Candy candy candy! 100% self-indulgent, unabashed, delicious candy. This is the only way to describe The Alloy of Law; written during one of Sanderson’t “brain break” periods, it is clearly that – a vacation from the Deep an Serious, and an exploration of entertaining elements of the Mistborn world. I mean, c’mon, it’s a freaking steampunk-western with allomancy. How much more mindlessly amusing can you get?
There’s not a lot to say about Alloy of Law – I downed it in an afternoon and a half and I adored every minute of it. I enjoyed it so much that I turned around and re-read Mistborn in the following three days; amusingly enough, that re-read left me with more to mull than reading the new Allow of Law. I was highly entertained to pick up on all the little hints strewn throughout Mistborn that I missed on the first reading. I was also struck by just how much more immature Sanderson’s writing was then; he’s come a very long way in the last few years. I had to resist the urge to count the number of times he used the word “maladroitly” throughout the text.
Anyway, this isn’t much of a review, I know, but I feel the need to make a quick post highly recommending Allow of Law. It’s the perfect reading for the holiday season, when you can curl up in front of a fire for a long afternoon and consume it in one go.
Showing posts with label steampunk. Show all posts
Showing posts with label steampunk. Show all posts
Monday, November 28, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
[Lisa's Take] Mechanique - Genevieve Valentine
The world is at war. It has been at war for as long as anyone can remember - maybe a couple of generations, maybe a few hundred years; it's hard to say. One woman, a singer, survives the bombing of her opera house and discovers that she suddenly has the ability to meld gears and metal and human bodies; suddenly she could restore and control life. So she started a circus.
Mechanique is not a lighthearted tale. It is not a story of clowns and laughing children. It is a story of a bleak world filled with vivid, gritty, real characters with fantastic bodies and amazing abilities. It is a story written by an author who has thought through all of the implications of her premise, and who doles out the details little by little - a literary flower slowly blooming.
Rarely have I seen an author use perspective so skillfully. When I first started reading I was skeptical of the changes between first, second, and third person. Once I got into the rhythm of the novel, however, this device served as a subtle and smooth way to transition you between characters and viewpoints. What I initially thought as a contrivance instead melted seamlessly into the background and added unexpected depth to the narrative flow.
Surely Mechanique had flaws - it is, after all, a first book - but they've melted away in my memory. I keep returning to the vivid images evoked throughout the novel, and these mental pictures chase away anything but a wash of grey, stormy emotion. Genevieve Valentine might be the next China Mieville - don't take your eyes off her.
Mechanique is not a lighthearted tale. It is not a story of clowns and laughing children. It is a story of a bleak world filled with vivid, gritty, real characters with fantastic bodies and amazing abilities. It is a story written by an author who has thought through all of the implications of her premise, and who doles out the details little by little - a literary flower slowly blooming.
Rarely have I seen an author use perspective so skillfully. When I first started reading I was skeptical of the changes between first, second, and third person. Once I got into the rhythm of the novel, however, this device served as a subtle and smooth way to transition you between characters and viewpoints. What I initially thought as a contrivance instead melted seamlessly into the background and added unexpected depth to the narrative flow.
Surely Mechanique had flaws - it is, after all, a first book - but they've melted away in my memory. I keep returning to the vivid images evoked throughout the novel, and these mental pictures chase away anything but a wash of grey, stormy emotion. Genevieve Valentine might be the next China Mieville - don't take your eyes off her.
Monday, August 23, 2010
[Lisa’s Take] Shadows of the Apt Book 3: Blood of the Mantis (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
Series of books are always harder and harder for me to review the deeper I get into them, since there’s really no good way to do a good summary or recap without getting spoilery. Bear with me!
I’ll say this first: Blood of the Mantis was Good Enough. Good Enough to keep me reading the next book. Good Enough to be a pleasant diversion. Beyond that, I was fairly ho-hum about it. The story was interesting, but lacked a great ebb and flow. Tchaikovsky bounced around between characters and plot points so much that the whole book felt a bit frantic (though it did keep the pages turning). The characterizations were a little on the weak side, hanging VERY heavily on past character-building. I didn’t get a great feeling for the new characters introduced, but they also were Good Enough to stand, if not shine.
