The back jacket copy describes Majestrum by Matthew Hughes, as “Sherlock Holmes meets Jack Vance’s Dying Earth…” H-m-m-m-m. Let’s take a look. This first person narrative chronicles the latest adventures of Henghis Hapthorn, freelance discriminator. Hapthorn is assisted by his integrator, a sort of electronic Dr. Watson, in the broadest sense, who has been transformed into a living, breathing, and definitely, eating creature. Cat-monkey is how I pictured it in my mind, although it is also referred to as a “familiar.” “It?” Is it male? Female? Not sure, but it most definitely is no longer a machine.

The third member of Hapthorn’s feckless crew is Hapthorn himself. Or, rather, Hapthorn’s intuition, which has achieved separate awareness under the same special circumstances described in a previous novel wherein our integrator becomes flesh and blood and sentient. Well, kind of sentient. And hungry.

So the intuition is growing in awareness and power and Hapthorn can foresee the day when he, Hapthorn, the current “I” in this particular body will be nothing more than a daub of logic in the other’s mind. By the way, in this far distant future universe of Hapthorn’s (Ah, Dying Earth-like) the operating system of the universe is making a switch. Kind of like going from Windows to Mac, the universe is slowly reverting to a past state wherein sympathetic association (also known as magic) dominates over logic and reason. It seems the universe fluctuates, switching from one to the other over the millennia in constant change as yin becomes yang and yang becomes yin.

However, certain occurrences in said previous novel have brought about the change faster in particular instances, i.e. integrator becomes cat-monkey and intuition becomes ego.
So we begin the novel with the integrator snacking on expensive bowls of fruit, and Hapthorn worrying about losing control his body.

Now to the mystery, or, mysteries. First Lord Afre, a member of Earth’s aristocracy in the far future, calls in need of a freelance discriminator (Enter the Holmesian element.). Hapthorn begins his investigation, carefully. Decadent? Jaded? The aristocrats of the far future may be that, but they are more than anything, dangerous. Of course, one does not climb to such a pinnacle nor maintain that perch without having claws. Although, so unaware of the lower classes is Lord Afre, that Henghis must wear a symbol of recognition to safeguard him (Nice touch this!).

A second mystery is carried in by the Archon, the young, somewhat clumsy, and absolute ruler of Earth. Soon, Holmes, er, uh, Hapthorn is embroiled in a case that may well determine the very integrity of the universe.

Majestrum has many fine points. The characters are fey and immoral and somewhat Vanceian, but, to Matthew Hughes’ credit, very much their own people. This novel has the feel of a Jack Vance universe, but the characters are Matthew Hughes's. I particularly like the interplay between Hapthorn and his familiar. The exchanges are often droll and dry, and very funny. Toward the end of the book, Hapthorn requires his familiar to perform what seems to be a dangerous action. The familiar refuses. The dialogue brought more than one laugh-out-loud from me. Very nice.

So the characters are good and some are very real. The mystery is not all that mysterious, and the reader is not supplied with enough information to solve the case. Not bad, but not a true mystery.
The setting tends to be flat. There is just not enough description of the world around our team. Curiously, this might be said to mimic Jack Vance, whose worlds often seem a bit vague, especially when compared to the creatures who inhabit them.

Vance meets Holmes? I will give in to the Vance part with the caveat that Matthew Hughes’s characters are his very own and should be appreciated and enjoyed for this. They are not merely Vanceian pastiches, they are real. And often quite good.

Holmes, no, I think not. But this is not a bad thing. Once again, Henghis Hapthorn, his familiar, and his soon-to-be-ego are individuals their own selves. This is not really a mystery, but an enjoyable story about a detective—I mean a freelance discriminator.

Majestrum is a delightful book and highly recommended. If you like Jack Vance you will most likely enjoy these characters. But also, enjoy them on their own. The plot is above average and combined with Hughes’s excellent writing style, moves along quite well. I enjoyed this to the point where I will go back and catch up on the doings of Hapthorn and also go forward and read the newest book, The Spiral Labyrinth, as well.

