Re-read Recently — December 2019 — Urban Fantasy

Smoke and Mirrors by Tanya Huff

I first read this back in 2006. Write-up occurred
here.

Still recommended.

Something From the Nightside: a novel of the Nightside by Simon R. Green

I read this one initially when it was new, back in 03 or 04. I didn’t write it up back then — in fact, I made no record of it at all until the sequel came out. This began Green’s long-running urban fantasy series, known as “the Nightside” after the place where all the stories were set. The individual books were short by modern standards, about two-hundred pages, and came out fairly rapidly (at one point I referred to it as “the first quarterly dark/urban fantasy series”.

This volume sets the series up for us, so it’s mostly wandering around seeing the sights and meeting the people. We start out by meeting series hero/first-person narrator John Taylor, a private investigator. John is rather down on his luck, living in his office in a bad neighbourhood of London (UK) and owing money to some bad people. In fact, he’s on the line with one creditor when a client comes in: Joanna Barrett, a rich, good-looking woman, who is seeking her runaway teenage daughter, Cathy. She’s seeking John’s help in particular because Cathy is in “the Nightside”. John used to operate in the Nightside, but he hasn’t been back in a while.

He describes it as, “a square mile of narrow streets and back alleys in the centre of city [sic] . . . in practice the Nightside is much bigger than that . . . There are those who say the Nightside is actually bigger than the city which surrounds it, these days. . . . It’s always night in the Nightside. It’s always three o’clock in the morning, and the dawn never comes. . . . You can buy or sell anything in the Nightside, and no-one asks questions. No-one cares. . . . Everything you ever feared or dreamed of is running loose somewhere in the shifting streets of the Nightside . . . you can find anything in the Nightside, if it doesn’t find you first. It’s a sick, magical, dangerous place.”

John was born there, to a human father and a mother who was something else, though no one seems to know what. She abandoned her husband and child when John was young, and his father drank himself to death. John has a gift that only works in the Nightside, allowing him to open an inner eye and find anything or anyone missing . . . so of course, some powerful force is always blocking his power throughout the series. The only question is what, and how. All right, that’s two questions. This time John is able to find enough to confirm that Cathy came to the Nightside, once he returns with Joanna in tow, but not where she went after she left the subway. They seek information in Strangefellows, the oldest bar in London, owned by one of Merlin’s descendants — currently, Alex Morrisey, described as “a long streak of misery in basic black”. In the bar they meet Razor Eddie, the “Punk God of the Straight Razor”, a thin man in a foul-smelling trench coat, armed with the afore-mentioned straight razor that he got on the Street of Gods one distressing night. Fortunately, Eddie is John’s friend, because on the way out of Strangefellows they are attacked by the Harrowing, agents of John’s enemies (he doesn’t know who they are or why they hate him, but they sent him fleeing the Nightside five years ago). The Harrowing are faceless figures in dark suits with hypodermic syringes for fingers. Eddie saves John and Joanna, and they continue on their quest.

In another location they run into Suzie Shooter, aka Shotgun Suzie. A tall blonde bounty hunter, Suzie favours the pump-action shotgun, and at one point went after John himself. Still, he regards her as a friend.

Also, in the course of their travels they fall into a Timeslip, which takes them to a dark future (literally dark — even the moon is gone), caused by John seeking out his mother. Here they meet the Collector, who gathers oddities from across time and space. And when they stop to recover from that event, back in the Nightside proper, they meet Walker, who represents the Authorities, the people who run the Nightside. Walker speaks with the Voice of Authority — people must obey him. It seems that Cathy isn’t the only person to disappear lately, in the area where they have been led to think she is. Walker gives them twelve hours to solve the case or else.

So the story is basically, go to this place, meet this person. Go to that place, meet the next person. Fill in pages until it’s novel length and call it a day. If it wasn’t Green, wasn’t weird and violent and engaging, no one would have given it a second look. But it does set up the rest of the series very well, and even if that’s all it does and it isn’t Green’s best series it’s still a lot of fun. Recommended.

Read Recently — December 2019 — Like An Arrow

Thief of Time: a Discworld Novel by Terry Pratchett

When I wrote about the book Hogfather, way back in 2016, I suggested that it was the last “Susan Sto-Helit & Death” book, and I was wrong. Thief of Time follows, exactly six books later.