In lieu of a true story summarization, allow me to instead do a point by point recap of my thoughts on book 2 and discuss how they changed in book 3.
Easily the first 30% of the book was spent re-capping events from the previous book in excruciating detail.
This problem is totally resolved, thank goodness. Whether it was because I waited a little while to pick up book 3 (so the recaps were needed, rather than irksome) or whether he really did tone it down a notch, over-recapping was a non-issue in Blood of the Mantis.
The reader is introduced to several new characters and new powers come into play in the war as a whole. Personally, I did not find this change in scope appealing, as I’m more a fan of character-fantasy than epic/war fantasy.
The scope of book 3 was still more broad than the first book, but it did gravitate back towards more character and action centric than battle- and politics-oriented. I approved, with the caveat I mentioned above about character depth.
An additional problem I had with Dragonfly Falling was that it felt like Tchaikovsky kind of ran out of new ideas for the world.
This was definitely no longer the case in Blood of the Mantis. Tchaikovsky did an excellent job introducing new parts of the world and making the entire setting more rich. I highly enjoyed some of the framework he put in place for future books.
So… yay? Overall improvement? I don’t exactly have a glowing review to give to Blood of the Mantis, but as I said before: it was Good Enough. Amusingly, I think I can just copy-paste the final paragraph of my review of book 2, and it stands perfectly well for book 3:
- > On the whole, all my complaining aside, I enjoyed
Dragonfly FallingBlood of the Mantis enough that I want to pick up thethirdfourth installment and see where it goes. I’ll probably take a break of a few months before book34 so I don’t run into the over-summarizing issue again, and I do hope the series returns to the excellence of the first book.
Thursday, July 01, 2010
[Lisa’s Take] Shadows of the Apt Book 2: Dragonfly Falling (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
Disappointment, thy name is Book 2. After how much I enjoyed Empire in Black and Gold, Dragonfly Falling was kind of a sucker punch to my enthusiasm. I started the second book in the Shadows of the Apt series immediately after completing book 1, with no room to breathe in between. This was a very big mistake. Easily the first 30% of the book was spent re-capping events from the previous book in excruciating detail. Not just little reminders to trigger your memory, but full-on rehashing of conversations, characters, and events. Every time I picked up the book I was annoyed – which is not a state of mind to enjoy anything.
The events of Dragonfly Falling pick up immediately after the end of Empire in Black and Gold, and the story quickly broadens both the scope of the characters and the breadth of the conflict. The reader is introduced to several new characters and new powers come into play in the war as a whole. Personally, I did not find this change in scope appealing, as I’m more a fan of character-fantasy than epic/war fantasy. The characters that I liked from the first book got less attention, and the characters I didn’t like got more face time. In particular, I was disappointed with Salma’s character development (he started out as one of my favorites, but the whole “Grief-in-chains” thing ruined him for me) and I was very, very bored of Totho’s whiny love-lorn drama by half way through the book.
An additional problem I had with Dragonfly Falling was that it felt like Tchaikovsky kind of ran out of new ideas for the world. In book one he had a 100% new world to explore and he gleefully ran around talking about all the incredibly cool and creative stuff in that world… but then in book two realized he had already explored everything, and there was nothing new left to talk about. He did manage to introduce a few different ideas, but they were all related to the old ideas –nothing truly original came into play.
Thankfully, after a thoroughly mediocre first couple hundred pages, the last third of the book picked up quite a bit. Totho got less whiny, Tchaikovsky quit summarizing past events, and Thalric continued his trend from the first book of being quite interesting. The book ended on a good note, and I even managed a healthy enjoyment of the more epic aspects (battle after battle after battle).