An old Russian storyteller presents stories that revolve around a magical golden bear in this slow and stilted foray into Russian folklore and history. The premise holds promise, but unbelievable characters and a disjointed narrative suck the life from it from the beginning.
Papa Grigory, who alternately tells the story of a romance between Rosa, a young woman blessed (or cursed) with magical gifts, and Daniel, a writer who is often fearful and lacks direction, and the history of the enchanted golden bear, which brings the unlikely couple back together after an affair carried on before the book opens. Rosa, who lives in St. Petersburg with her uncle, calls upon Daniel when contractors find the bear hidden within the walls of a building her uncle has purchased. It is in a bathhouse, where, it is explained, sorcerers practice magic. Now, I don’t know a great deal about Russian folklore, but this seems a bit strange to me. The bear is dirty but might be valuable, so Daniel, who is educated in Russian history, is pleased when Rosa asks for his help, not only because he is interested in the bear, but because he is still quite interested in her. Apparently their affair ended badly without sufficient explanation from Rosa, who seems to prefer very short and physically motivated relationships for a reason she finally reveals to him at the end of the book.
When Daniel and his work colleague, Em, take the bear out of town for closer inspection by someone more qualified than Daniel, the bear takes them on a journey to Skazki, an alternate world. They both seem to accept this without too much disbelief, which is, well, pretty unbelievable, especially considering that Em is extremely practical and rather fearless. She has a child from a failed marriage who she doesn’t see and in whom she only has a cursory interest, and is referred to by her co-workers as “frozen solid.” The story starts to feel very much like The Wizard of Oz, and eventually Daniel mentions this to Em: “We’re like two rejects from Oz, Em. You don’t have a heart, and I have no courage.”
While Daniel and Em are trapped in this dangerous world, attempting to take the bear to the Snow Witch, who, they are told, will help them back to Mir, their own world, Rosa is frantically trying to learn the magic she needs to enter this other world and save them. In a house in the country where she poses as a tutor for a young boy, the boy’s father trains her, slowly, in the spells she needs to safely cross the veil that separates the worlds and keep herself from danger once she is there. His wife is jealous, his daughter is possessed by love for her dead husband, and his new son in law is lost in the midst of his love for the possessed girl and his physical desire for Rosa.
The only respite from this complicated drama is the interludes regarding the history of the bear and its creation and importance in the maintenance of balance between the two worlds, along with Papa Grigory’s involvement with the whole business. He admits he is not always known by this name, as some call him Koschey the Deathless, others, the mad monk, and yet others, Chyort, or the devil. His emotional investment in the bear and the consequences of its use or misuse (which of course is all a matter of perspective) is very human for a supernatural creature, and the most believable of the feelings described in the book. The other characters are inconsistent in their behavior and speech, and the relationships between them are not well developed. Em, for example, is very focused on her career and clearly used to the finer things in life, but under pressure in Skazki she can bake bread from memory, sew, and fashion shoes from bark and fur. Daniel is mysteriously fearful and fussy about everything and often annoyingly close to tears. Rosa loves Daniel and is prepared to risk her life to save him, but in the meantime, she is attracted to various men and fantasizes about having sex with them. While studying with the wizard-magician on his farm, she rolls around with the son in law in the barn, Daniel quickly forgotten as she initiates sex with this poor young man, who has been deprived of his husbandly rights with his wife because she is possessed by her love for her dead husband. After a playful and explicit romp in the hay, the pair go into the farmhouse and Rosa explains that a spell has been cast to make him impotent in his wife’s bed, and once that is lifted, she asks if he would like to check to make sure it is gone. It is very hard to believe that Rosa adores Daniel as she claims, when it is so easy for her to be intimate with other men.
This was a hard book to finish. Why is Rosa afraid of a serious relationship? What will happen to Papa Grigory and his adopted daughter if the bear is not used as he wills it? Will Em and Daniel make it out of Skazki alive? Will Rosa sleep with every man she meets, and if so, how will she have the time to learn magic spells? Who cares? With lines like this: “She dropped his hand, and sucked the blood off her fingers. It fizzed like sherbet on her tongue,” and characters as flat as Russia’s tax rate, the ending does not come soon enough.

The Shadow Pavilion, the fourth in the Detective Inspector Chan adventures certainly carries through with the promise of an entertaining read. DI Chen, Shanghai Three’s Police Liaison with Heaven and Hell, is after whatever group is illegally bringing in residents of Hell as cheap labor. He has two of the best working on it when they disappear. Seneschal Zhu Irzh is not only a demon but a terrific operative in his own right and was sent in with Badger, who can take care of himself. Now Chen has to find out where they’ve gone and still get to the bottom of the issue. It doesn’t help when he finds out that the newly crowned Celestial Emperor is under an attempted assassination and that a shortcutting scriptwriter has imported a Tiger demon to impersonate a movie star and that she is now on the loose and in a starlet-sized snit.

Liz Williams has created an interestingly enjoyable fantasy/scifi/adventure. This one sort of defies classification as Singapore Three is futuresque but with her addition of the realms of Hell and Heaven and all their dream- and nightmarescape denizens, the tale takes on a mythological bent that makes for fascinating reading. She has begun to flesh out some of the secondary characters more – we get to see from the perspective of Badger, a Hellish family familiar with fierce loyalties to Chen and his wife; we also get a little more perspective from the Celestial Emperor; as well as Chen’s wife Inari. As usual we have some new secondary characters, new demons, foolish humans, and the most successful assassin of all time to keep us amused.

With all due speed Williams draws us into the intrigue, imbuing our imaginations with vivid images full of color and scent that make her stories come alive. With this descriptive skill she lures us in. Then, like the sticky strands of a spider’s web, we get trapped and held by a story that is so full of life we cannot even decide what to call it. Is it futuristic police procedural? Is it an allegorical fairy tale? Near future occult? Perhaps an alternative historical fantasy? Whatever you would like to call it, I’ll just call it something I want more of. Fans of the previous three will not be disappointed.

I will freely admit I only picked up Sanderson's works to see who was the man that would finish Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. I had noticed his books before but they didn't appeal to me enough to buy one. When I did read his first novel Elantris a while ago I found I don't quite agree with Justin's opinion of the novel. Elantris was entertaining but certainly didn't break any new ground. The writing showed some flaws as well. After reading it I though Sanderson would have to raise the level to please Jordan's readers. I must admit that Sanderson had made some progress since Elantris. Mistborn does not, as Tor, claims turn the genre upside down, but it is a good read none the less. I promise to shut up about Jordan from this point on. It would not be fair to Sanderson to look at this book only in the light of how good a job he will do finishing A Memory of Light. Even if that is what made me pick Mistborn: The Final Empire up in the first place.