It begins with a man visiting Gytha “Nanny” Ogg, several times over several years. Each time he wants to know if she is the best midwife in the world, and when she is he needs her urgently. It then moves on to one Jeremy Clockson, an orphan raised by the clockmakers’ guild in Ankh-Morpork. Jeremy, to be as honest as possible, is a psychopath with a fixation on timekeeping. Specifically, with clocks being accurate. He does not deal well with them not being accurate. Just ask Williamson, who kept his clocks five minutes fast (“I am better now,” says Jeremy, “I have medecine.” So far, however, no one has asked him if he takes the medecine). He is visited by one Lady Myria LeJean, who wants him to make a clock for her. A Perfect clock. One that would measure the fabled “tick of the universe”, like the fabled Glass Clock of of Bad Schuschein in the Grim Fairy Tale by the same title. The one that allegedly trapped a personnified Time.

Meanwhile, Susan Sto-Helit is a teacher in a private school. She is a strict and magical teacher; the school is a straw-liberal school of which Susan is, of course, the most successful part. I found myself wondering if this was Pratchett’s own views about education; it can be a serios mistake to assume that an author believes everything they write. but sometimes you have to wonder. She is called on by her Grandfather (Death) to save the world . . . because after next Wednesday, it just ceases to exist. There is nothing after next Wednesday. Not even time itself . . . . He also points out that the Auditors of Reality, those . . . beings is the wrong word. Call them functionaries who detest all individuality, to such an extent that if one of them ever refers to itself by a personal pronoun, it ceases to exist and is immediately replaced by another, identical one (they are all identical) which has not yet used such forbidden language about itself . . . are back and behind whatever scheme is at work. Susan will have to take them on because Death has to go bet the band back together. If the world is going to end, the horsemen must ride out. Of course, getting them all together might be more difficult than Death at first realises, and will involve the fifth horseman, the one who quit before they got famous.

Of course, Death is not the only one who noticed something going on. In the mountains around the hub of the Discworld there are many monestaries, each with its specific fixation (such as the Monks of Cool). It is the History Monks who make up the other part of our tale, the followers of the way of Wen the Eternally Surprised, whose Monestary is located in a particular valley where it is always a pleasant spring day. It is the purpose of the History Monks to ensure that Time occurs. Not in any particular way, but that it occurs at all. We last saw them in Night Watch, which I wrote up back in July of 2018 (Night Watch, fittingly, was written and published after Thief of Time) when they urged a temporally displaced Sam Vimes to become his own teacher.

Among the History Monks is a new Novice, one Newgate Ludd, an orphan raised by the Thieves’ Guild (who give all their orphans the last name “Ludd” after one of the founders of the Guild). Newgate has a natural talent for the kind of time manipulation that the Monks do, so he was encouraged to join and given the new name “Lobsang” — Pratchett must have really liked the name Lobsang because he used it in The Long Earth as well, and I doubt it’s the only Tibetan or psuedo-Tibetan name he could have found. Anyway, Ludd is a bit much for the Master of Novices so they stick him with Lu-Tze, the elderly sweeper, an aggressively humble man who follows the Way of Mrs Cosmopilite and embodies Rule One, “Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men!” But even with natural talent and Lu-Tse on his side, can Lobsang Ludd save the world when Jeremy completes his clock? Well, he may need Susan’s help.

This is a thick book, and even in this long write-up I left a lot out (I haven’t even mentioned the Igor, for example). It contains a lot of surprises like a redefinition of the term “death by chocolate” that is a bit more literal than usual, and gives us Pratchett at the top of his game. The Death series goes out with a bang. Highly recommended.

Read Recently — December 2019 — A schedule to keep

An Easy Death: a Gunnie Rose novel by Charlaine Harris

As with the Midnight, Texas books, this is the start of a new series that I was surprised to find I enjoyed. This is not an urban fantasy or mystery of any kind; rather it is closer to a post-apocolyptic story. But it’s also an alternate history, which is where the apocalypse comes in. Before I can even begin talking about the plot of the book, we have to look at some history. And before we do that, we have to discuss trigger warnings: this book contains rape, both past and present, child endangerment, and child death. With those caveats in mind, the book is recommended, and would probably go to highly recommended without the need for them. Now you don’t have to read any further if you don’t want to.