On the whole, all my complaining aside, I enjoyed Dragonfly Falling enough that I want to pick up the third installment and see where it goes. I’ll probably take a break of a few months before book 3 so I don’t run into the over-summarizing issue again, and I do hope the series returns to the excellence of the first book.
The events of Dragonfly Falling pick up immediately after the end of Empire in Black and Gold, and the story quickly broadens both the scope of the characters and the breadth of the conflict. The reader is introduced to several new characters and new powers come into play in the war as a whole. Personally, I did not find this change in scope appealing, as I’m more a fan of character-fantasy than epic/war fantasy. The characters that I liked from the first book got less attention, and the characters I didn’t like got more face time. In particular, I was disappointed with Salma’s character development (he started out as one of my favorites, but the whole “Grief-in-chains” thing ruined him for me) and I was very, very bored of Totho’s whiny love-lorn drama by half way through the book.
An additional problem I had with Dragonfly Falling was that it felt like Tchaikovsky kind of ran out of new ideas for the world. In book one he had a 100% new world to explore and he gleefully ran around talking about all the incredibly cool and creative stuff in that world… but then in book two realized he had already explored everything, and there was nothing new left to talk about. He did manage to introduce a few different ideas, but they were all related to the old ideas –nothing truly original came into play.
Thankfully, after a thoroughly mediocre first couple hundred pages, the last third of the book picked up quite a bit. Totho got less whiny, Tchaikovsky quit summarizing past events, and Thalric continued his trend from the first book of being quite interesting. The book ended on a good note, and I even managed a healthy enjoyment of the more epic aspects (battle after battle after battle).
On the whole, all my complaining aside, I enjoyed Dragonfly Falling enough that I want to pick up the third installment and see where it goes. I’ll probably take a break of a few months before book 3 so I don’t run into the over-summarizing issue again, and I do hope the series returns to the excellence of the first book.
Monday, June 28, 2010
[Lisa’s Take] Shadows of the Apt Book 1: Empire in Black and Gold (Adrian Tchaikovsky)
It’s a good thing I generally listen to Jeff over at Genre Reader when he says a book is worth reading, because otherwise I would have taken one look at the cover of Empire in Black and Gold, laughed myself silly with the ridiculousness of it, and never picked the book up. I know I shouldn’t judge content based on cover art… but EiBaG’s cover is just SO awful and SO trite and SOOO video-game-over-the-top that I couldn’t take it seriously.
Luckily, I bought the book on a glowing review, sight-unseen, so I never had an opportunity to be put off. I was rewarded with a novel containing a rich world, fun and relatively complex characters, and really exciting blend of fantasy genres. There were pure fantasy elements, certainly, but also a healthy dose of steampunk and a bit of sci-fi. The three genres blended together very nicely and made for a very unique experience. I’ve seen a couple of reviewers complain about there being too much focus on battle sequences, but I didn’t find that to be the case; rather I thought the balance between intrigue, characters, and fighting was pretty well done. Additionally, the author has a Sanderson-esque ability to depict fights between several people extremely clearly and with a high level of bad-ass-ness.
On the characterization-front, I admired Tchaikovsky’s ability to build a cast that mostly bucked character- and fantasy-stereotypes without going so far as to fall off the other edge and end up back at “ridiculous.” This has been a big gripe of mine with a lot of modern fantasy authors (with Joe Abercrombie perhaps being the worst) so it’s nice to see someone who strikes a balance. His characters were well rounded and complex, often grappling with real issues. I particularly liked the character of Thalric, and Tchaikovsky’s investigation of good and evil and loyalty. Of the other main characters, the only one I didn’t feel particularly sympathetic towards was Totho, but that was likely because he got so much less “screen time.”
I will admit Tchaikovsky did toe the line a bit with his character relationships; sometimes his characters attitudes were refreshing and insightful, but other times they edged towards just a little trite. I called almost all of the major character developments, but not to an extent where I found myself saying “of COURSE that’s where this is going, get ON with it already.” Overall, it was not a flaw that reduced my enjoyment of the book.
Definitely give Empire in Black and Gold a read. It is refreshing and solid and did a great job shaking up the standard fantasy world and character tropes.
