Review: Memories of Ice, by Steven Erikson

I can name few books that I found as brutal and heart wrenching as the second Malazan book, Deadhouse Gates. It was because of this that I went into Memories of Ice anticipating a quieter, more introspective volume. A chance for me, the reader, to catch my breath after the emotionally exhausting climax of Deadhouse Gates.

Hahahaha. You can’t tell from where you’re sitting, but that’s hysterical laughter on my part. I thought Deadhouse Gates was bad? Man, I had no idea. Erikson was just getting warmed up, and in Memories of Ice we see exactly how far he is willing to push his poor, poor characters.

It was a real treat to get back to the  Gardens of the Moon gang- especially the Bridgeburners. They spend much of the series debut on their own and undergoing sneaky missions, which was fantastic (I’ll never look at roadworks the same way again!), but it was also really cool to see them in a more "traditional" army setting. A good chunk of this book is the Bridgeburners and the rest of Dujek's army marching from point a to point b, which on paper sounds really boring. But it was just so cool to see how the Bridgeburner’s operate, to see why others view them with such awe.

And Anomander Rake and Caladan Brood! I am sure I am not the only reader who was instantly fascinated with Rake in GotM and wanting to see much more of him. I was equally keen to properly meet Caladan Brood, and to see how their relationship operated. Memories of Ice does not disappoint on that front! Rake is such a fantastic character. Through his burgeoning friendship with Whiskyjack we see a more “human” side of him, but at the same time he remains as alien and mysterious as ever. (But clearly the award for coolest bromance has to go to Toc the Younger and Tool. Loved every second of page time those two shared. Did not however love what happened to Toc once he went his own way, in the sense that it was fantastic reading but not fantastic for my heart…)

And this is really only one of many storylines that make up Memories of Ice. The siege of Capustan was just…. Wow. Easily the most graphically violent thing I have ever read (and I’ve read/suffered through American Psycho…) and yet the blood and gore never feels gratuitous. Rather it felt like every other author of a fantasy battle has been suger coating, and here Erikson is revealing the awful bloody truth of it. Which is not to say that I’ve never read a bloody battle scene before, but there’s just something so awful and visceral about the siege of Capustan.

I think if Deadhouse Gates was the book where I started to really care of the Malazan world and it’s characters, then Memories of Ice has to be the book where I actually started to understand what was going on. The warrens started to make sense, and I felt like I was getting a handle on the gods and ascendants and how they operate. I definitely wasn’t leaning as heavily on chapter summaries to make sense of things, and I was able to figure out who characters were and make connections all on my own.

But I really wasn’t kidding about Erikson inflicting awful things upon his characters. Coltraine remained a very aloof and removed character throughout Deadhouse Gates, and his fate nearly broke something inside of me. When equally bad things start to happen to characters a little closer to home, man, it was tough. It was hard to read, but equally hard to stop reading, if that makes sense. This book was brutal and awesome, in the literal sense of the word, and finishing it left me drained. But damn if I didn’t love every second of it.

I bought this book

Review: A Long, Long Sleep, by Anna Sheehan

I don’t know what I was expected when I picked up this book, but it certainly wasn’t what I got! The plot: girl wakes up after a few decades in a cryogenic chamber, finds she is heir to her parents' multi-billion dollar corporation and not long after finds that someone wants to kill her! Oh no! I think I was definitely swayed by the cover when it came to buying this one, because I don’t know about you but that plot leaves me a bit cold. It’s the part where someone wants to kill her that does it. Why do books always have to shove stuff like that in? The fact that she’s woken up in a strange future with everyone she’s ever known dead should be drama enough, why add more?

Thankfully, it seemed the author agreed with me. The attempted murder of Rosalinda is definitely not the focus of this book, and if you go in wanting an action packed ride you’ll be sorely disappointed. A Long Long Sleep is far more subtle then that, and it’s really more of a slow burning character study than anything else. And I loved it!

I loved how when we first meet her it’s so easy to dismiss Rosalinda as weak; the spoiled, soft product of loving but overbearing parents. But then, slowly, we start to see that not everything is as it seems, and I can’t think of a way to discuss this further without risking spoilers, so you’ll need to just take my word that the way the sinister undertones to Rosalinda’s past slowly build is just masterful.

I also loved the setting. The world has moved on without Rosalinda and watching her struggle to cope with the new technology and vernacular of the world was believable and interesting. The time Rosalinda is from is already far advanced compared to “our” time, yet Sheehan still manages to make her feel old fashioned compared to everyone around her. The whole book has a really lovely old fashioned feel to it, like an old photograph of a spring day. 

I loved that Rosalinda is woken by a kiss by an impossible handsome and charming young man who, having read a few books in my time, I immediately pegged as her eventual love interest. Actually, no, I didn’t love that. What I loved is that things turned out to be far more complicated. Again, spoilers! 

I loved the book actually pulled off a twist that I did not see coming until the very last moment. A twist that, despite taking me by surprise, was completely obvious in hindsight. (Which is how all twists should be).

I mean, it’s not perfect (although my gushing might be suggesting otherwise). There is that whole attempted murder side plot, which to be honest feels a little tacked on, like maybe the publishers didn’t quote know how to market a YA book that didn’t feature murder or forbidden romance or soul mates.

But that’s a small complaint, and this is easily one of the best YA books I have read in a long time. It stands completely alone, but despite that I can’t help but hope for a sequel, and anything else by this author really. Definitely one to watch!

I bought this book

Review: Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde

One of the things I liked most about this book (and there are a lot of things to like about this book) is that even though it's really damn funny, the people in it act like people.

Eh, you say? What else are they going to act like, goats? Well, now, think about it. How often does the humour in "funny" books depend on the characters acting in ways that people normally wouldn't, or taking normal reactions and hugely exaggerating them? "It's only a flesh wound" is funny because it's not only a flesh wound, and a normal person would be quite upset about it.