As noted, the story takes place in an alternate history. Exactly when is hard to say; if anyone actually speaks, reads or thinks of the date I didn’t noticce it. I don’t think it can be later than 1950ish; I think it more likely to be 1945ish due to the history of a couple of characters we can’t even talk about until the plot recap. Anyway, the first change from our history is that, instead of dying in the Russian Revolution, the Tsar and his family fled and ended up in California. Then FDR died; assassinated. We don’t know when that was, other than that it was after he was sworn in as President (thus when peope refer to “the President” they mean him) but I’m assuming it was the 1933 Zangara assassination, a miss in our world. That occurred in Florida, which matches up with Harris’ brief history) and then the VP died in a flare-up of influenza, which killed a lot of Americans. With the crash, the country broke up, part of it being devoured by Canada (we don’t get a list of which states were taken in by Canada; the only one we learn for sure is Michigan). The original 13 colonies, less Georgia, rejoin Britain to avoid being Canadianized (which is funny to me, both because stories which make Canada a power that the US fears are always funny, and because of course at that point Canada was itself not technically independent of Britain). Georgia joined a bunch of the southern states (again, we aren’t told which ones) to form Dixie, Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico plus a bit of Colorado became Texoma, a lot of the plains states became New America, and something got taken by Mexico, but we are never told what. California and Oregon became the new Holy Russian Empire. The Tsar brought his wizards with him, trained by Grigori Rasputin, so now the HRE is the only country that openly uses magic. The HRE and the Wizards themselves call them “wizards”; all others we encounter call them “Grigoris”.

Our hero and first-person narrator, Lizbeth Rose, lives in Texoma, not far from the New American border. When Lizbeth’s mother, Candle, was 16, she was raped by a grigori passing through the area — he used mind control to make her sleep with him and then moved on, leaving her pregnant. Fortunately, she loves her daughter. Lizbeth is a Gunnie, a mercenary gunslinger with the Tarken crew (led by a man named Tarken. Other members are a black woman named Galilee, who had to flee Dixie when it became apparant she was going to have a child of lighter skin tone than she, something white Dixians, who run things there, frown on, Martin, who drives the crew’s truck and is involved with Galilee, and Tarken, leader and Lizbeth’s lover (both sets of relationships are recent. Tarken used to have a wife and still has a kid who lives with his ex). The crew is setting off, at the start of the book, to take some farmers through the turbulent border to New America, where they have relatives. It’s a short trip, two or three days drive, and they’ve done it often before. This time, They are ambushed by bandits after dark on the first day. Martin is shot and the truck rolls, throwing Lizbeth up against a rock, concussing her and separating her from her wepaons. When she awakens she is unarmed, the others of her crew are dead, and the farmers have been marched off by the bandits. She tracks down the bandits, kills them, rescues the farmers and walks them to their destination.

When she gets back home she has to deal with the emotional fallout, not only her own but that of the other people attached to the rest of the crew. She also has to deal with joblessness. Fortunately (?) a friend points a couple of clients at her — a pair of Grigoris from the HRE looking for one of their ilk who fled the HRE a while ago. One Oleg Karkarov, who Lizbeth knows was shot to death in a town nearby just a few months ago. The Grigoris, Paulina Coopersmith and Eli Savarov, still need a guide and guard even if Oleg is dead, because he had a brother and they need to find out if his blood will work for some purpose (Lizbeth figures it has to do with healing the Tsar). During the trip to the place of Oleg’s death, they learn that his brother was with him and fled the scene for Juarez, Mexico, where one of the brothers had a daughter. Paulina and Eli, with Lizbeth to guard, are now heading for Juarez. We also learn, during this phase of things, that Lizbeth had her own issues with Oleg, something that she doesn’t Paulina and Eli to learn, though we figure it out before anything is stated. People start trying to kill them almost immediately, and both guns and sorcery are going to be needed to keep all three of them alive.

