[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.

MIni Review: [JD's Take] The Child Thief (Brom)

After 50 pages, I described this book to a friend as "the darkest possible interpretation of Peter Pan". Another couple hundred pages and I was willing to concede that I may have been wrong... there could be slightly darker interpretations. Once I set it down, I'd decided I was pretty much right from the beginning.

That's not to say it isn't good! It's really quite an enjoyable read, particularly if you're in the mood for some old-school fairy tales retold in the style of a modern fantasy novel. If you read fantasy or play RPGs, you're almost certainly familiar with Brom's work as an artist. He brings the same richness and detail to his writing and the fantastic is vividly realized through his words (and accompanying drawings). It reads quickly and kept me turning the pages long after I should have been asleep.

Still, there's just no getting around it: dark.

[Lisa's Take] The Warded Man - Peter V. Brett

I’m currently in India for work, and the office network is extremely locked down: no gmail, no twitter, no google docs, no facebook, etc. I assumed that blogger would likewise be blocked, so I’ve been sitting on a pile of reviews for the last 2.5 weeks – imagine my delight when I discovered that blogger is not access controlled after all!

This year has been a year of overwhleming “mediocre” among the fantasy books I’ve chosen to read. There have been few truly excellent books in the stack of 40-odd novels I’ve consumed in the last 12 months. There has been some tasty candy, and one or two gems (*cough*Daniel Abraham*cough*) but overall it has been a very so-so year.

The Warded Man is a flagrant exception to that blanket statement about mediocrity. Granted, I read two thirds of it on the plane to India in a sleepy fog, but even allowing for that Brett has produced a truly excellent book. Unlike the last book that I read (that review is coming; it’s not pretty) Brett put in place the full history of his story, and thought through the social and economic implications of his hundreds-of-years war. To say that the characters grow and develop over the course of the book is a gross understatement – his characters positively transform through the flow of the narrative. The transformation of each character is believable, sincere, and utterly moving.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about Brett’s first work is the realism of the world. He is not afraid to show the gritty side of humanity, all their faults and cruelties. However, unlike some current authors (Abercrombie is my favorite offender to pick on, the poor guy), Brett does not take the grittiness so far that it jumps the shark and falls off the cliff of believability. Brett also tempers the grittiness with a healthy dose of life’s loving and humorous aspects.

My single complaint with The Warded Man is that the last 20% of the book felt a little rushed – we had been meandering through the growth of each character, and suddenly they are all mature adults and all sorts of events happen all at once. I suppose this might be commentary on adulthood. Overall I did not take issue with the change in pace, but it did make certain things (the love-story aspect in particular) feel a bit tacked-on.

I finished The Warded Man gunning for the sequel. Alas, the only bookstore I can get to in Delhi is pretty small. I was VERY surprised to see the UK edition (called The Painted Man) on the shelves – I bought it just for the novelty of owning two identical books with different titles. The moment I get back to the states I’ll be picking up The Desert Spear, and I will spend the first couple of days of my vacation tearing through it.

[Lisa’s Take][Spring Cleaning] Servant of a Dark God (John Brown)

I need to poke around at the review database over on Fantasy News & Book Reviews, because I really have no idea how to feel about this book. I’m not sure the last time a fantasy novel engendered such a feeling of “meh?” in me – usually I either love it, hate it, or like it but have something solid to pick at. I’m curious to see what other folks thought of this book to see if they have any points that will sway my opinion one way or the other.

Pretty much everything about Servant of a Dark God is standard. Standard agrarian society – farms and villages, tradesmen and fairs. Standard cast of characters – young boy and young girl who are obvious love interests, father figures, young savants, bad guys, badder guys, and dubiously bad guys. Standard magical set up – magic that is known, magic that is outlawed and practiced covertly, and latent magical powers.

The author does through in some interesting(ish) twists – the conflict of the young male lead with his father and the investigation of family through the book are something you don’t see as often in this type of novel. Brown’s main character is highly conflicted and behaves exactly how a 16 year old boy should (forget the heroics, bring on the indecision and the angst). He also doesn’t mind being brutal with his characters – he’s happy to beat the crap out of them, kill them off, or otherwise.

Standard tropes or moderately interesting twists aside, I never had a feeling of attachment or emotional investment in any of the characters. I could tell when the author wanted me to be upset or happy, but the connection was never fully forged.

