alphabet, despite being only four books long so far, includes two books (Arclight and Divergent) which aren’t actually fantasy. They’re both dystopian sci fi. What can I say? My brain went on holidays and never came back, apparently.
However, since “A Fantasy Alphabet Which Occasionally Includes Books That Are Really Science Fiction” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, I’m sticking with “A Fantasy Alphabet”. I was so keen to read Divergent that I don’t care.
So.
Today in my book review series A Fantasy Alphabet, I’m looking at Divergent by Veronica Roth. WARNING: May Contain Traces of Science Fiction. Ahem.
Divergent is the story of sixteen-year-old Tris, who is about to face the big rite of passage of her society. The people of her world live segregated into five factions with very different outlooks on life: Abnegation, Erudite, Dauntless, Amity and Candor. At sixteen, you must choose which faction you will live with for the rest of your life, and if it’s not the same as that of the family you grew up in, then bye-bye family.
So when Tris leaves her Abnegation family for Dauntless, that seems like a big enough wrench. But her new life is complicated by the fact that she doesn’t actually fit Dauntless either. In fact her test results showed she is Divergent, ie not fitting in any one faction, but showing traits of all of them. But that’s a secret she mustn’t reveal, because people who are Divergent tend to wind up dead.
Only something strange seems to be going on over at Dauntless, and maybe Tris isn’t the only one in danger. The whole society is teetering on the brink of disaster, and Tris may be the only one who can save it …
I could see right away why they would want to make a movie of this novel. I mean, apart from the whole let’s cash in on the latest YA blockbusterthing. It has great visuals – the five factions, who all dress and behave differently, the shattered city they live in, the many stunts the Dauntless daredevils pull – scenes of ziplining off the top of skyscrapers, or climbing giant ferris wheels. Plus the many virtual reality scenes where the Dauntless initiates have to face their fears. It’ll be great fun to watch.
It was fun to read too. Like Arclight – it seems to be the fashion for this type of novel – it’s written in first person present tense, so it has that sense of immediacy and urgency about it. The reader is riding on Tris’s shoulder, experiencing everything as she does.
And of course that “everything” includes a first kiss, with a dark and brooding hero named Four. And – wonder of wonders! – only Four. There is no love triangle, which is not only a refreshing change for YA, but a much more satisfying relationship as far as I’m concerned.
It’s an interesting world, with the different factions and their political manoeuvring. Though if I was going to quibble, I’d have to say the idea of people slotted into rigid factions is the least convincing thing about the book. It makes for a great story, and provides a good way to separate the young heroine from any parental support, and I was perfectly happy to go along with it for the sake of being entertained – but it doesn’t hold up well to scrutiny.
People just don’t fit into such neat boxes in reality. No one is all one thing or another. The idea that there must be something weird or “divergent” about someone who can be friendly and brave and clever and truthful and self-sacrificing instead of just one of them doesn’t jibe with what humans are really like.
Roth takes a couple of other liberties with reality too – Tris seems to grow new muscles after only a week of training, and learns to fight pretty quickly too. The baddies are pretty much unremittingly evil, in a rather over-the-top way. But Tris and Four are well-drawn, and their romance, with all its teenage uncertainties and complications, is nicely realistic.
Overall, it’s a satisfying story. I can certainly see the attraction for the teenaged market – a fascinating world, a gutsy heroine trying to save it, and an appealing romance. And you certainly don’t have to be a teenager to enjoy those things! Just don’t look too closely at the premise of the worldbuilding and go along for the ride, and you’ll be rewarded with some entertaining storytelling.

C is for Chosen: Review of Chosen by Benedict Jacka

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Today it’s time for the letter C in my book review series “A Fantasy Alphabet”, and the book I’ve chosen is, well, Chosen, by Benedict Jacka.

Chosen is the fourth in the Alex Verus series, about a mage living in modern London trying – and usually failing – to keep out of trouble. People always seem to be trying to kill Alex, often through no fault of his own, though there was that apprenticeship with a Dark mage that earned him a few enemies …
Now, in the fourth book, we learn much more about that long-ago apprenticeship, as the motive for the current attempts on his life are directly tied to his actions as an apprentice, despite his years of (relatively) clean living since. Alex has always been a bit of a flawed hero, and now we find out exactly how flawed.
Alex is a great character – something of an everyman, if you can overlook the fact that most regular guys can’t see the future. He’s done some bad things in his past, and now he tries to do good to balance it out, but he’s not perfect, and his good intentions are often hampered by a lack of trust from other magic users. This is the first book where he even has more than one friend, having always been a bit of an outcast.
And he’s no superman. He can’t throw fire or do anything flashy. His one power is the ability to see possible futures, which often allows for clever solutions to problems. And he needs every ounce of cleverness, as once the attacks start they keep on coming with barely a chance to catch his breath. The plot unreels at almost thriller-pace as it careers towards a surprise ending that promises a world of pain for Alex in the next novel.
The world of Chosen takes the “urban” part of “urban fantasy” seriously. London is so richly described it feels almost like another character. I love the sense of place in these novels. It feels like travelling without ever leaving home.
If you’re a fan of Ben Aaronovitch or Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files, you’ll love the Alex Verus novels. Chosen is a fast-paced addition to what is becoming a favourite series.