By the way, Eli and Paulina are the characters whose history we couldn’t even talk about yet in reference to the date. Now we can. Paulina, who is British but moved to the HRE, is in her late thirties and Eli is younger than her (mid-twenties, Lizbeth says). However, he was born in Russia and his family fled with the Tsar when he was a child. If we assume, for convenience, that he was born in 1915, and he’s as old as 30, we get 1945. Lizbeth doesn’t remember the world before, and she’s 19. Anyway, that’s just me speculating.

Before we sum up, I wanted to add that the world we get is, at least as far as Lizbeth’s part of it and view of it, is fairly liberal: women continue to have rights, queer characters and prostitutes aren’t looked down on and outside Dixie race doesn’t seem to be an issue.

So, obviously the world-building caught my eye, I like westerns and genre-crossing westerns in particular, I like Lizbeth and her family, there’s enough action for fans of that, and the plot takes some interesting twists, though none so big that you can’t see them coming if you pay attention.

As noted above, recommended with cautions. Would be highly recommended if it weren’t for those cautions.

Read Recently — November 2019 — You will be alone with the gods

Drake: a Burned Man novel by Peter McLean

When we meet Don Drake he is gambling with other elements of London (UK)’s supernatural community (it is seven pages past his introduction when we finally learn Drake’s full name — not that it matters much. Everyone mostly calls him Drake anyway). Like a lot of gamblers, Drake thinks better of his ability to handle the cards than he should, especially since he is gambling against the arch-demon crimelord Wormwood. Wormwood beats Drake for more than he can afford to lose, but he has a way for Drake to settle the debt: there are some people Wormwood needs killed. Business rivals. People he can’t, for one reason or another, touch.

Drake can, by summoning up some minor demons and riding them to the targets. He does this, but things go wrong in a very unpleasant way. Still, the targets are dead and Drake is out of debt, right? Yeah, of course not. Wormwood intends to hold onto Drake as long as he’s useful.

Drake can manage the summonings because he has a knowledgeable partner: the Burned Man, a tiny effigy of a man on fire, chained to an altar in Drake’s apartment. The Burned Man is a major demon itself, but as long as it is restrained it can’t take direct action. As long as Drake feeds it with his blood it makes with the knowledge.

Drake needs ingredients for his spells, which puts him in touch with, and eventually at odds with, his ex-girlfriend, Debbie, an alchemist. She isn’t the only woman in his life all of a sudden, though: Ally, a redhead who Drake apparently rescues from a harrassing “night creature” is very fond of whips. Her sisters Tess and Meg are soon also interfering in Drake’s life; this involves kidnapping him on at least one occasion. There’s also Trixie, a mysterious blonde with an odd aura who wants something from Drake. Or does she just want something from someone near to him?

And the Burned Man has its own plans.

This gives us a well-imagined world, but not an interesting one. Drake does his best not to be a jerk, but he remains one. It’s no wonder he has no friends; he’s no fun to spend time with and we’re in his head, seeing his motivations as well as his failures. Generally speaking, it’s a crapsack world full of unpleasant people being unpleasant to each other, and this book is not recommended.

Read Recently — November 2019 — Never Lie To You

Beka Cooper: Bloodhound by Tamora Pierce

As we start the second volume of Beka’s adventures, she has been a full-d0g, one of Tortall’s law enforcement officers, for a while now but has not been keeping diaries. Her reports have, perhaps as a consequence, been deteriorating in their details and Sergeant Ahuda wants them improved. So it’s back to diarying Beka goes.

She has, unfortunately, had bad luck in partners; they never work out. Since a Dog can’t be walking around the streets alone, each time she is put back with Goodwin and Tunstall. This is far from the perfect solution, however. The Lord Provost, Beka’s patron and the overall leader of the Dogs, wants two good teams not one. Still, there’s lots to keep them busy. Counterfeit coins are turning up all over; a thin layer of silver over brass. The counterfeits are called “coles” and they undercut the public’s faith in the royal coinage to such an extent that there is a massive riot in one of the markets. Our heroes get caught up in it, and Tunstall gets both of his legs badly broken. He will be off duty for quite a while.