Not that I'm claiming to be any huge expert on humourous books or anything. Quite the opposite- Pratchett aside I don't really read any. Because my enjoyment of a book is directly linked to how invested I am in the characters, and it's hard for me to get invested in characters in "funny" books.

But, Shades of Grey. Funny. Like, really funny. Really, really funny and packed full of characters you can get behind. People that, like I said, actually act like people. It's impressive how well it works. The book has a ridiculously bizarre and awesome set up. It's set a really, really long way into our future and something has happened to really mess up the colour spectrum. People are born being able to see only one colour naturally (and some can see more of it than others), and just looking at combinations of colours can have harmful or healing effects. And people, being people, go on and divide  themelves into groups defined by who can see what colour, predicatably treating those who can see only grey like lesser beings.

That's pretty much the theme of this book. No matter how out there the situation, people are still going to act like shitty, selfish, occasionally heroic people. Fforde doesn't need to twist his characters into caricatures of humanity for his humour to work, he understands that humanity "as is" is already pretty funny. And by keeping his people "real" if you like, (how many "quote marks" can I cram into one review anyway?) it creates this really awesome contrast to the seriously nuts setting of the book.

And the amount of though Fforde put into this crazy set up is just astounding too. I've said this before: a good author can make you believe anything, a bad author will have you doubting everything. I really thing that Shades of Grey might be one of the most original books I've read, but also one of the easiest to accept, if you know what I mean.

And here we are, nearly at the end of my review, and I've barely touched on what normally I don't shut up about: the main characters! Let's just say they're great, all of them. Witty and flawed and sometimes selfish and sometimes not- in other words all the things you want your characters to be. There's a romance that doesn't go how I thought it would (and I have no idea where it will go in the sequels) and a really touching father/son relationship. And a shortage of spoons.

Shades of Grey is a book I wouldn't hesitate to recommend to someone who loved humorous novels, but I would also recommend it to people who don't. It's just a really great book.

I bought this book

Review: Red Seas Under Red Skies, by Scott Lynch

It’s not that I didn’t like The Lies of Locke Lamora, it’s just that I was expecting so much more from it. I found it to be well written enough, but I felt the ‘then/now’ structure of the plot bogged the story down, and for some reason I found I was sympathizing a bit too much with the character’s Locke was trying to cheat, which made it hard to root for him.

If I had of picked it up having never heard of it before I think I probably would have really enjoyed it. But every reader knows how that goes. It’s the curse of the hype machine. We talk a lot about how a book that has been raved about all over the place often doesn’t live up to expectations. But of course, the flip side of this is also true, and while the hype machine worked against me with The Lies of Locke Lamora, it’s also one of the reasons why I enjoyed the sequel so much.

Red Seas Under Red Skies was not received nearly so well as The Lies of Locke Lamora. It wasn’t hated or anything, but general consensus seemed to be that it was not nearly as good as it’s predecessor. I think it’s an unfair assessment. Red Seas is not at all a poorer book than Lies. It’s written with the same skill and flair, that kind of writing that seems tricky and effortless at the same time (like a well executed card trick), and was the one thing I really liked about Lies and the reason I gave it’s sequel a try.

But the problem is that it’s a very different beast to Lies. It’s a lot darker, for a start. Gone is the plucky, cocky, supremely confident Locke who charmed over so many readers in Lies. But come on! Of course he’s gone! What kind of man would Locke Lamora be if the events at the end of Lies didn’t have a marked effect on him? The Locke in Red Seas has had his confidence rocked. Although he doesn’t come right out and admit it to himself, he’s relying far less on his cleverness and far more on Jean’s muscle.

Which isn’t to say Locke’s been beaten down! I mean, a Locke Lamora running at half strength can still run circles around pretty much everyone, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of people underestimating him and not realizing their mistake until far too late. He’s just more subdued about it. Less brilliant for the sake of being brilliant, more aware of his own fallacies. He also learned the important lesson that bullshitting can only get you so far. I appreciated this Locke much more than I did the Locke in Lies.

The before/after structure is mostly done away with here as well, which was definitely for the best. There is a little of it, but instead of flashbacking to Locke’s childhood we only go back to the months following the end of the last book (Red Seas being set about 2 years after), and the flashbacks provide hints and clues about what’s happening now. The flashbacks in Seas feel much more integral to the plot, and less like annoying detours away from the main story.

I liked the sudden turns in the plot, and the way other characters were allowed to be clever too. I liked that the people Locke was trying to cheat this time around were a lot easier to root against, and I like that Locke and Jean’s friendship took a real battering.

I also really liked the ending. And by really liked, mean really, really, hated. But it’s the good kind of hate. The hate that makes you scream in frustration and immediately run to the internet to find out when you can get the next book and find out what’s going to happen. (Because seriously, what’s going to happen?! I need to know!) I’m definitely glad I held off on this book until now; a year or so wait still seems impossible, but it’s definitely better than the five years every one else has suffered through!

I bought this book

Review: The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

Somewhere along the line John Green became one of those authors whose books I would automatically read, no questions asked. So when Book Depository kindly alerted me that his next book, The Fault in Our Stars, was available for pre-order I bought it without thinking twice, or without actually, you know, investigating what it was about.

I’ve said before, many times, that John Green has a habit of writing the same book over and over, with slight adjustments. Self centred boy loves manic pixie dream girl type, treats his best friendly badly, gets into some crazy situations, gets a stern talking to by best friend, releases what an ass his been and that girls aren’t everything. Sometimes he gets the girl, sometimes he doesn’t- that’s not really the point.

Of course, John Green writes his stories with such skill and wit that I was more than happy to keep reading the same book only different over and over again, and I guess when I cracked open The Fault in Our Stars that’s exactly what I was expecting to get.

And that is what I got. Kinda. Except not really.