Mistborn is set in a world that has been ruled for the last thousand years by a despotic god-like creature known as the Lord Ruler. He has gained power and founded the Final Empire in an event known as the Ascension, a final confrontation between good and evil with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. This event has since faded to legend but it is quite clear the good guys didn't win. The world is a dark place, the ash veiled sun barely gives enough light to sustain a the perpetually brown-leafed vegetation. At night a mist envelopes the world and the creatures that roam through it are said to be ruthless killers. Most of the population is enslaved and works at the edge of starvation to sustain a small group of nobles, who in turn are suffered by the Lord Rules as long as they provide him with enough taxes and services. This small elite keeps in power mostly though the use of allomancy, the magic of the Mistborns. By burning certain metals they enhance certain physical attributes, making them more dangerous and more powerful than ordinary people. Not that displays of power have been necessary lately. Dissidents and rebels have long since been slaughtered, there is but one religion left, the worship of the Lord Ruler. Life is cheap under the Lord Ruler's tyranny. The world is not a nice place to live in.

Not quite everybody is willing to accept the way of the world though. Kelsier is a man with a dark past, a man who has lost at the hands of the Lord Ruler. His wife, his freedom and almost his life. Yet an act of love and self-sacrifice has changed his outlook on life. He has done the impossible and escaped from the pit he was supposed to die in. Kelsier refused to let hope die. Several years on he is using his considerable allomantic powers to help a fledgling rebellion achieve a position from which they can strike at the Lord Ruler. The task is complicated, the risk enormous but Kelsier beliefs it can be done. A belief strengthened by him finding Vin. A young girl destined for a life of poverty among the capital's thieves and beggars. Without knowing what she is doing she has discovered her allomantic powers and uses them to help her gang or thieves be more successful. Unfortunately that talent draws unwanted attention. Before the authorities can get their hands on Vin though Kelsier snatches her away from her miserable life and trains her. Without realizing it, Vin turns into an essential part of their operation, the element that may be decisive in their attempt to overthrow the Lord Ruler's Regime.

Like in Elantris Sanderson introduces a fairly rigid system of magic. It has clear rules but parts of it seem to be missing. I enjoyed this aspect of the novel quite a lot but you do have to remember to forget your chemistry lessons as soon as you open the book. If not you'll probably end up in the following train of thought. The power of an allomancer depends on "burning" small bits of various metals they have ingested. Some of the metals they ingest are toxic, certainly in large quantities over longer periods of time. Allomancers don't suffer ill effect though, if they burn off the excess metal in their stomach. This seems like a violation of the law of conversation of mass to me, unless you apply special relativity. Maybe they have invented cold fission ;) He also doesn't explain why allomancers are not chronically anaemic. And, since I have put suspension of disbelieve overboard altogether in this paragraph, why use a non existing metal? The periodic table is full of them, it doesn't seem necessary. I have been reading too much hard SF lately I guess but as you can see there is something to be said for keeping your magical systems deliberately vague. Much easier to suspend disbelief that way. Without getting any further into the mechanics of this magic, the rules he sets up are clear and consistently used throughout the book. Magic does not provide a deus ex machina ending in this book.

I thought Sanderson's characterization has improved a bit too compared to Elantris. Vin in particular is a well rounded character. She is obviously talented, but also inexperienced and naive at the right moment. Sanderson walks a fine line with her but he manages to keep her from appearing to be superhuman. Her childhood was far from pleasant and she shows scars that only slowly fade. Certainly a fitting heroine for this story. What the book misses is a point of view of one of the villains though. We get to see the entire story from the point of view of those who try to overthrow the empire, the motivation of the bad guys themselves remains unclear. Although at the end it becomes obvious that this is something Sanderson will deal with in the remaining two books in this trilogy. In a way it is a shame he didn't incorporate some of it in this book, it is what keeps Mistborn: The Final Empire from being a good stand alone fantasy. Then again, that was not what Sanderson was aiming for.

As I mentioned before Tor presents this as a fantasy novel that turns the genre upside down. That's nonsense. Evil empires fall left and right in modern fantasy so presumably they must rise at some point as well. This first Mistborn novel is not a ground breaking fantasy, it will not change the genre or draw in lots of new readers. For those comfortably with the genre and looking for a good fantasy novel this book would not be a bad choice though. It is not particularly challenging but certainly well written and Sanderson leaves a number of interesting questions unanswered for the next book in the series. This, combined with the fact that Sanderson delivers a better book than his début novel made me decide to read the next one as well. Mistborn: the Final Empire is a good start to what promises to be a solid fantasy trilogy. I will be reviewing Mistborn: the Well of Ascension next month.

P.S.

Sanders is one of the authors who have fully embraced the internet. For those who are interested in more background material on this novel he provides chapter by chapter annotations on his website. Personally I wouldn't recommend getting into those before reading the novel but the author does very carefully avoid spoilers to future chapters.

Wicked Gentleman is really two novellas combined into a continuous narrative. It’s a mix of police procedural, Victorian gothic fantasy, with the slightest shiver of romance. The fascinating world the author creates is an integral part of the story. It’s a kind of alternate Victorian gaslight city, with an intriguing religious history. In the distant past, the demons of Hell have converted to Christianity. Their descendants, the Prodigals, live among the populace, kept under an oppressive watch by the all powerful Inquisition, a church-run police state. Prodigals have demonic powers, though they are discouraged from using them in ‘proper’ society. Most of them live in slum called Hells Below and keep to themselves, not unlike Jewish ghettos in medieval towns.

Belimai Sykes, the narrator of the first part, is a Prodigal who lives a part from his people. He suffers from deep guilt, and an even deeper addiction to a pain killing drug. He’s in the depth of his isolation when he gets a visit from Inquisition Caption William Harper and his brother in law, who request his services in locating a missing woman, Joan. Joan, Harper’s sister, is at the center of a web of Prodigal murders. Sykes uncovers a horrible, complex plot, worthy of an Agatha Christie novel. His first person narrative is charmingly arch and honest. The author catches both his defensive sarcasm and his deep self-loathing well. The story moves quickly and the world Hale creates is believable. Hale finds the right balance between lyricism and action.