Luckily, I bought the book on a glowing review, sight-unseen, so I never had an opportunity to be put off. I was rewarded with a novel containing a rich world, fun and relatively complex characters, and really exciting blend of fantasy genres. There were pure fantasy elements, certainly, but also a healthy dose of steampunk and a bit of sci-fi. The three genres blended together very nicely and made for a very unique experience. I’ve seen a couple of reviewers complain about there being too much focus on battle sequences, but I didn’t find that to be the case; rather I thought the balance between intrigue, characters, and fighting was pretty well done. Additionally, the author has a Sanderson-esque ability to depict fights between several people extremely clearly and with a high level of bad-ass-ness.
On the characterization-front, I admired Tchaikovsky’s ability to build a cast that mostly bucked character- and fantasy-stereotypes without going so far as to fall off the other edge and end up back at “ridiculous.” This has been a big gripe of mine with a lot of modern fantasy authors (with Joe Abercrombie perhaps being the worst) so it’s nice to see someone who strikes a balance. His characters were well rounded and complex, often grappling with real issues. I particularly liked the character of Thalric, and Tchaikovsky’s investigation of good and evil and loyalty. Of the other main characters, the only one I didn’t feel particularly sympathetic towards was Totho, but that was likely because he got so much less “screen time.”
I will admit Tchaikovsky did toe the line a bit with his character relationships; sometimes his characters attitudes were refreshing and insightful, but other times they edged towards just a little trite. I called almost all of the major character developments, but not to an extent where I found myself saying “of COURSE that’s where this is going, get ON with it already.” Overall, it was not a flaw that reduced my enjoyment of the book.
Definitely give Empire in Black and Gold a read. It is refreshing and solid and did a great job shaking up the standard fantasy world and character tropes.
Monday, January 11, 2010
[Lisa’s Take] Boneshaker – Cherie Priest
I admit that I’m a little put off by all of the Steampunk themed literature coming out lately. It feels like a late arrival to a bandwagon that is already pretty full. Don’t get me wrong, I love the Steampunk movement and I have the costumes to prove it… I just feel a little weird about the huge influx of Steamy books. Blame JD, he’s the one who got me thinking that things that are “in” are inherently not good.
Boneshaker is very Steampunk, complete with sky pirates, gear-filled clockwork, and wondrous inventions. And then there are zombies, another topic that puts me off a lot. Still, in spite of all of the thematic elements that are so popular right now… I managed to enjoy Boneshaker quite a lot. I’m not feeling very verbose at the moment, so I’ll break this down piece-mill.
Characters – The two main characters, Briar and her son Zeke, are solid and sympathetic. The supporting cast is colorful and varied, and I enjoyed each new character introduction. I thought it was really cool that Cherie Priest could pull of a good 35-year-old protagonist when so much fantasy these days centers around the “young adult” aged characters. My only character complaint was that Zeke read to me more like a 12 or 13 year old than a 15 year old… but that’s pretty minor.
Plot - I very much enjoyed the story, and I am always thrilled when an author can write a great, colorful story in a single volume. I’m getting a little fed up with the trilogy fad, so I’m happy to heap some praise on a single volume. Boneshaker had a strong setup, good narrative, and solid conclusion. There’s some space in the story for Priest to write another story in the world if she would like, but no real dangling plot lines.
Pacing - In spite of its 400-odd pagecount, Boneshaker reads incredibly quickly. I sucked this one down in about a day (hooray vacation!). The breakneck speed was fun… but I also would have liked to see a bit more ebb and flow in the pacing. There was a small reprieve before the book’s climax, but more contrast overall would have been nice.
There you have it; in spite of all my biases, Boneshaker was a good read. Not amazing or world-changing, but a nice bit of fun. Readers who are new to the idea of Steampunk will find some cool gems, those who are familiar with Steampunk will have a bit of fun, and even readers like me who are a bit jaded on the whole thing will eat their words by the end.