The first departure from his standard formula is immediately apparent. The narrator of The Fault in Our Stars is a girl. Hazel. For the most part I think Green captured the female point of view really well, without ever coming close to stereotypical clothes/shopping/boys territory. Tip for male writers: It’s ok if your female protag doesn’t like shoes, we’ll still know she’s a girl! I think it’s tricky for some writers (female and male) to write convincing female voices without the “shortcuts” of liking jewelery and makeup and boys and ponies and whatever. Not that there aren’t plenty of teenage girls like that out there, but there are also many who aren’t. A few minor hiccups aside, he nails it. Hazel is a complete departure from the manic pixie dream girl model Green used with his previous female characters like Alaska and Margo, which was kinda ironic given that another character tells Hazel several times that she looks one of the original manic pixie dream girls, Natalie Portman. Maybe Mr. Green was poking fun?

Hazel has a pretty nasty case of the cancer, which miraculously didn’t kill her years ago but is going to get her eventually. At a lame cancer support group meeting she meets handsome cancer survivor Augustus Waters, and the story is off. And here we return to more familiar John Green territory. The book might be lacking a manic pixie dream girl, but in Augustus Waters we’ve got a fairly spot on example of a manic pixie dream boy.

Just like Margo and Alaska and the girl from an Abundance of Katherine’s not called Katherine, Augustus is quirky and free spirited and he has a slightly offbeat name. And like in all of those books he rescues Hazel from herself.

I wonder if John Green is capable of writing a book without a character of this type. In each of his books he bounces his straight main character off of this character's weirdness (even in Will Gayson, Will Grayson, with the role being filled by Tiny) and the plot is driven forward by them. Alaska’s accident is the focal point of Looking for Alaska, Margo’s breadcrumb trail is the backbone of Paper Towns and In The Fault in Our Stars Augustus uses his “wish” to get himself and Hazel to Amsterdam to meet the author of her favourite book.

This all must seem very critical, and if John Green was less of an author is would be. But John Green is not less of an author. He’s amazing. His books are funny and some of the most intelligent and thought provoking I have ever read. The way he weaves deep philosophical questions into his narratives never fails to delight me, and leave me staring off into the distance, deep in thought. And I can’t think of any other author who incorporates poetry into their work as well as he does.

I think The Fault in Our Stars might be his best yet. It a book about death and life and young love and books. Especially books. The importance of books in our lives, the disconnect between book and author, the question of who “owns” a book once it’s out there, the author or the reader, and the ways fiction can and can’t immortalize someone. I remember doing a class at uni on “the death of the author” and if this book had of been published then I would have been bringing it up every two seconds. It’s fantastic stuff, and I love the fact that John Green is exposing teenagers to these ideas.

I’m aware that this review is starting to get ridiculously long. I just want to say that I don’t have much experience with cancer, or of young people with cancer, but Green’s portrayal of it felt really authentic to me. Not too maudlin but not too light. It was a book in which the main character has cancer, but never feels like a book about cancer.

Ultimately this is a really good book. Really really good. Even if I did read the last few chapters sobbing like a baby. Green departed from his formula a little, if not entirely, and it’s left me excited to see what he does next.

I bought this book

Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone, by Laini Taylor

One of my least favourite literary tropes is the whole idea of “instant love.” You know how it goes, hero and heroine see each other for the first time and there’s a mysterious yet undeniable pull drawing them together. There’s no point fighting it, they were made each other, when they touch sparks fly, and blah blah barf.

And while I’ll agree that when it comes to books what people like and don’t like is highly subjective, I don’t think my dislike of literary soul mates is all on me. Because let’s be honest here, more often than not, the whole thing is handled pretty poorly.

Because it’s lazy. The author doesn’t want to go to the effort of actually showing the characters falling in love, so they just make it fate or destiny or some rubbish. It's a cheap shortcut. I don’t deny that two people can experience an immediate attraction for one another, but there’s a big difference between that and instantly professing undying love.

But that’s the funny thing about books isn’t it. Something can be done poorly 99.9% of the time, but that doesn’t mean that, in the hands of a skilled writer, it can’t be done well. Enter Daughter of Smoke and Bone. A book that seemed to have been tailor made to display everything I dislike in a book. Split between Earth and another world (I prefer my books to pick a dimension and commit), featuring a quirky female protagonist (with blue hair, if you don’t mind) and, of course, the insta-love. But while I disregarded it at first, when every single review blog that I followed started to post glowing reviews, I decided I had better give the book a chance.

And wow. I’m definitely glad I did, because this is one beautiful book. And it’s not that as though Taylor’s take on things is groundbreakingly new and original. If any other author had taken the exact same plot and written it out scene for scene in their own style, I doubt I would have like it. Because it’s the style that raises this book from ‘eh, ok,’ to freaking amazing. Taylor’s prose is just incredible.

She writes with a deceptively simple elegance that was a joy to read. And I know that sounds like one of those things that people just say, but I mean it literally. I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an author who could create such fantastic and vivid scenery in my head. And she would to it with only a couple of beautifully wrought sentences. I mean, here I am stumbling clumsily around trying to convey how effortless and stunning Taylor’s prose is, whereas she could probably get the same point across twice as well in seven words.

Even the endless descriptions of how beautiful the two main characters were didn’t bug me as much as it normally would have, and trust me, there is a lot of reflecting on the beauty of the two leads. But it’s balanced out by a creepy and inventive magic system where all gains come with real consequences, side characters with actual depth and a real world setting (Prague) that seems as magical as any fantastic location I’ve ever read about.

I can’t but think that if this is what Taylor does with a slightly above average paranormal romance plot, imagine what she could do with a genre I actually like! I know that from this point on I shall be following Taylor’s career with great interest.

I bought this book

Review: Melusine, by Sarah Monette

How is it fair that books like, well, I don’t think I need to name any names, I’m sure we can all think of at least one book that defies all laws of good writing and yet still has a huge fanbase. So how is it that books like that, with their sparkling vampires and their last suppers get printed and reprinted and reprinted again, while excellent books like Sarah Monette’s Melusine go out of print?