Captain William Harper is the protagonist of the second portion of the novel, told in third person. He is ambivalent about his nepotistic position as an Inquisitor, mostly due to the fact that he has entered into a relationship with Belimai. Here, the plot concerns a conspiracy surrounding the Inquisition, and Harper’s disillusionment and eventual revenge against a corrupt system. The go into the plot further would be to reveal spoilers.

Hale is a natural storyteller, and knows how to plot. It’s hard to believe that this is a first effort. I found both sections of the novel unputdownable. Her characters are three dimensional and she has a lovely turn of phrase here and there. The first novella is the stronger of the two, but the second is the more emotionally compelling. Nothing lasts longer in the book than it needs to, a godsend in these days of bloated fantasy epics. The same sex relationship at the center of the book avoids the overly sentimental aspects of ‘slash’ fiction. Hale’s queer characters rival Sarah Monette’s—romanticized but not glorified depictions of queer sexuality. Moreover, the author never sacrifices storytelling acumen to make a political (or erotic) point.

Wicked Gentlemen is an outstanding debut, and will remind readers of the works of Storm Constantine and Sarah Monette. It deserves a wider audience.

I was a Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi "virgin", as I had never read any of their books before.  I was going into THE SPIDERWICK CHRONICLES  Blu Ray movie tabula rasa.  This can be a good thing, as there are no expectations, and a bad thing as I have no real background as the viewer.

All the actors did a good job with all the blue screen work they had to do, while interacting with the fantasy creatures created by powerful computers.  They also portrayed a regular family with brothers/sister interaction very well.  I particularly liked Sarah Bolger playing the character of Mallory Grace and how she deals with her younger brothers.  Everyone that has an older sister can relate here.

From the voice acting standpoint, the CGI characters came to life.  Hogsqueal, who at first I thought was too simple for the story, came around a bit in the end.  The humor of the character does lend itself to some entertaining moments throughout the film.  Mulgarath , the ogre, was the main villain in the story, but at the end of the day while he seemed so very evil, it did not feel like the character had been built up enough that I felt he had the chance to take over the world. 

This is really where the issues come into play.  The movie felt very rushed, and I am sure it had to be due to the fact it was covering 5 books in the span of a single movie even if the books were not huge volumes.  We are rushed in without too much background and this causes our investment in the characters to be rather small, leading to a low level of concerns for their fate.  The story should have been paced over two movies to give the character time to develop on the screen, which I can only assume they did in the book, or there should have been a warning that reads, “read books first for true background before watching”. 

The strongest part of the movie stems from the special effects, which are pretty darn special.  Mulgarath, the Troll in the tunnels and the goblins themselves are extremely well done and mesh with the environment seamlessly.  The battle scenes draw you in and bring what you only thought you could render in your imagination on the screen.  These are the scenes that up the excitement factor for the movie and make us sit up and take notice.  Mulgarath, with his morphing from one character to the next is truly a marvel of special effects.

The two things from the Blu Ray Extras that stood out (don’t know if they are also on the DVD) were the making of the fantastical creatures in the ILM computer labs as well as the interviews with Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi.  There are other interviews with the rest of the actors and then some deleted scenes as well, what one has come to expect from the extras section.

Overall, a rather rushed effort that is really too scary to lend itself to a young child’s viewing.  Maybe being a well versed fantasy reader had an effect on my review, or maybe reading the books may be necessary to fully enjoy it.  The special effects save this movie for a lower score from this reviewer, and everyone should see them in glorious High Definition at some point.

The Escher-eqse city of Ayona has a nominal nobility, in the form of a duke and his royal family, but the city is mostly governed by the frequently conflicting groups of Mechanics and Alchemist. While the Mechanics and Alchemists exist in an uneasy truce with each other, they both vie for the upper hand in power. The ancient city was “grown” out of stone by the ubiquitous but slowly dying race of gargoyles, who, when they were stronger, were worshipped and feared and kept both groups in check.


Mattie, a mechanical automaton, is at the center of this conflict for several reasons. First, she is the creation of a prominent Mechanic, Loharri. Second, she is a practicing alchemist. And finally, she has been contacted by the gargoyles and given the task to heal the sickness that turns them into stone. While Mattie is mostly a free agent, she bound to Loharri, because he has the key to her clockwork heart.


The novel has numerous subplots and operates on several levels. One is as a novel of political intrigue. The war between the Mechanics and Alchemists is kicked off when a terrorist group destroys the stone palace, and both groups point the finger at each other. Mattie shuttles back and forth between the two groups. As automaton, most of the mechanics believe that she is the mute and mindless servant of Loharri, so she can listen in on their plans without being considered a threat. Both groups use Mattie to find out who the culprit is, without realizing that she has her own motivations. The Alchemy of Stone is also a novel of weird magic. In addition to the major narrative featuring Mattie, part of the novel is narrated by the gargoyles themselves. Their mysterious story is told in a plural poetic voice, not unlike Kafka’s short story Josephine the Singer.

“We scale the rough bricks of the building’s façade. Their crumbling edges soften under our claw-like fingers; they jut out of the flat, adenoid face of the wall to provide easy footholds….We could’ve flown. But instead we hug the wall, press our cheeks against the warm bricks; the filigree of age and weather covering their surface imprints on our skin, steely-gray like the thunderous skies above us…”

Most of the scenes of Mattie performing alchemy have her doing arcane things. She can see salamanders dancing in fire, and other elementals. The fact that Mattie does not have a soul also allows her to befriend the Soul Smoker, a much feared lonely old man who devours ghost and like Mattie is used by various factions. It is also a novel of relationships, between creator and creation, between magic and science, and ultimately, between people. While there is a slight love story, most of the tension in the book is generated by the love-hate relationship between Mattie and Loharri. In a way, their disturbing relationship reminds me of the dynamics of male-female, master and slave relationship explored in the oeuvre of Octavia Butler.