Evidence is found, including by Beka, that the coles are coming from the nearby city of Port Caynn. After Beka is attacked by thugs seeking revenge for Beka’s arrest of their brother, she and Goodwin are sent to Port Caynn, allegedly to keep Beka out of trouble, but actually to track down the coles. Goodwin is to play her corrupt-cop teacher, their mission secret even from the dogs of Port Caynn, save for Nestor Haryse, a distant cousin of the Lord Provost who works in the port. Of course, there are other parties in the investigation, such as Pearl Skinner, the Rogue of Port Caynn, who takes an immediate dislike to Beka and Goodwin. As gambling is used to spread the coles, our heroes have to keep an eye on the gamblers who travel on the riverboats, including the handsome and charismatic bank courier, Dale Rowan, who takes a liking to Beka (and vice-versa).

Beka also takes on new responsibility for the scent-hound known as Achoo, because she signals she has got a scent by sneezing. The hound had been under the care of a new handler, who was not caring for her well at all. When Beka intervenes he basically thrusts the dog on her — sort of a “see how well you do” sort of thing (and this shows one of the problems with the vocabulary here, because while Beka is a Dog, Achoo is a dog — that is, she is an actual canine. Of course, the dog is also a Dog; that is, she is a law-enforcement animal, not just any beast). Achoo also has a role to play in finding the counterfeiter.

This is only the second book of the series but it shows interesting developments. Pierce always impresses with her strong and interesting characters, but the Cooper stories put a twist on the fantasy police procedural that no one else is doing. Watching this primitive police force develop adds more depth to the story of a girl growing up, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Highly recommended.

Read Recently — October 2019 — Tyger, Tyger

Burn Bright: an Alpha and Omega novel by Patricia Briggs

Bran, the Marrock, the ruler of all of North America’s werewolves (except for one indomitable village — no, wait, except for the Columbia Basin Pack — the other thing is Caesar) has gone off from his home in Aspen Creek, Montana, first to help Adam Hauptman, the leader of said Columbia Basin pack, rescue his wife, Mercy Thompson, star of Briggs’ other series, from European vampires (this, of course, was the plot of Silence Fallen). Mercy now being safe, Bran has gone off on vacation, for the first time ever. He has left his son Charles in charge (I had to do it), and of course there is tension between Leah, Bran’s not-much-loved wife, and Anna, Charles’ wife. All of that is swept aside when Charles gets a call from one of the “Wildlings”, werewolves who are too damaged to stay with any pack, even that of the Marrock. This sends our heroes out into the wilderness, where the wildlings are being stalked by a highly organized group with high tech and magical devices. But who are they, and what, exactly, do they want from a bunch of emotionally and psychologically damaged werewolves? Charles doesn’t know, but he quickly realises something: Bran isn’t on vacation. He’s gone away because he believes that someone in his pack is a traitor, and if it is who the Marrock believes it is, he can’t deal with it. And there’s very little Bran can’t deal with.

Every urban fantasy series I’ve read has gone through a period in which I loved it, followed by a period in which I grew to hate it or became disappointed with it (there are a few exceptions; some of them short series’ that ended before they had a chance to fall apart, and some are still ongoing and just haven’t disappointed me yet. Yet). To be honest, I haven’t really loved the Alpha and Omega series, but I have enjoyed a lot of it. Sadly, it looks like the inevitable day has arrived, and I’m done with this series, and I can’t tell you why without spoiling the book for those who might enjoy it. I will say that, like the first book, this is set in the wilderness, which I do not like, and the actions of some of the characters really turned me off — some of the good guys, that is. I mean, if you’ve been reading along and enjoying the books, this is probably more of the same things you enjoyed. But I think I’m done, and that makes this Not Recommended.

Read Recently — October 2019 — Children of the Night

Carpe Jugulum by Terry Pratchett

Carpe Jugulum was the 23rd Discworld book, the 5th or 6th (depending on where you start counting) of the Witches series (remember, I consider Discworld to be a setting, not a series in and of itself). and also the last of the actual Witches series. Hereafter the focus in witching switched from the four witches of Lancre (Granny Weatherwax, Nanny Ogg, Magrat Garlick, and Agnes Nitt) to Tiffany Aching, and her Young Adult adventures. While Granny will appear regularely in the Aching adventures, and Nanny sometimes, Magrat and Agnes are pretty much done here. Fortunately, they go out on a good one.