I had one hell of a time tracking this book down, let me tell you. If it wasn’t for a particularly enthusiastic discussion about it in one of the Goodreads groups I belong to I probably wouldn’t have bothered. And I would have been the one to miss out there, because this really is a very enjoyable read.

The book is told from two separate first person points of view, brothers Felix and Mildmay. It's not so easy, making multiple first person points of view work well. With third person point of view differentiaiting between characters is easy, because you’re naming them ever couple of lines. But you don’t have that luxery in first person. So many books that try to do this whole alternating first person view points thing fail because each character sounded almost exactly the same. This is not even close to being a problem for Monette. Felix and Mildmay are both incredibly distinct characters. The names at the start of each section were wholly unnessary, it was easy to tell within a single line whose head I was in. It seems like such an obvious thing- make your characters seem like different people. And yet so few authors pull it off as well as Monette did here.

Mildmay grew up as a thief on the streets and is now a cat burgler. His voice is ridiculously conversational and engaging, and I don’t doubt that he will be most reader’s favourite. He’s funny, in a cynical kind of way, and good at what he does. But dispite his coolly competent demenour he’s very self conscious, which was actually one thing I really liked about the book. Because Mildmay and Felix don’t meet until halfway through the book, you see Mildmay as Mildmay sees himself. Ugly and scarred. But then when you eventually see him from Felix’s point of view you realise that this is not the case at all. It was just another example of how skillfully Monette’s employed the dual view points.

In contrast to easy to like Mildmay, there is Felix. Handsome and charming, he’s a high ranking wizard and the king’s brother’s lover. His wit is sharp and biting, and while I liked him from the start I think fewer readers will warm to him. He’s just so snarky to everyone. That is, of course, until he goes completely mad.

Because, yeah, for most of the book Felix is completely fucking insane. A spell, and I won’t into anymore detail than that because of spoilers, leaves him mad and presumed guilty of a heinous crime. Which, again, could have really sucked. But Monette manages to walk a fine line between Felix’s madness and still keeping the reader engaged with the plot. It was actually really cool. Felix starts to see various characters as animals, and I had fun trying to figure out which animal was who. I also liked that on one level it was just Felix raving, but if you looked a little deeper you could start to assemble a picture of what was going on. It took a little effort, but I am certainly ok with putting a little effort into my reading, if it's for the right reasons, (like it was here).

I also really, really loved the world building. Different elements of society use different calanders, and different cities subscribe to wildly different kinds of magic. There was a very European feel to the world and it's history, almost like an alternate Venice. I would have liked to have seen more of the world building than what was in this book, but there are three other books in the series so I’m sure I’ll get my way.

The book isn't perfect, but it's definitely one of the better ones I've read this year. It certainly didn't deserve to be treated so poorly by it's publisher. I definitely recommend trying to find a copy of this one. I think it's still available in digital form, so if you've joined the ranks of the advancing ebook armies you'll have an easier time of it. Otherwise, like me, you'll be hitting up ebay and the like. But it's worth it. I promise.

I bought this book.

Review: Deadhouse Gates, By Steven Erikson

I don’t think I’ve encountered a single Malazan fan who doesn’t think that the second book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, Deadhouse Gates, is better than the first. So I’m hardly being original when I say this, but it still has to be said. Deadhouse Gates is a much better book than Gardens of the Moon.

And it’s not like Gardens of the Moon was a bad book, because it really, really wasn’t. Honestly I’m having trouble even identifying what it is about Deadhouse Gates that makes it seem so improved. This is going to sound ridiculously corny, but the only way I can describe it is to say that Deadhouse Gates has heart. I read Gardens of the Moon with half of my mind enjoying the story, and the other half analyzing it and trying to figure out what everything meant. As I said in my review of the book, to me Gardens of the Moon felt like a challenge. An enjoyable one, yes, but I was too busy trying to keep up to really immerse myself in the story.

This was not even slightly the case with Deadhouse Gates. The book certainly no less challenging than Gardens of the Moon (sure, we know who a bunch of people and events are now, but Erikson goes ahead and dumps a crap tonne more on you, lest you start getting cocky). All I know if while I read Gardens with an analytical mind, I read Deadhouse Gates totally and completely involved in the story. I didn’t take nearly as close a note of all the comments and references, but weirdly I feel as though I followed this one better.

There’s a scene, no spoilers here I promise, following a large battle where Erikson had me almost in tears. He had me felling truly wretched. And then only pages later there’s a scene where Coltraine is talking to the Malazan sappers (I'm sure anyone who has read the book will know what I'm talking about) and there I was with the huge, goofy grin on my face. I’m rarely very expressive when I read, but I think it would have been comical to watch my face while I read this book. Constant frowns and gasps and laughter.

The characters, both those we’d already met and newly introduced ones, went from being interesting people to being people I desperately cared about. And I think I just hit on why I found this book to be so much better. The characters. (Of course. Isn’t it always the characters?) When, for example, what happened to Crokus’s uncle in Gardens of the Moon happened, I thought it was some pretty cool writing but I wasn’t really sad or anything. But when what happened to, well, I could name pretty much any character from Deadhouse Gates here, happened, I was a wreck. I was right there with them, cheering or sobbing. Mostly sobbing. (Damn you Erikson!)

When I finished it I felt like I had run a marathon. I felt like I’d crossed the desert in Coltaine’s Chain of Dogs. In part because I normally average two books a week, and this thing took me almost a solid month to get through. But also because Erikson does not spare the reader at all. What his characters go through, you go through. And believe me, Erikson is not nice to his characters.

While I think I need to break from the Malazan world to recover (and I mean that in the best possible way) I look forward to continuing on in this series. I especially can’t wait to see Erikson’s improved skills applied to some of my favourite characters from Gardens of the Moon, like Anomander Rake or Whiskyjack. Or Quick Ben. Or Palan. Or, oh, Kruppe! And we can’t forget Brood… And I wonder if we’re going to meet that Prince who’s heading the Crimson Guard? And what about Tattersail? And, and, and….