Sedia’s novel has a steady pace and aims for the ‘slice of life’ feel of the fantasy books of Ursula LeGuin’s Tehanu or any of Patricia McKillip’s work. She avoids explaining some of the magic/mechanics—like what makes Mattie intelligent. Instead, the reader sees the world mostly through Mattie’s eyes, and feels her terrible loneliness. She’s a misfit toy in a strange world. If at times she is passive, it fits with her character. She is literally a breakable person. The novel’s main weakness is that is can’t make up its mind as to what kind of story it wants to be. Quest story? Love story? Political allegory? (In addition to the terrorism and the revolution stories, there is also a subplot involving racial profiling). The anomie that pervades the narrative seems to be the main theme of the book. From the Soul Smoker to the gargoyles to Mattie herself, this is a book about those unsung heroes and outsiders who sacrifice much for the common good. The resolution is both haunting and unresolved. While The Alchemy of Stone is not a perfect book, it is a worthwhile read and belongs on the same shelf as such postmodern fantasy authors like Mieville and Vandermeer.

China Mieville is the premiere iconoclast of the fantasy genre. Before (or at the same time) that “punk” (as in cyberpunk, splatterpunk and mythpunk) became a common subgenre suffix, Mieville laid out the manifesto of the New Weird movement, a literary movement about subverting fantasy and horror tropes. His work is gritty, urban, political, subversive, disquieting—and adult. His language is baroque—he knows the Oxford English Dictionary and isn’t afraid to use it. Mieville’s imagery borders on the Lovecraftian. And the work is ripe with allusion, from Marxist and gender theory to African literature. (Iron Council, the last of the Bas Lag novels, unabashedly models itself after the late Senegalese filmmaker Sembene Ousmane’s novel God’s Bits of Wood). So it is naturally intriguing to see how Mieville reconciles heady version of fantasy to the young adult novel, in Un Lun Dun.

Mieville has described Un Lun Dun as his answer to the classic children’s story trope, in which kids from our modern world are swept into another world, a la The Wizard of Oz or any of the C.S. Lewis Narnia books. The plot centers on two young teenagers, Zanna (Suzanna) and Deeba in London who begin to notice strange things happening around them, mostly focusing on the tall, blonde Zanna. Animals look at her strangely, and a strange mist follows them around. One night, Zanna and Deeba follow a strange sight—a broken umbrella that moves—to an abandoned basement. As if compelled by something else, Zanna turns a valve. When the girls step outside of the basement, they find themselves in a skewed parallel world version of London, called Unlundun.

It’s a fabulous and scary place. Houses are built of abandoned technology, like old LPs and radios, ghosts walk the street, buses fly and a host of strange creatures, including carnivorous giraffes and giant flies. It’s a colorful place, anachronistic, magical and steampunk at once. Westminster Abbey and the London Eye and Thames appear in the city in altered forms. Mieville’s playfulness and love of puns—and extensive knowledge of London are displayed here. Thus, there is a Webminster Abbey, and the river Smeath. Unlundun is overseen by the Propheseers, an august group of prophets who live on a floating bridge, and the girls find themselves embroiled in a complex plot in which an ancient enemy, a sentient cloud of pollution called the Smog, is trying to take over the city. Zanna is the Chosen One, as the talking book of prophecies explains, and she has a Quest, one which defeat the evil smog and its minions.

Just as the reader is about to settle down into a comfortably familiar quest story in a strange land, Mieville completely flips the script. Without being too spoiler-y, Zanna, the mythic chosen one, is taken out of the action, and in her place is Deeba, who much assume the role of Chosen One, even though she isn’t in the book (and which the book goes to great lengths to explain). Deeba, a resourceful young lady of Pakistani ancestry, also discovers an even more insidious plot of the Smog which involves an MP in our world’s version of London.

Un Lun Dun is a noble experiment, but it falls short of being excellent. While Un Lun Dun is full of invention and humorous games with language—literally living words are among the book’s pleasures—there is a lack of depth. The Bas-Lag novels revel in their linguistic richness, but Un Lun Dun is artificial vanilla pudding to those novels crème brulee. In writing for younger readers, he’s stripped back too much of what made those books so powerful, and consequently doesn’t play to his strengths. The novel is also didactic, a weakness that Mieville showed in Iron Council. There’s an obvious environmental theme running through the narrative that kind of hits the reader over the head. The book was also a bit overlong, and the characters, save for Deeba and the half-wraith boy Hemi. But these are mere quibbles. The subversive imagination more than makes up for the shortcomings. Mieville’s narrative manages to both parody and homage quest fiction. There’s tons of whimsy, combined with some truly horrific set pieces—including deaths and the humans possessed by the Smog, called Stink-Junkies and Smombies. It’s these tidal shifts in tons that make Un Lun Dun as much a part of Mieville’s trademark New Weird ethos as anything he’s written before. Finally, a note about the line drawings the author provides--they are a suitably quirky nod to illustrated fiction that capture the creepy and funny vibe of the novel.

The novel is written for younger readers, and if I were twelve years old, I’d gobble it up. It’s a perfect antidote (or companion?)t Harry Pottermania—a young adult book that is downright cool. Maybe you can call it YA-punk.