Magrat is now queen of Lancre, and she and her husband, King Verence, have had a baby. A daughter, to be precise. Magrat intends to ensure her daughter’s safety by giving her possibly the best gift a witch could give: Granny Weatherwax as Godmother.

Unfortunately, things go wrong right away. Granny’s invitation to the naming ceremony goes missing, leaving her to think that maybe she’s . . . not needed. When the regular priest injures himself falling off his donkey (don’t ask), King Verence invites an Omnian missionary to the naming, which worries and angers Nanny (the Omnians, who were the focus of Small Gods used to burn witches before Brutha reformed the religion — or rather, as Granny eventually has a chance to point out to the Priest, they used to burn people they thought were witches). And Verence invites some visiting dignitaries from nearby Uberwald — the de Magpyr family, whose motto, which forms the title of this story, makes clear that they are vampires — or vampyres, as the current Count spells it. He’s a modern vampyre, having trained his family to eat garlic and not fear holy symbols (they’re just lines and curves, after all). A vampire can’t enter any place they have not been invited into, but since King Verence invited the de Magpyrs and the King, spiritually speaking, is the country, there’s no keeping them out of anywhere.

With Granny despairing (at least for a while) can the remaining three witches, even with the help of a priest who’s of two minds about everything, an igor who’s angry about vampires throwing aside traditions, and the Nac Mac Feegle, tiny blue warriors (Pictsies!) looking for a home where they may steal cattle in peace (they only war with each other), possibly beat the up-to-date vampyres? Of course they can. Granny Weatherwax won’t stay out of the fight forever, and she really knows how to get into her opponent’s head.

Pratchett is at the height of his powers here, playing with vampire legendry (mostly inherited from the movies, of course, since that’s where we get most of our vampire beliefs from for most of the last century) and introducing fan favourites, the Nac Mac Feegle, who would go on to co-star in the Tiffany Aching books. It also introduces one of Pratchett’s most famous lines: “sin … is when you treat people as things.” You might disagree. Mightily Oats, the Omnian priest, did. But there’s no denying, it’s quotable.

Regardless of the philosophy, this is a masterwork and a lot of fun. Granny Weatherwax is one of my favourite characters, as is Agnes (and I’m sorry that we lost her going forward), and the Nac Mac Feegle would only get better as they went on. The presence of Omnianism is a rare call-back to one of the non-series books (and one of my favourites, at that). All things considered, a worthy end to one of the Discworld series, and highly recommended.

Read Recently — September 2019 — Verily, Verity

The Last Adventure of Constance Verity by A. Lee Martinez

Constance Verity is an old-style hero. She has saved the world rather a lot of times. Not that she goes out seeking adventure; no need — adventure finds her. At the start of the book, for instance, she applies for a job (incognito) in Manhattan and is immediately recognised by the interviewers. They offer her a job in the mailroom, but then try to sacrifice her to the Hungry Earth, which is a monster that lives in the Earth’s core (when a cop who has worked with her in the past complains that he thought the Earth was hollow because of the “subterranean Neanderthal invasion”, she answers, “Part of it’s hollow. But most of it’s monster.”)

Connie’s applying for a job because she wants to get out of the adventuring life. Constant excitement is wearing her down. She has an apartment full of relics from her adventures that she hasn’t had time to unpack. She has only one friend, Tia, who she met at her 7th birthday party, which was attacked by a giant snake (Connie’s been doing this “life of adventure” thing for a long time). Tia kind of takes it all in stride. And Connie would like to have a boyfriend who doesn’t die a horrible death or himself live a life of adventure. She wants a normal life. She just doesn’t seem to be able to have one.

Of course, Connie has a plan to deal with all this, and Tia wants to come along for the ride. Connie allows it because she figures it’s going to be quick and easy: all she needs to do is kill her fairy godmother.