B is for Blackbirds: Review of Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig

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Today, somewhat belatedly, we arrive at the letter B in my review series “A Fantasy Alphabet”, with Blackbirds by Chuck Wendig.
First up, don’t you love that cover? A clever and intriguing piece of artwork, with the title popping out as the only touch of colour. Very eye-catching.
It’s a clever premise too, and one that had me itching to read this book: whenever Miriam Black touches another person’s skin she experiences a vision of their death. She knows the cause, the date and time down to the minute, but not the place. She’s also learned, from bitter experience, that she can’t do anything to save anyone.
Naturally this has left her rather antisocial, to put it mildly. She’s damaged and embittered, living the life of a drifter, never getting close to anyone. She battles her misery with alcohol and a biting dark humour that brings some relief to the relentless gloom of the first-person narrative.
One night she hitches a ride with a truck driver called Louis, who seems like a genuine nice guy. Only problem is, when she touches his hand and sees his imminent gruesome murder, he’s calling her name as he dies. And then she meets other people, and begins to see how she might be involved, and realises Louis’ death scene might be her own too, if she doesn’t somehow save him.
This is a real and gritty adventure through the seamier side of life. If swearing in books bothers you, you won’t like Miriam. Of course, you may not like Miriam much anyway – she’s prickly and difficult to like, even though you can see her prickliness is a shield, and you certainly feel for the terrible situation she’s in.
Her great redeeming feature is her sense of humour, which often made me laugh. Chapter 10, for instance, is titled “The sun can go fuck itself”. Chapter 11 is “The Sunshine Café can go fuck itself equally”. Though the humour is dark, without it I don’t know whether I could have finished the book. The pace is relentless, and seems to be racing Miriam and the reader to a terrible inevitable ending. As a person who usually reads lighter fare, the sense of impending doom hanging over the story filled me with dread.
That’s not a criticism, of course – when a book makes you feel something so strongly, the writer’s done a good job. And a reasonable person wouldn’t expect a read full of sunshine and roses from a story about someone surrounded by constant death.
It was a relief, though, to find some light at the end of the tunnel after all, and a ray of hope for Miriam, whose basic decency finally manages to claw its way free from her hard shell and arrest the story’s terrible downward spiral. Certainly not a Happily Ever After, which wouldn’t have suited the tone of the book at all, but a hint of redemption that raises interesting possibilities for the next book in the series.
“Grimdark” is a subgenre of fantasy that’s big at the moment, due to the popularity of authors like Joe Abercrombie and George RR Martin, but usually appears in epic fantasy, in medieval-type secondary worlds. I haven’t seen it used in urban fantasy like this before. (It may have, of course – I’m not claiming to be familiar with the entirety of the urban fantasy genre – but it was a new experience for me.)
If you like your fantasy grim and edgy but you’re tired of the swords-and-sorcery flavour, Blackbirds could be a good choice for you. It won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it’s a well-written, immersive experience.
  

Next up in “A Fantasy Alphabet”: C is for Chosen.

A is for Arclight: Review of Arclight by Josin L McQuein

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Welcome to my new book review project: A Fantasy Alphabet. Note that that is “A” Fantasy Alphabet, not “The” Fantasy Alphabet. I’m not suggesting some definitive list of fantasy books here, merely wending my way through the alphabet choosing, in the main, current fantasy novels that I’m eager to read. (Though I’m not promising they’ll all be new. A few old favourites may sneak in, particularly with some of the more difficult letters!)

To kick off the series we have Arclightby Josin L McQuein, a Young Adult dystopian fantasy. Dystopia is big in YA at the moment, maybe because of the success of TheHunger Games, or perhaps just catching the mood of the times.


Reading the back cover copy, this one sounds almost more like horror:


“The first rule of Arclight: Light is safety. Light is life. The second: Never go outside alone. The third: No one ever comes back from the dark. But Marina did …”

Score!! How could I put it back on the shelf? You know how many books I’ve read where the main character shared my name? Out of all the tens of thousands I must have read in my lifetime? That’s right. None. The Jacks of the world have got it good. Every second damn thriller is about them. But us Marinas? We are a sadly neglected lot.

Look, I’m not a complete dag (quiet, you in the back row!). The book sounded interesting and I would have bought it anyway. I promise you will still enjoy this book even if you are not lucky enough to be named Marina. But it did kind of sweeten the deal for me.

Marina narrates her story in first person present tense (now it sounds like I’m talking about myself …). Sometimes this comes across as a little over the top, as in the opening paragraph:

“Someone’s attention shouldn’t have physical weight, but it does. Hate’s a heavy burden: hope is worse. It’s a mix of the two that beats against my skin as my classmates condemn me …”

But most of the time it has the effect of keeping us firmly with the character, feeling that we are experiencing her story with her as it happens.

And the story is a cracker, with some really juicy twists to it. Even better, Marina has amnesia, and if you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know how much I love stories where the main character has forgotten their life. They always discover such terrible secrets lurking in their lost memories, and Arclight is no exception.

There’s also a love triangle, with Marina torn between two romantic possibilities, which is a popular trope in YA fiction. Normally I find them annoying. No one would really want to be in such a terrible situation, knowing that whoever they choose, someone else they love will be hurt. Yet so many books make it seem desirable.

However, in Arclight, there is a good logical reason for the situation, not just an indecisive teen trying to decide between two hot boys, and it makes the situation especially poignant. Apparently there is a sequel coming. I’ll be interested to see where McQuein takes the story, but this book is complete in itself (unlike some other YA titles which have simply stopped partway through the story and left you hanging until the next book – something that makes me a Very Cranky Reader).

So: where did Marina come from? How did she survive the Dark? Read Arclight by Josin L McQuein and enjoy uncovering the answers. But remember: “No one is safe when the lights go out.”
Next up in A Fantasy Alphabet: B is for Blackbirds.