The Court of the Air is the debut novel of English writer Stephen Hunt, and it falls within the category of steampunk, although the novel constitutes a rather eclectic mix of disparate elements that only occasionally come together in a meaningful whole.

The story of The Court of the Air primarily takes place in the kingdom of Jackals, a country that simultaneously is and is not very alike to late 19th century England, if you can imagine an England where Cromwell’s Commonwealth never fell, and where political symbolism is taken quite literally. Thus the Jackals king only has one function, as a symbol of a monarchy shackled by parliamentary democracy. Hence, the king has his arms surgically removed and is paraded around with a metal gag. While the primary reference is Victorian England and steam-driven technology, Hunt also builds his world from an eclectic mix of sentient robots, faerie magic, communist-like revolutionaries, the underground remains of a lost civilization, a Buddhist inspired religion as well as forgotten insect gods worshipped in bloody rites of human sacrifice reminiscent of the Aztecs.

Hunt’s novel is a story about a world poised on the brink of an apocalypse and of two orphans, each with an inborn power to avert the oncoming catastrophe. Molly Templar has grown up in a city orphanage like so many other unwanted children, but when she escapes a brutal murderer in the brothel she has recently been apprenticed to, only to find all her fellow orphans slaughtered, she begins to suspect that someone is committing considerable resources to have her killed. She teams up with a journalist, a retired naval commander and a couple of steammen, sentient robots, in order to escape her pursuers and find out why they want her dead.

Oliver Brooks lost both his parents in a flying accident as a young child. Touched by the inhuman powers of the feymist curtain, he has led a severely circumscribed existence with his uncle in a provincial backwater. His world is suddenly turned upside-down when he finds his uncle and his entire household murdered and himself framed for their deaths. He consequently finds himself on the run from the law together with Harry Stave, a shady friend of his uncle and an agent of the Court of the Air, the mysterious hidden power behind the Jackelian state.

I found The Court of the Air a somewhat frustrating reading experience, mainly because it starts out quite interesting and proceeds to build suspense very well throughout the first 2/3s of the novel. But when we get to point where Molly and Oliver find the answers to why they are hunted, the narrative careens out of control. Molly and Oliver learn that they have inborn abilities that can stop the re-emergence of an ancient evil, but Hunt seems to have had trouble with coming up with a plausible and organic solution to his narrative. Instead he relies heavily on the device of deus ex machina, endowing his hero and heroine with superhuman magical powers that they learn to wield quite suddenly and effortlessly to the detriment of characterization. They simply become less interesting as characters because it is very difficult for the reader to identify with them. Furthermore, it becomes increasingly difficult to uphold the suspension of disbelief that fantasy depends on when the main characters without any significant explanation drastically change from frightened children to competent wielders of superhuman powers. Another of the novels weak points is the way that the narrative derails the plotline about the Court of the Air, the secret police that resides in an airborne fortress of dirigibles. For the better part of the novel, it appears that it is the Court of the Air that seeks the lives of Molly and Oliver, but this plotline is shunted aside about the same time as the children begin to use their suddenly endowed powers, a development that certainly made me wonder why the novel was titled The Court of the Air in the first place.

Though Hunt’s debut has some very serious weaknesses, it also has some strong points. The best part is without doubt his descriptions of the steam-driven technology, which reaches a pinnacle in his invention of the steammen as a sentient race of robots with their own state, culture and religion. This is perhaps the single most original aspect of the novel, and it is worth a read. I also quite liked the Victorian atmosphere of Jackals and Hunt’s use of period slang adds flavour and reality to his creation. These strengths do not, however, balance out the weak points, which is why I have such mixed feelings about this novel.

With The Court of the Air Stephen Hunt demonstrates an abundantly fertile imagination. It is, however, in need of a little pruning in order to make for a more satisfying fantasy novel. It will be interesting to see how he fares with his next offering, The Kingdom Beyond the Waves, also set in the world of Jackals.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy is the first book in Jennifer Rardin’s urban fantasy series about Jasmine (Jaz) Parks, a CIA-assassin with a specialty in supernatural baddies. Jaz is not only a tough chick with a gun fetish (she has named her handgun Grief!), she’s also sassy, rather funny girl who has a sarcastic quip ready for just about any situation. She is, however, also damaged, something that the reader begin to suspect already from the beginning where her grumpy boss decides to partner her with the Agency’s top assassin Vayl, an almost 300 year-old vampire. Unlike many other novels in the urban fantasy genre, Once Bitten is not a romance though there is a tiny whiff of sexual chemistry between Jaz and Vayl, but it doesn’t interfere with the action-based plot.

The plotline revolves around a single mission that Jaz and Vayl is given six months into their partnership. On paper, it looks like a rather straightforward mission. They are to take out a high-profile celebrity plastic surgeon, which also happens to be the money-man for an extremist terrorist group called Sons of Paradise. And we are not talking militant Muslims here! Since Jaz and her partner regularly deal with the supernatural, this enemy is altogether scarier. The Sons of Paradise worship a mythical chaos-beast called the Tor-al-Degan and their ideal world makes the world-views of other religious extremists look rather warm and cuddly in comparison. However, Jaz and Vayl soon learn that their seemingly simple mission is a lot more complicated than what they initially thought. The scary chaos-sect is apparently involved with an even scarier character called the Raptor and both Jaz and Vayl find themselves as targets of repeated assassination attempts, indicating that there’s a mole in their own ranks. And, as icing on a not very pleasant cake, they learn that the Sons of Paradise plan to release not only a deadly virus but also a voracious chaos-beast into the population.