I bought this book

Review: Gardens of the Moon, by Steven Erikson

Everywhere I looked there were people saying how complicated and hard Gardens of the Moon (and the Malazan series as whole) is to follow. Which is the best thing that could have happened, really. Because it meant that I went into this book with the right mindset. I was ready to put the effort in, to read every word instead of skimming and give deep thought to the most offhand of comments. Not just ready, I was looking forward to it.

And in the end, I didn’t find Gardens of the Moon to be nearly as complicated as I was expecting. Kinda like when a book is hyped everywhere and you find it to be not so great.

Not that I’m saying Gardens of the Moon is a light and easy read. If I hadn’t gone in well prepared I doubt I would have stuck with it. As it was it took me three times as long to read as a normal book. But if you give it your full attention and really concentrate on everything then you’ll be ok. Mostly.

Reading Gardens of the Moon… To me it was like picking up book four in a twelve book series and trying to keep up. A whole bunch of really important stuff has already happened and the characters all know each other and have complicated histories. And it’s not a book four written by one of those authors who recaps every little thing, no it assumes that you just finished reading the first three books or at the very least you looked up some recaps on the wikipedia, so you know what’s going on.

Except, you know, there are no previous three books. Gardens of the Moon is book one, and if ever the proverb sink or swim was appropriate it's here. You just have to go with it, keep reading even though you have no idea what’s going on and trust that it will become clear.

And the best part it that, slowly, it does. Or at least it starts to. And trust me, it’s worth it.

Gardens of the Moon revolves around the efforts of the Malazan Empire to add another continent to its growing list of conquered lands. The scope of this thing is breathtaking. The book pretty much opens with a battle so epic it feels like it should be the climax of the whole series, not just the opener. And things barely slow down after that.

How many of you have seen the Final Fantasy VII movie, Advent Children? My fiancé is a fan of it, and I remember watching the special features once and the director said something along the lines of ‘every time we considered adding something, we asked our selves; does it look cool?’ Which shows in the film, because everything looks really cool. But underneath the coolness is, well, not much of anything.

Erikson may well have written this book with the same question in mind. Everything in the book is just really, really cool. The immortal Anomander Rake and his terrifying sword of doom? Cool. The magical warrens that mages tap for their powers? Cool. Elite military unit the Bridgeburners? Oh my god, so freaking cool. Except unlike with Advent Children, it’s not all show. This book has more depth than the ocean, and it’s twice as difficult to reach the bottom of.

Not that everything is all serious and thought consuming. There are moments of genuine humour scattered liberally about. I was actually really surprised with how funny the book was. Erikson has a good eye for when to break the darker moments with something lighter, which I as a reader appreciated.

At the end of the day you’ll only get out of Gardens of the Moon what you put in. It’s a love it or hate it kind of deal, I think. Personally, I can’t wait to read the other nine books in the series, and to see if things get any clearer or just a whole lot more complicated!

I bought this book

Review: Embassytown, by China Mieville

My Bachelor of the Arts might not have done much in the way of landing me a job, but if nothing else it enabled me to get a real kick out of this book. Not that you need to possess a mostly useless English degree to enjoy Embassytown. It’s just that the four years I spent at university left me with a deep and abiding affection for language. And debt. But mostly that affection for language thing.

And while all of Mieville’s books display a way with the English language that is truly breathtaking (even flawed Kraken. Hell, maybe especially Kraken), Embassytown is the first one that is truly about language.

The book is set on a frontier planet where the smallish human settlement lives in relative harmony with the planet’s original occupants, the Ariekei. I loved the way Mieville handled the Ariekei. These dudes are seriously alien. It took many years for the first humans to figure out a way to even communicate with them, and decades later they are still barely understood. Where so many books use things like “translator chips” and the like to bridge the gap between humans and aliens, Mieville offers a more realistic and satisfying approach.

One of the best things about this book is the slow way Mieville expands upon the humans and the Ariekei. As much as I want to discuss it further, I’m really wary of giving too much away and spoiling that fun for others. Or maybe I don’t want to make it too easy for them. There is no hand holding here, every bit of understanding is hard earned by the reader. But there’s a real sense of satisfaction that comes with that. I just want to say that the way the humans and the Ariekei communicate with each other is really ingenious, and I can’t recall encountering anything like it elsewhere.

It is this relationship between the humans and the Ariekei and the lengths they have to go to just to be understood by each other, that form the heart of the plot. Again, I don’t want to spoil anything! Let’s just say that things have always been done a certain way, and when someone tries to do them a different way… To say all hell breaks lose would be an understatement. Classifying a Mieville book is a difficult task at the best of times, but if I had to stick a label on this one it would be ‘apocalyptic.’ I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else call the book that, but I really don’t see Embassytown being out of place on a shelf of books exploring the end of the world as we know it. (No one ever said the world in question had to be ours, after all…)

As for the characters… Well, except for the truly amazing ‘The Scar,’ I don’t think characters are Mieville’s strong point. They’re not badly done or anything, it’s just that his settings tend to be so fantastically weird and his plots so bizarre that the characters tend to get a little lost in it all. Having said that, the cast of ‘Embassytown’ is still pretty great. Avice, the main character, is just the right mix of flawed and heroic, and I really liked jaded Bran. And his villains are not really villains so much as they are men and woman in trapped in a untenable situation, doing what they can to survive. And I don’t know about you, but I’ll take that after a mustache twirling, puppy kicking bad guy any day.

The last thing I really liked about this book was its treatment of marriage and relationships. This aspect of the book was very much in the background, and Mieville never even comes close to getting all preachy about it, and I think that’s why it worked so well. Often in books set in the future either everything is different, or everything has stayed the same. Its not often you get a more realistic mix of some things have changed, and some haven’t. Actually, this applies to all aspects of Embassytown, not just the romantic ones.