Of course, it turns out to be neither quick, nor easy. There’s more going on in Connie’s life than just a infancy fairie blessing. There are cults upon cults and adversaries that no one, not even Connie, could see coming. And at the heart of it all lurks the reason why Constance Verity, hero, was created. Could this really be the last adventure of Constance Verity? (Spoiler: No. A sequel has already been puclished.)

Martinez continues to own the “light-heared SFF/adventure” subgenre, with his trademark likeable characters (even the villains are more quirky than horrible, though you certainly won’t weep for them if they come to a horrible fate). But it’s the world-building that drives this one: Connie lives in a world of pulp adventure come true. There are fairies and aliens and monsters at the heart of the world (literally), cultists and Ninjas (both friendly and non) and, of course, the reason why Connie avoids Kansas.

Highly recommended.

Read Recently — August 2019 — Unhappy the land

The Way of the Shield: a novel of the Maradaine Elite by Marshall Ryan Maresca

Beginning another series in the Maradaine setting, Maresca here returns to the fantasy version of superheroes, though with a slightly different twist, this time. If the Thorn of Dentonhill is Batman, albeit Batman if his civilian ID had been Harry Potter instead of Bruce Wayne, Dayne Heldrin, the hero of this book, is Superman. Well, Captain America, really. The point is, he’s the big damn hero who fights to save everyone.

Dayne is a candidate in the Tarian order, one of the remaining knightly orders in Druthal; most of the others have broken up or become absorbed into the civil service. The central image of the Tarians is the shield; they all carry one (they also carry a sword, but their oath is to maintain shield first, then sword). Dayne has, at the start of the book, just returned from the city of Lacanja, where he was serving under Master Denbar. Unfortunately, a serial killer specializing in lethal, clockwork traps (sort of a medieval version of Saw) struck, seizing the young scion of a noble family (a family which has ties to the Tarians). The family called on Master Denbar and Dayne, as the only Tarians in the city, to save the boy, and they failed. Master Denbar was killed, the boy was crippled, Dayne was sent home. As the crippling was partly his fault and the family has representatives on the committee that decides who advances in the Tarians, Dayne’s career as such seems over. Fortunately, the Grand Master is able to find some jobs to keep him busy while they wait for the heat to die down.

Of course, Dayne has some spare time and he makes some new friends: Jerinne Fendall, Tarian Initiate (early student, before Candidacy), who becomes basically Dayne’s student and friend (Jerinne is a lesbian), Hemmit Eyairin, Maresh Niol, and Lin Shartien, who run a newspaper (well, a primitive version of a newspaper) and quickly find Dayne newsworthy. He also finds one old friend: Lady Mirianne Henson, on whose family estate Dayne grew up and whom he has long loved. She returns the favour, and has great plans for Dayne, for all that he is well below her, socially.

But first, Dayne will have to survive the next few days. There is a secret conspiracy, somewhere behind the scenes, that has plans for him. And in front of the scenes, a terrorist group is targetting members of the Druth Parliament, and it may be that only Dayne can stop them. But at what cost?

Like I said above, Dayne is a big damn hero, someone who, confronted with the Trolley test (they call it The Question of the Bridge, and as told by the Tarians is makes sense, unlike its real-world counterpart), argues that you don’t accept that someone must die, you get out there and save everybody. I went with Captain America in the end because of the Shield and his habit of throwing it, in an emergency. If you prefer your heroes dark and gritty, this is not for you. On the other hand, there is the clockwork killer still out there, which suggests that in the long run this series might not be for me, either. But for now, this was just what I was looking for. Along the way, we learn a lot more about the political situation in Druthal, which is one of the rare fantasy democracies. Maresca does his usual excellent job on the worldbuilding and characterization. Recommended.

Read Recently — July 2019 — Powers and Thrones

Down and Out in Purgatory: the collected stories of Tim Powers by Tim Powers

A full collection of Powers’ short works, as of 2017. A few of them I read before, in The Bible Repairman and other stories, but others are new to me. Each story also includes a short note explaining how it came to be written.

“Salvage and Demolition” has one Richard Blanzac, who deals in books, receiving a few boxes from the neice of dead minor poet Sophia Greenwald. They contain a few books and a long manuscript of disturbing poetry. Ordered by Greenwald’s literary executor to burn the manuscript, Blanzac suddenly finds himself travelling back to 1957, where he meets Greenwald herself, and learns that something larger and darker than he might have suspected is going on. This is a surprisingly Lovecraftian story, as well as one of those out-of-order time travel stories that Heinlein capped with “All You Zombies”.