Once Bitten, Twice Shy is a very fast-paced novel. The story hits the ground running and just keeps accelerating. The fast pace covers a few logic whole and dues ex machinas in the plot, but it also precludes anything other than a superficial characterization. Vayl is a rather run-of-the-mill vampire, world-weary and suave, and not particularly interesting considering his long life-span. Only his rather funny snake phobia gives him a little unique colour.

When it comes to Jaz, Jennifer Rardin has done a much better job, which to some extent is the result of the first person narrative. Jaz comes across as tough, able and quite funny, despite the fact that her wise-cracking lines at times comes off as rather forced. She is also an emotionally damaged person. Her relationships with her family (father, sister and twin-brother) ranges from intimacy to severe dysfunction, she suffers from mysterious blackouts and as the narrative progresses the reader learns that she has survived some truly horrendous event. Jaz is thus very severely traumatized, but she is also unable to acknowledge this damage. I found this aspect of the novel the most interesting, and I must admit that I was not satisfied with Rardin’s explanation. The book is more about action than character, but since there’s a whole series planned, Jaz might become a more layered character.

Once Bitten can perhaps best be described as Buffy the Vampire Slayer meets James Bond, i.e. fast-paced action where the Apocalypse is just around the corner, with a generous sprinkling of a wry, tongue-in-cheek humour:

Rardin also peppers her narrative with a welter of popular culture references, some of which are quite funny, but it will make to book look date in the course of a decade or two. The prose is generally unremarkable and the novel is for the most part competently put together (the exception being a lengthy and rather clumsy sequence where Jaz has an out-of-body experience in order to relate what happens elsewhere).

Once Bitten, Twice Shy does not pretend to be anything other than what it is: a fast-paced and generally light-hearted piece of fun. It stays on the surface of things, rather than exploring hidden depths, but that's ok. I personally found it very entertaining, and, let’s face it, once in a while you just feel like having popcorn instead of dinner.

Coming from a different direction, Peter David explores the Peter Pan legend through the eyes of Paul, a young man whose family has experienced a terrible loss. Paul's baby sister dies in her crib one night. His family deals with this tragedy in different ways. Paul's mother retreats into reality, declaring that only the recognition of the pain of life will make one strong enough to survive. Paul's father simply retreats, leaving his family and the woman who used to be his wife but is now a stranger. Paul relies on what he believes - that his friend, the Boy of Legend, and the magic that surrounds the Boy can somehow replace his sister with another baby. After rescuing a pixie, Paul finds himself led into Anyplace and embroiled in a power struggle between the pirates and the Boy. Thus begins an adventure for Paul that will cause him to question his beliefs and face the most difficult pain of all - saying goodbye.

His quest is not all rainbows and roses. Peter David, the author, weaves the thread of loss and loneliness heavily throughout the story. While some might believe the subject matter of sadness and rejection are too much for younger readers, I disagree. What child has never experienced some type of loss? This is an excellent example of how one little boy deals with the pain he is feeling.

Mr. David writes in a lyrical prose that is a work of art. Unfortunately, the structure and cadence of the writing serves to separate the reader from the story, keeping the reader from participating in the fantasy, experiencing the wonder alongside Paul. Instead, a gulf has been formed, maintaining a strict formality of here is the story and over there stands the reader. For readers who enjoy submerging themselves into a book's reality, this will be a disappointment.

In spite of this, or maybe because of it, I enjoyed this story. The formality and separation served to give the book an old-fashioned feel, as if this was a dusty favorite resurrected from the nursery. The style of the book gives it a sense of being made to read out loud. The cadence lends itself to auditory emphasis and perhaps would be more entertaining to children to listen to the story rather than read it themselves. Peter David goes behind the scenes of NeverNever Land, giving bones and structure to a legend that has spanned generations. He brings in many well-known characters from Peter Pan, giving them fresh faces and different reasons for existing. The new characters are blended seamlessly in with the previous legends, causing Tigerheart to be able to stand on its own.

This is a deep story that would bear well under the scrutiny of a literature class. The nuances of the storyline, though delicate, are clear. Here is a young man struggling to understand the abandonment by his mother, the painful escape of his father, and the harshness reality can bring to life. Mr. David ties up all his loose ends in the end, delivering a whimsical tale that harkens back to the elegance of turn-of-the- century literature.

Virgil sings of arms and of a man; over two thousand years later, Le Guin offers the princess of that song her own words. Lavinia, the prize of battle in Virgil’s Aeneid, speaks under the guidance of this award-winning author, revealing details of the struggle between cultures from a perspective unseen in the national epic of the Roman Empire. In this first person account of a woman caught by fate and held by love, Le Guin imagines this minor historical figure as a princess with a mind of her own as well as respect for traditions that may not always serve her best interests.


Lavinia shares her story as a storyteller tells tales around a campfire; the conversational tone is inclusive, welcoming readers to stop and listen. She explains her circumstance as a valued daughter of King Latinus and of his queen, Amata, who is twisted with rage and grief over the death of her young sons, taken by a fever that left Lavinia alive to suffer her mother’s wrath.


Lavinia is genuinely loved by the people of Latinium as she grows into adolescence among a vibrant countryside, where she roams without fear or restraint. Her fifteenth birthday brings her self-absorbed cousin Turnus to light as a suitor for her hand in marriage, a suit he presses for the next three years, but she does not trust him: “Turnus flattered my mother and laughed with my father and looked at me as the butcher looks at the cow.”
To avoid social events that honor Turnus, she finds solace in a sacred place where spirit communications have been revealed to her and her father, which further alienates her mother because she is not similarly blessed. Lavinia waits in the dusky woods alone until the figure of a man appears. Virgil is dying, his body somewhere in the future, consumed with a fever that will take away his chance to finish his great poem. This poem, he explains to her, reveres her husband, Aeneas, but speaks little of her. He is ashamed by this slight and offers a glimpse of her future so that she might be prepared for the best and the worst.