Boneshaker is very Steampunk, complete with sky pirates, gear-filled clockwork, and wondrous inventions. And then there are zombies, another topic that puts me off a lot. Still, in spite of all of the thematic elements that are so popular right now… I managed to enjoy Boneshaker quite a lot. I’m not feeling very verbose at the moment, so I’ll break this down piece-mill.
Characters – The two main characters, Briar and her son Zeke, are solid and sympathetic. The supporting cast is colorful and varied, and I enjoyed each new character introduction. I thought it was really cool that Cherie Priest could pull of a good 35-year-old protagonist when so much fantasy these days centers around the “young adult” aged characters. My only character complaint was that Zeke read to me more like a 12 or 13 year old than a 15 year old… but that’s pretty minor.
Plot - I very much enjoyed the story, and I am always thrilled when an author can write a great, colorful story in a single volume. I’m getting a little fed up with the trilogy fad, so I’m happy to heap some praise on a single volume. Boneshaker had a strong setup, good narrative, and solid conclusion. There’s some space in the story for Priest to write another story in the world if she would like, but no real dangling plot lines.
Pacing - In spite of its 400-odd pagecount, Boneshaker reads incredibly quickly. I sucked this one down in about a day (hooray vacation!). The breakneck speed was fun… but I also would have liked to see a bit more ebb and flow in the pacing. There was a small reprieve before the book’s climax, but more contrast overall would have been nice.
There you have it; in spite of all my biases, Boneshaker was a good read. Not amazing or world-changing, but a nice bit of fun. Readers who are new to the idea of Steampunk will find some cool gems, those who are familiar with Steampunk will have a bit of fun, and even readers like me who are a bit jaded on the whole thing will eat their words by the end.
Friday, January 08, 2010
[Nano Review] JD's Take: Boneshaker (Cherie Priest)
Steampunk versus zombies versus steampunk. In walled off post-apoc alt-1890 Seattle.
I liked it, obviously.
I liked it, obviously.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
[Lisa's Take] The Domino Men - Jonathan Barnes
The Somnambulist was one of the top 5 books I read last year, so you can imagine my excitement when JD came home with a copy of Barnes' new book, The Domino Men. He sent me a picture of it when he found it in the book store - as I hadn't even known Barnes was working on a new book, you can imagine the sort of thrilled noise I made.
Anyway, I think JD did a fine job describing the gist of The Domino Men in his review, so I'll cut straight to the chase.
Domino Men was good, but not great - not even in the same league as The Somnambulist, though to say so is definitely rooted in my own bias against "real world" settings. Unlike the Victorian and slightly Steam Punk setting of The Somnambulist, Barnes' latest endeavor is set in the same world, but modern day. Maybe it's just not "fantasy" enough for me, but whenever too much realism sneaks into my books my opinion immediately turns south.
The book also didn't seem as nuanced as I would have hoped - as JD mentioned, there was much less an air of mystery. Most of the plot was predictable and I called nearly all the major twists. I wasn't a huge fan of most of the characters, and though they were constantly suggested to be great schemers and mad geniuses, these aspirations were only thinly realized in the plot. I will admit that I made a decided sound of glee when The Domino Men came on screen (on page?) but few of the other players elicited such a response.
That said, I finished The Domino Men in one day (admittedly a day where I wasn't feeling great, so I did nothing but sit about and read all evening). Barnes' best feature as an author is his ability to write a damn good narrator - much like in The Somnambulist, my favorite character was the snarky, acidic narrative voice that starts breaking into the main character's accounting a few chapters into the book.
This powerful and entertaining voice coupled with Barnes' ability to keep a plot racing meant that while The Domino Men wasn't as good as its predecessor and wasn't quite my cup of tea... I very much enjoyed it. I'm thrilled that Barnes' fist novel was successful enough to merit a second, and I look forward to his future work (and hopefully work with a less futuristic setting).
Anyway, I think JD did a fine job describing the gist of The Domino Men in his review, so I'll cut straight to the chase.