All in all I found Embassytown to be a highly challenging but extremely satisfying read, and after the slight disappointment of Kraken I couldn’t be more pleased about that.

This book: was bought

Review: The Demon's Lexicon, by Sarah Rees Brennan

So the short version of this review is that if you like the TV show 'Supernatural,' you're pretty much gaurenteed to enjoy 'The Demon's Lexicon.' Which is not to suggest that Sarah Rees Brennan's debut novel is in any way a rip off of the show, it's just that the two share a few key ingredients. Demons and magic and all that but mostly? Mostly, it's about the brothers. Lying to save each other, weapon wielding, monster slaying, angst ridden and really, really pretty brothers.

There are just too few books out there that really explore the relationship between siblings. I'm inclined to think this is because it's just easier to get a reader invested in a romantic relationship. The whole will they/won't they thing doesn't really work with siblings, it's a whole different dynamic and it can be hard to do well.

For a start, siblings can do really awful things to each other that would spell the end of most romances. They can lie, cheat, steal and maim and still love each other, because it's family you know? Nick and Alan, the brothers in 'Demon's Lexicon,' are definitely not strangers to hurting each other, but the reader never doubts that they'd do anything for each other.

It's impressive, how effectively Brennan conveys their bond, because her POV character, Nick, is a long tall glass of emotionally stunted. Seriously. The kid is about as caring as a sharp sword, and colder than ice. Which you might think would make for some dark reading, but there is a real warmth to this book. This can mostly be attributed to Brennan's prose, which practically dances across the page and is full of wit and, yes, warmth. There is a larger than life quality to her writing that many books aspire to but few achieve.

And in any case Nick's emotional blankness was my favourite part of the book, weirdly enough. I don't think I've ever encountered another character like him. He's not "evil" or anything, but he's certainly not good either. Mostly, he's just really different. And its refreshing. And Brennan definitely has fun with him. For so long he's only let his brother get close to him, and Alan gets him. But the start of the book introduces two new characters into Nicks life, Mae and Jamie. Watching Nick struggle to deal with these intrusion was equal parts hysterical and moving.

The plot hinges around a magical charm, stolen some years ago from an evil magician by Alan and Nick's mother. I say evil magician, but in this world all magicians are evil and get their powers by dealing with demons. Nick and Alan have devoted their lives to staying one step ahead of the magicians, but then Mae and Jamie (another set of well drawn siblings) came crashing into their lives and mess everything up. I think this is a case of an ok plot being made awesome by the characters. Nick, Alan, Jamie and Mae are so well realised and three dimensional and just so damn fun to read about that any plot meh-ness passed by unnoticed.

And while a lot of people claimed that they saw the ending of this book coming a mile off, I really didn't! For me it was one of those really cool endings which leaves you stunned but when you think about it makes total sense.

This book I bought.

Review: The Magicians, by Lev Grossman

Generally speaking I tend not to review books that have received crap loads of coverage on other blogs. It’s not that I don’t have opinions about them, but really what can I say about ‘Wise Man’s Fear’ or ‘Dances with Dragons’ that hasn’t been said ten different ways already? My way of thinking is that it's better to focus on books which maybe aren’t as well known, instead of books which any reader who stumbles across my blog will have heard of.

And then sometimes I’ll read a well known and oft reviewed book, in this case Lev Grossman’s debut ‘The Magicians’ and find I have some things I want to say about it.

If you’ve somehow never heard of this book I shall briefly describe it to you. And you if have heard of it, then you already know that I’m about to compare it to Harry Potter and Narnia. Because every single review of this book mentions both Harry Potter and Narnia. Quentin Coldwater gets accepted to a hidden school of magic where he learns that even when your life is literally magical that doesn’t mean it’s not going to also be boring and kinda aimless. Also he goes to Narnia. Fillory.

So I get why reviews most always mention Narnia, because the book is highly concerned with the place, or at least with Grossman’s version of it. But the Harry Potter comparisons (usually some form of ‘it’s Harry Potter for adults,’ or ‘it’s Harry Potter in collage!’) really bug me. Because, yes, ok, there’s a hidden magical school- but that’s literally the only similarity between the two books.

The mention of Narnia makes a lot more sense. Fillory pretty much is Narnia, just with two rams in place of Aslan and the Chatwin siblings in place of the Pevensies. And a lot more blood and sex. Calling the book grown up Harry Potter is annoying, calling it grown up Narnia kinda fits. But I don’t think it’s right to compare the two works. Grossman hasn’t written a Narnia knock off in the way that some might say The Wheel of Time is a Tokien knock off. He hasn’t tried to copy Narnia, rather the book is preoccupied with Narnia. Does that make sense? Grossman explores how we relate and escape into fiction. By taking a setting that a lot of people associate with magic and goodness, ie. Narnia, and twisting it into something wholly more dark and adult Grossman raises some interesting and confronting questions. Plus it’s just really cool.

The last thing I wanted to mention is the characters themselves. I held off on reading this book for ages because everyone was saying how unlikable Quentin and his friends are. So imagine my surprise when I finally read it (and I’m not going to lie, the reason I gave it a chance in the end is because I really love it’s cover…) and found that I didn’t find the characters to be unlikeable at all! I’ll admit I appear to be in the extreme minority here, because the unanimous decision seems to be that Quentin and co. are teenage dirt bags to a one. And it might just be that all the reviews had me expecting the worst, so that when I finally met them they turned out to not be as bad as I thought they’d be.

But whatever the reason I thought Quentin was a self absorbed twit who wanted to do the right thing, he was just never sure of what it was. Alice was (ha, I can’t believe after all my griping about it I’m going to say this…) a lot like Hermione Granger to me, annoying in an endearing way. Janet was abrasive, yes, but also fiercely loyal, and Josh was likeable to me as well. And Eliot… Well, Eliot in on the list of my all time favourite characters, easy. He wears his sarcasm and snobbery like protective armor, but it’s obvious that’s he’s damaged and hiding a lot of hurt inside. He’s the one I most want to see more of.