[Reviewer’s Note: at this point I set this review aside and forgot about it, so I’m picking it back up and wrapping it up.]

I dithered for quite a while about whether to put this book back on The Stack for JD, or to just shelve it in the library, and in the end I went for the latter. With as many fantasy novels as there are out there right now, there’s just not a place for “ok” books. That said, if someone came to me and said “Holy crap, John Brown wrote another book and it’s SO GREAT!” I would probably believe them, and pick it up without hesitation.

[Micro Review] JD's Take: The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman)

Boy raised by ghosts after brutal murder of his entire family. Copes.

Young adult? Maybe. Awesome? Hell yes. Gaiman's usual excellence in imaginative writing is on full display here, this is probably my favorite of his novels. Until I reread Stardust. Or Neverwhere. Shit. It's really good though.

[Lisa’s Take] Last Watch (Sergei Lukyanenko)

I kind of never thought this book would come out in the US. After all of the drama with the movie side of things, and after the release date getting pushed back so many times, I had pretty much given up hope on ever getting to read the final book in the Night Watch series. I was down about it, but more or less resigned to my fate.

So you can imagine the sound I made when I saw Last Watch on the shelf – or rather the string of excited curses that were entirely inappropriate for a quiet little bookstore, but that escaped before I could contain myself. This was the 3rd fantasy release in a week that caught me totally off guard, and definitely the most thrilling of the 3.

It occurs to me that many people might not be familiar with this little gem of the fantasy, so let me explain a bit. The Night Watch quartet is a series of books by Russian fantasy author Sergei Lukyanenko. They qualify for my mental niche of “massively multi-genre fantasy.” The books are set in modern day Russia, so they have a dash of “urban fantasy.” The books are built on the premise that in addition to humans, there are people who are called Others who have other-worldly powers. These Others fall into two factions – Light Others and Dark Others. The Light Ones have the powers that we usually equate with high fantasy – witches, prescience, healing, spell casters. The Dark Ones have powers from the “fantasy horror” end of the spectrum – vampires, werewolves, dark wizards. A truce was made between the Light and Dark to prevent them from warring each other into oblivion, and the Night Watch was set up as a coalition of Light Ones to watch over and monitor the Dark Ones, while the Day Watch was set up as a coalition of Dark Ones to monitor the Light Ones. Maintaining the balance of power is paramount, and the main character spends a lot of time playing a political balancing game while philosophizing about the nature of good and evil. Add that dash of political fantasy and philosophy, and you have a book series that touches on practically every fantasy sub-genre there is.

The books garnered enough claim in Russia to inspire a movie that smashed all sorts of nation-wide box office records. In 2004 the movie was subtitled for an English audience (with awesomely engaging text, I might add – lots of interesting after-effects and interplay with the on-screen action). It was pretty well received, though it never saw more than a limited release in independent theaters. The film did well enough to secure the US-release of the second movie, Day Watch, which also gained the attention of Fox Searchlight. Good old Fox secured the rights to the 3rd movie and promptly ditched most of the original cast and ran the project into the ground.

Luckily, the movies did well enough to inspire Miramax to pick up the novels, translate, and publish them in the US. I loved the movies for their somewhat bizarre, abrasive, but engaging approach to dark fantasy, and I especially loved their take on magic. As such, when I saw the books on the shelves I picked them up right away. I never got around to writing full reviews for any of the books in the series, but I figured that I should at least highlight them in this blog as I finished up the final installment.

I really can’t say enough good about the Night Watch books – they are an incredibly fresh breath of air amidst all of the ho-hum, been-there-done-that fantasy on the market these days. They make me wish that the US saw more foreign translations, because it’s just a marvelous experience. The premise of the series at first glance seems a little “comic bookish” (not to disparage any of the excellent graphic novels out there) but the deep characterizations and human aspects of the main characters, as well as the keen examination of “good” and “bad” really elevates the whole shebang to a higher level. For all their depth the books still read incredibly quickly, but manage to be both emotionally engaging and have a dash of self-aware humor that keeps it interesting. All four books are great, but I will say that Last Watch was the strongest, and finished off the series on a high note for me.

Well, this has gotten longer than I expected, so I’ll wrap it up. Procure these books. Read them all in a long weekend. They’re so very worth it, and a great change from the established fantasy norm in the US. Also, if you happen to read them without seeing the movies first, I’d love to hear your feedback, as I’m not sure how much my prior exposure to the films influenced my opinions. Happy reading!