Domino Men was good, but not great - not even in the same league as The Somnambulist, though to say so is definitely rooted in my own bias against "real world" settings. Unlike the Victorian and slightly Steam Punk setting of The Somnambulist, Barnes' latest endeavor is set in the same world, but modern day. Maybe it's just not "fantasy" enough for me, but whenever too much realism sneaks into my books my opinion immediately turns south.
The book also didn't seem as nuanced as I would have hoped - as JD mentioned, there was much less an air of mystery. Most of the plot was predictable and I called nearly all the major twists. I wasn't a huge fan of most of the characters, and though they were constantly suggested to be great schemers and mad geniuses, these aspirations were only thinly realized in the plot. I will admit that I made a decided sound of glee when The Domino Men came on screen (on page?) but few of the other players elicited such a response.
That said, I finished The Domino Men in one day (admittedly a day where I wasn't feeling great, so I did nothing but sit about and read all evening). Barnes' best feature as an author is his ability to write a damn good narrator - much like in The Somnambulist, my favorite character was the snarky, acidic narrative voice that starts breaking into the main character's accounting a few chapters into the book.
This powerful and entertaining voice coupled with Barnes' ability to keep a plot racing meant that while The Domino Men wasn't as good as its predecessor and wasn't quite my cup of tea... I very much enjoyed it. I'm thrilled that Barnes' fist novel was successful enough to merit a second, and I look forward to his future work (and hopefully work with a less futuristic setting).
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
[Lisa’s Take] (Song of Isaak Book 1) Lamentation – Ken Scholes
I’ve felt a little “meh” about the last few books I read, so I was looking for something really stellar to get me out of my funk. Based solely on the recommendation of Jeff over at Fantasy Book Reviews I decided to pick up Lamentation. No questions, no research – I didn’t even read the jacket flap, just picked it up and added it to the stack.
Granted that didn’t stop JD from reading the jacket flap, and then he almost talked me out of buying the book. I know better than to put any stock in jacket-flap descriptions, but with text like the following I was almost scared off by the level of triteness packed into a few sentences:
I mean… wow. Do you get more hackneyed than that? Named Lands. Kingdoms at war. Ancient weapon. Orphaned Apprentice. Hidden plots. Check! We’ve hit all of the standard fantasy tropes with nothing that sounds even slightly original. It didn’t help that when I took the dust-cover off the book was kind of a mauve-ish-pink color, so coupled with the title it kind of looked like I was reading a romance novel. Still, in spite of JD’s skepticism I held my ground and started Lamentation as soon as I got home.
I’m very pleased that I did. I won’t say that Lamentation blew my socks off – it didn’t bowl me over like Last Dragon or delightfully surprise me like The Magicians and Mrs. Quent – but it did prove to be far less trite than the description suggested, and definitely worth the read. The world is an original combination of fantasy mishmashed with sci-fi and a touch of steampunk, and the characters a fantastic balance of vibrant and subtle. I found myself instantly attached to all of the major POV characters, though I’ll admit that Scholes did touch on my pet peeve of establishing X-number of POVs then throwing in a random +1 from time to time. I certainly don’t mind prologues or epilogues that diverge from POVs, but random chapters thrown in irk me, as it really breaks off the close relationship and flow that sucks you into the main POVs. Very minor gripe, and I can see why he felt the need to switch it up to cover all the major action.
In addition to the great characterization, I loved how evocative Scholes’ prose was. While he didn't use any particularly exciting words or flowing sentence structure that characterizes some of my favorite books, he still managed to draw me in with his descriptions. Scholes created a very rich world of sights and smells and tastes - so rich that I’ve been on a stint of drinking sweet chilled white wines (both while reading Lamentation and well afterwards) because of his meal descriptions. Oh, and did you know that girls’ breath always smells like apples? Sorry – random silly thing that caught my attention and I latched onto it. Twice in the book Scholes described women’s breath as apple-scented, and it struck me as chuckle-worthy.