And soon enough I will, because the book’s sequel, ‘The Magician King’ is out now and won’t be languishing long in my to be read pile, let me tell you.

This book: I bought

Review: The Wraeththu Omnibus, by Storm Constantine

So whenever I think about how "good" a book is there always appears in my mind a spectrum. On one end we have PLOT and on the other end there is CHARACTER. I feel like the books that could most objectively be called "the best" fall right smack in the middle of these two things, a perfect mix of plot and characters. But to be honest the books I love best tend to be way unbalanced, in favour of the character side of things. Objectively I can admit that these books might not be the most expertly crafted, but I care not at all. It's characters or GTFO for me folks, all the way.

Storm Constantine's Wreaththu trilogy (read by me in a convenient omnibus version) was the perfect example of this. Most of the reviews I see of these three books (that aren't dealing with the role playing game that has apparently been developed around them) complain that the plot is a bit lacking. And they're right. I can see that they're right. Do I care? Not really. Because dude, I dug these books.

The premise that at some point in the future humanity has began to evolve intoa higher form called wraeththu. Wraththu are beautiful and awesome and just, like, so totally superior to mankind in every single way. Or so they like to think of themselves. Really the wraeththu are just as flawed as man is, just in slightly different ways. The blurb of the omnibus edition made out like these books would deal with mankind's struggle not to be replaced. Which was crazy misleading, because there is no struggle. Mankind has lost. It is the final twilight of man. Really the books deal with the the establishment of wraththu society, and how the new race struggles to find it's own identity without falling into the same behaviors that ruined mankind.

The three books span a decent amount of time, and when we start out the wraeththu are little more than separate waring tribes, and by the end we see that civilizations start to form. This isn't the point to the books and mostly happens in the background, but it's pretty cool to see the subtle evolution.

I will say that the fact they were written in the 80s shows like crazy. The apololyptic wasteland of the first book just screams early nineties, mad max/tank girl, and the extended ruminations of gender read as dated to me. But still interesting. The wraeththu are both male and female, and they either start of as male humans and are "turned" to wreaththu, or, later in the series, pure wraththu babies start being born. The contrast in how turned and born wraththu dealt with gender was fascinating.

You'll note I still really haven't talked about plot. It's not fair to say that there is no plot, because there is! Book 1 deals with turned wraeththu Pelaz, who is being groomed by a higher being to be the supreme emporer of the world. The only problem is Pelaz' unforturnate choice of lover, Cal. Of the three books this was my least favourite, as Pelaz is a fairy cold and removed protagonist. It's not terrible though, but the final two volumes are worlds better.

Book two, and my favorite, revolves around born wraeththu Swift. It's basically a coming of age tale, and I'm a sucker for the coming of age tale. And it's a really good one. Swift's father is just a little bit evil (but still painfully sympathetic to the reader), and his hostling (mother, basically) is just a little bit batshit insane, and poor Swift is one of the first pure wraeththu babies to be born, so it's not like he has anyone to tell him what to expect as he grows up.

The last book focus' on Cal, who continues to be the spanner in the works of many a well laid plan, as he fights against his ineviable destiny. Cal is. Well. Cal is Cal. Beautiful and sharp and funny and more than a little bit broken. This is the only book he narrates, but he appears across all three and it was a delight to watch how our understanding of him grows as we see him from first Pelaz's point of view, and then Swift's, and then finally his own.

Really, if you're going to read these books, you're going to do it for the characters. They're beautifully written, sympathetic and consistent. The plot? I mean, yeah, it's there. But the endings get wrapped up way too easily (more often than not by using the power of magical wreaththu sex. No really), but the flaws in plotting do not at all detract from these books. Assuming you love characters as much as I do, that is.

I bought this omnibus

Review: The Second Sons Trilogy, by Jennifer Fallon

It pleases me to see that Australian author Jennifer Fallon is slowly starting to receive some well deserved international attention. Her recent ‘Tide Lords’ quartet garnered a couple of positive reviews, and I’ve seen some blogs posting about her latest series ‘The Undivided.’

But I want to talk now about one of her older, less known, set of books; The Second Sons trilogy, comprising of 'The Lion of Senet,' 'Eye of the Labyrinth,' and 'Lord of the Shadows.' It’s a shame that these books haven’t received a lot more attention, because they’re really pretty great.

The title "Second Sons" is a clever little play on words. The trilogy concerns it self with the second sons of two powerful families, but the plot also hinges on the second sun in the world's sky. Ranadon has two suns you see, a large one which sets like ours, and a second one which never sets. Except for this one time when it did. A generation or so ago the second sun set, ushering in a disastrous dark age. And here’s where things get interesting. A super genius dude was able to predict when the dark age would end (with the power of maths!), and he told his priestess friend. She uses this information to convince the big ruler dude, aka The Lion of Senet, to sacrifice his son to end the dark age, and because she knows the time it will end it appears the goddess was talking through her.

But (the plot thickens) the super genius dude didn’t just predict when the dark age would end, he predicted when the next one would start. And priestess girl, who’s now insanely powerful high priestess lady, kind of needs that info to maintain her credibility. (It would be bad for her health if the ruler found out he sacrificed his first born for nothing…) Too bad super genius guy hasn’t been seen in decades.

But! There is another young lad with the brainpower to figure it out. This is Dirk, one of the "second sons" in the title. He and the Lion of Senet's son Kirsh are the main tagonists of the books. Not a typo. Tagonsts. It's a word I just made up. They're not protagonists (good guys), they're not antagonists (bad guys) they're just people. They do good things, they do shitty things, and believe me when I say they'll break your heart. This true for most of the characters in the trilogy. There is no black and white here, trust me. The Lion of Senet, in particular, is very well done. It would have been easy to make him a straight up villain, what with him killing his own son and all. But Fallon makes him a far more complex character than that. He’s fanatical in his his religious views, and a lot of the plot is driven by this. But what choice does the guy have? To admit that his religion might not be all-knowing would be to admit that he sacrificed his son for nothing. It makes for compelling reading let me tell you.