“The Bible Repairman” I read before.

“Appointment on Sunset” is another time travel story, though in this case the traveller is a ghost who is made to revisit the day of his death by people who actually want him to change things so that he lives, and two other people never meet.

“The Better Boy” is a collaboration with James P. Blaylock, a friend of Powers and an SF author in his own right. On the surface it’s the story of a man trying to save the last remaining tomato in his garden from tomato worms by means of a dubiously scientific method. Also there are knock-knock jokes.

“Pat Moore” is a ghost story, about a man named Pat Moore being threatened by the ghost of a woman named Pat Moore. Along for the ride is the ghost of Pat Moore. It’s a weird little story and I’m not sure what I think of it.

“The Way Down the Hill” is one of Powers’ earliest stories, featuring a reunion of a collection of body-hopping immortals, the kind of people who, when their bodies are dying, jump into someone’s fetus and are reborn, remembering their past lives as one life. Perhaps surprisingly, these turn out not to be good people.

“Itinerary” is about . . . well, it’s about 15 pages long. I think it involves time travel. It didn’t make much sense to me.

“A Journey Of Only Two Paces” was in The Bible Repairman and other stories. It’s weird, but compared to “Itinerary” it’s easily understood.

“The Hour of Babel” was also in the Bible Repairman and is about something from outside breaking through to our space/time and the affect it has on the lives of the people on the spot. Time travel is also involved.

“Where They Are Hid” is another time travel story, involving a man who thinks he’s using information from his future selves to rule the world. It’s another one that I found kind of confusing; I’m not sure what was going on in many scenes.

“We Traverse Afar” is another collaboration with Blaylock, involving an aging widower and the odd parade he sees on his street one Christmas.

“Through and Through” involves a Catholic priest taking confession from a ghost. Based on the author’s note of this one, it’s one of those tales where the author proves his enemies wrong on a theological point; never a good idea to base a story on such fantasies and worse if you tell the audience about it. I had not, until this point, even known Powers was Catholic.

“Night Moves” is about a man searching for his parents, and how his childhood invisible friend finally makes that possible. The central gag is that as you move across the continent it takes time for your ghosts — or invisible friends — to find you, but find you they will. This is actually one of the better stories in the collection, with the secret of what’s happening kind of casually dropped into the tale.

“Dispensation” has two students calling up H. P. Lovecraft’s ghost to gain knowledge from it, not realising that they have misunderstood something important about it. It’s based on something from one of Lovecraft’s last letters, and is possibly the least Lovecraftian story in the book.

“A Soul In A Bottle” is, again, about ghosts and time travel and I believe it was in The Bible Repairman.

“Parallel Lines” is a story about family ghosts and why sometimes you’re better leaving them to rest.

“Fifty Cents”, again with Blaylock, has a man travelling across country in his car keep meeting the same people, albeit at different times in their timeline — I think. Again, confusing, and I didn’t get the point.

“Nobody’s Home” is a prequel short to The Anubis Gates, featuring a couple of young women trying to deal with the ghosts of their late relatives.

“A Time To Cast Away Stones” was in The Bible Repairman. It’s a sequel to two of Powers’ novels.

“Down and Out In Purgatory” has a man who has been trying to kill an enemy for years learning that his foe has escaped his vengeance by dying and, moreover, dying happily. This, he decides, is too much to bear, so he determines to go after him and end him forever. What he finds in the afterlife isn’t quite what he was expecting, though . . .

“Sufficient Unto the Day” is about a strange family’s Thanksgiving get-together. It’s a ghost story, of sorts.

My favourites were “Salvage and Demolition”, “Appointment on Sunset”, “The Hour of Babel”, “Dispensation”, and “Sufficient Unto the Day” — which doesn’t mean that the others were all bad, or anything. This is, in total, about 700 pages of stories, which means there’s a lot here to find your own faves from. Recommended for fans of Powers, and for those who’ve never encountered him before this might be a good place to start.