Perhaps the thing I appreciated most about Lamentation was the fact that Scholes didn’t insult his readers’ intelligence. When it said “Hidden Plots” it really meant it, and Scholes doesn’t feel the need to over-explain or treat you like a 4-year-old. He tells the story with all its intricacies, and you’d damn well better be paying attention if you want to put it all together. I appreciated the chance to engage my brain.
I ended lamentation with a renewed purpose when it comes to completely disregarding jacket descriptions, and a new appreciation for blindly following the recommendations of other geeky fantasy bloggers. Though there were a few first-time-author hiccoughs, Lamentation was still more evocative and intriguing than most of the other fantasy novels I’ve read this year. I’m definitely looking forward to finishing the rest of the series.
Granted that didn’t stop JD from reading the jacket flap, and then he almost talked me out of buying the book. I know better than to put any stock in jacket-flap descriptions, but with text like the following I was almost scared off by the level of triteness packed into a few sentences:
An ancient weapon has completely destroyed the city of Windwir. From many miles away, Rudolfo, Lord of the Nine Forest Houses, sees the horrifying column of smoke rising. He knows that war is coming to the Named Lands. Nearer to the Devastation, a young apprentice is the only survivor of the city – he sat waiting for his father outside the walls, and was transformed as he watched everyone he knew die in an instant. Soon all the Kingdoms of the Named Lands will be at each others' throats, as alliances are challenged and hidden plots are uncovered.
I mean… wow. Do you get more hackneyed than that? Named Lands. Kingdoms at war. Ancient weapon. Orphaned Apprentice. Hidden plots. Check! We’ve hit all of the standard fantasy tropes with nothing that sounds even slightly original. It didn’t help that when I took the dust-cover off the book was kind of a mauve-ish-pink color, so coupled with the title it kind of looked like I was reading a romance novel. Still, in spite of JD’s skepticism I held my ground and started Lamentation as soon as I got home.
I’m very pleased that I did. I won’t say that Lamentation blew my socks off – it didn’t bowl me over like Last Dragon or delightfully surprise me like The Magicians and Mrs. Quent – but it did prove to be far less trite than the description suggested, and definitely worth the read. The world is an original combination of fantasy mishmashed with sci-fi and a touch of steampunk, and the characters a fantastic balance of vibrant and subtle. I found myself instantly attached to all of the major POV characters, though I’ll admit that Scholes did touch on my pet peeve of establishing X-number of POVs then throwing in a random +1 from time to time. I certainly don’t mind prologues or epilogues that diverge from POVs, but random chapters thrown in irk me, as it really breaks off the close relationship and flow that sucks you into the main POVs. Very minor gripe, and I can see why he felt the need to switch it up to cover all the major action.
In addition to the great characterization, I loved how evocative Scholes’ prose was. While he didn't use any particularly exciting words or flowing sentence structure that characterizes some of my favorite books, he still managed to draw me in with his descriptions. Scholes created a very rich world of sights and smells and tastes - so rich that I’ve been on a stint of drinking sweet chilled white wines (both while reading Lamentation and well afterwards) because of his meal descriptions. Oh, and did you know that girls’ breath always smells like apples? Sorry – random silly thing that caught my attention and I latched onto it. Twice in the book Scholes described women’s breath as apple-scented, and it struck me as chuckle-worthy.
Perhaps the thing I appreciated most about Lamentation was the fact that Scholes didn’t insult his readers’ intelligence. When it said “Hidden Plots” it really meant it, and Scholes doesn’t feel the need to over-explain or treat you like a 4-year-old. He tells the story with all its intricacies, and you’d damn well better be paying attention if you want to put it all together. I appreciated the chance to engage my brain.
I ended lamentation with a renewed purpose when it comes to completely disregarding jacket descriptions, and a new appreciation for blindly following the recommendations of other geeky fantasy bloggers. Though there were a few first-time-author hiccoughs, Lamentation was still more evocative and intriguing than most of the other fantasy novels I’ve read this year. I’m definitely looking forward to finishing the rest of the series.
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