And the ending. Ah, the ending. It’s one of those ends that hits you like a punch to the gut, that stays with you for months or years or hell, probably the rest of your life. Years later and I find myself thinking of these books at odd times, running over in my mind the course of events that made things in the final volume play out the way they did. There is nothing so impressive as a book drawing to a perfect and inevitable close, with all the small pieces set in place over the three books leading to one magnificent finale.

They're not perfect, I'll admit that. These were written early in Fallon's career when she was still smoothing out her prose a little. She gets a bit heavy with the adverbs (he said sadly, she yelled angrily, he sighed ecstatically, and so on) but it's certainty not enough to ruin the enjoyment of the story.

So, just in case you couldn’t tell. These books: I recommend them. (And I bought them.)

Review: The Engineer Trilogy, by K.J. Parker

There was a time, years ago now, when literally all I read were fantasy trilogies. I enjoyed that the longer format allowed for a story of more epic scope and that there was more time to spend getting to know the characters. But I had this fear of buying the first part of a trilogy, and then not being able to get a hold of the next volumes. (This was before I was able to internet shop, you see). So, if I saw a trilogy that sounded cool more often then not I’d just buy all three books then and there. What can I say? I was still living at home and didn’t have bills to pay.

Which is how I came to own thee parts to K.J. Parker’s Engineer Trilogy, ‘Devices and Desires,’ ‘Evil for Evil,’ and ‘The Escapement.’ I read the first one and a bit of the second and then just kinda stopped, I think possibly uni got in the way? I don’t know, I had a habit of not finishing books back then, for no real reason. (The reading habits of past Megan makes now Megan shake her head). I remember the trilogy, what I read of it, being dense and hard to get through. But in a good way. Like an extremely rich chocolate cake of which you can only eat one sliver at a time. Certainly my memories were positive enough that I recently decided to finish the damn thing, even though it meant rereading the first part again. (This is the reason I doubt I’ll ever complete the Wheel of Time trilogy, I just can’t bring myself to reread 10 volumes…)

My memories were correct, these are not books that lend themselves a fast reading, but as I said, that’s not a bad thing. The books are set on what I would guess is a small continent. On one side we have close neighbours the Vadini and the Eremians, who have only recently ended a centuries long war. On the other side of the continent are the Perpetual Republic, a dark skinned race who settled on the continent relatively recently. These guys are pretty epic engineers and had established a firm monopoly of all metal worked goods. They’re also pretty anal when it comes to deviating from their established blueprints. Think the Church in dark ages if someone tried to deviate from the bible… One guy, Ziani, makes some little improvements on a doll for his daughter and is sentenced to death for it. Pretty harsh, no? So anyway, he escapes to Eremia and sets about crafting an insanely intricate plan to be reunited with his family, and never mind if thousands of bodies are left in his plan's wake.

This is the trilogy’s driving plot which constantly pushes events forwards, but there are a number of other plots which eddy around it. We have the young duke Valens, ruler of the Vadini people, and his technically innocent but really not correspondence with Vetriz, the wife of the Eremian duke, Orsea, who is himself crippled by his own perceived shortcomings. And there’s Psellus, the Perpetual Republic bureaucrat who becomes slowly obsessed with understanding Ziani. And we can’t forget Mikal, an important Eremian nobel who’s honour is so unbending it’s bound to shatter….

And this hasn’t even stretched the surface of it all! If meticulously crafted plots are your thing, than you can really look no further than this. Every event has a cause and effect, with both tragedies and triumphs occurring naturally and with a sense of inevitability. You will find no deux ex machinas in the pages of these books, which is fitting when you consider that the closest any of the main races come to religion is the Perpetual Republic's blind adherence to their specifications.

Which makes for a refreshing change, to read a fantasy trilogy without any gods. I do occasionally enjoy books where the gods take human form and wander about missing shit up (Jenniffer Fallon's 'Demon Child' trilogy being an excellent example), but too often the inclusion of gods/God can become a short cut for the author. In the godless Engineer trilogy each character is responsible for their own lives, with no fate or destiny to nudge them this way or that. It’s a theme that runs strongly throughout the text, questions of choice and how much blame a man (or woman) should take for the result of their actions. Do the ends justify the means, and should an eye be taken for an eye? As I said, without the interference of some all knowing omnipotent presence to offer easy answers, it offers up some fascinating questions. (Which, upon finishing the books, I have answers for).

But of course would what really makes this book appeal to me is the characters. They’re a flawed, three dimensional bunch, and I would be hard pressed to identify which of them are bad guys and which are good. There are no heroes and villains here, just people. My favourite character is easily Duke Valens. Forced to take command after the early death of his father, Valens is an extremely competent and well liked duke. But what we can see that his adoring people can not, is that the guy’s a little bit of a sociopath. I wish that more of the trilogy had been told from Valen’s unique point of view. I also enjoyed watching Psellus's slow transformation from a laughed at pen pusher to, well, I don’t want to give anything away…

I do have some minor quibbles with the ending of the triology. Considering how well rounded the other aspects of the book are I felt that the way the author handled the portrayal of a fourth race, a nomadic people who live beyond the desert, to be, well, I don’t want to say racist, but let’s just say I found it a little problematic. I also had a little trouble buying Ziani's plan, once the whole of it had been revealed, it seemed like some of the stuff he claimed to have figured out and done was just a little bit of a stretch. Lastly, while if you look at the three books as one very long tome is is all balanced perfectly, but if you take each book on its own merits then the second volume suffers from some pretty bad middle book blues.

All in all though I found this to a well written and extremely thought provoking trilogy which offers something very different to the plethora of other three book fantasy tales out there.

How did I get these books? Bought them