It is easy to forget that Lavinia herself has not written this story; Le Guin adopts a believable and intimate tone with which Lavinia weaves back and forth from the distant past to her present, from her adolescence to marriage and motherhood, and back again, carried between times by common feelings brought about during pivotal events in her life. Lavinia may be a princess, but she does not put on airs. She questions her ability to write at all, for if the great spirit poet of the future did not find her worthy of note, perhaps she is, after all, not. How will she choose to act during the remainder of her life to justify remembrance?


Le Guin’s preparation for Lavinia involved reading the Aeneid in Latin, a time and effort consuming task for any scholar. The incomplete epic, which Virgil hoped would burn at his death, was a ten year project ending with the battle for the princess between Aeneas and Turnus. Le Guin succeeds where no author has before, in an imagining of Lavinia’s perspective on the events of the Aeneid as well as what she calls an “unfolding of a hint,” as close and rich as if she herself had experienced it. It comes as no surprise that this tale of magical realism is a work of art in Le Guin’s hands.

Urban fantasy has long-reaching roots, but it is only in the last twenty years or so that writers and readers have begun using the term in an effort to describe and define a subgenre of fantasy. A subgenre in which the city defines the setting as well as itself as a character. The theme of Paper Cities, an Anthology of Urban Fantasy is to illustrate how cities are like living entities in themselves, and how they affect and influence the lives of those that dwell within them.

Some of the stories emphasized the physical aspects of the city creating distinctive images and atmospheres like Jay Lake's Promises: A Tale of the City Imperishable,

On the roof---a roof, rather, for the Sudgate was ramified and ramparted like some palace of dream---the moonlight was almost violet. The heavy grease-and-shit scent of the Sudgate Districts moiled below them somewhere, miscegenating with night humors off the Saltus and whatever flowed down from Heliograph Hill and the Limerock Palace. Sister Nurse set Girl down so that they stood on a narrow ledge, looking back across the City Imperishable to the north and east as a curious, abrasive wind plucked at them both.

and The Funeral, Ruined by Ben Peek,

Lately, the twin ovens had a tendency to blur around the edges for Linette, but even with the beginning of her deteriorating eyesight due to her thirty-eighth year, the immense girth and height of the creations meant that they were unable to be passed over when she looked at Issuer’s skyline. In contrast, the hundreds of long, bronze windmills that rose out of the city could---and did--- fade from her awareness. The Ovens, however, lurked on the horizon like a pair of dark, hunched watchers outside the city, covered in a layer of soot as a disguise. If you managed to forget them (and Linette doubted she ever could), then you would be reminded each Friday when they belched tart smelling ash, and plumes rose out of each to signal the burning of the weekly dead.

Others showed how peoples lives were re-shaped, adapted to, or otherwise forced to conform to their environment like in the absurdly strange Godivy by Vylar Kaftan where office managers mate with copiers to produce...copies of themselves, and in the sobering story Taser by Jenn Reese in which a gang of human boys is led by a ruthless husky-mixed dog with telepathic abilities. In Catherynne M. Valente’s Palimpsest, the city makes its mark on the inhabitants literally,

I caught a glimpse in my mirror as I turned to catch a loose thread in my skirt---behind my knee, a dark network of lines and angles, and, I thought I could see, tiny words scrawled above them, names and numbers, snaking over the grid.

After that, I began to look for them.

There were the fantastically adventurous stories like Alex and the Toyceivers by Paul Meloy. This short story is actually the first chapter of a novel in which demented toy-like beasts are after Alex. A sudden, violent confrontation and narrow escape left me wanting to know more about the Toyceivers and why they were after Alex. The Somnambulist by David J. Schwartz tells of a woman who awakens most mornings exhausted and aching because …

She dreamed that she carried a fire-tipped lance astride an eight-legged horse, that she excavated bones from the floors of ancient cathedrals, that she climbed the inner walls of ruined fortresses long since given over to tourists and pulled amulets from behind loose bricks. Sometimes she killed faceless things that crawled through wind or flew upon currents of sand. She developed calluses on her hands, woke up sore after sleeping on silk sheets. Her nails never needed to be clipped.

The Tower of Morning’s Bones by Hal Duncan is an exaltation of language that spans time and space to revel in the most ancient of myths and more modern technologies in a single bound. Its tone and prose are reminiscent of his duology, The Book of All Hours,

Over the grey memory of his dream and over the grey reality of the world outside, he sings out loud and long the lines that weave the world around him, music and mosaic, a shape of songlines. This modern muezzin sings from his minaret to wake the mourning city up, and as he sings, a tower of hours arises out of swamp, vines climbing shaft to glassy dome. The songliner laughs---the city’s morning glory. Somewhere a weathervane cockcrows.

Although they all share a common theme, the diversity of the stories and imaginations of the authors make this collection an interesting and compelling read. In Paper Cities, the city is not a mere background against which authors prop their characters to tell a story. The city is a character: an incredibly viable, evolving, and influential one at that.

Judith Tarr, writing as Kathleen Bryan, continues the adolescent struggles of Averil and Gereint a year after the ending of “The Serpent of the Rose” in “The Golden Rose.” The teens have spent that year apart, in contemplation and preparation for the adventures assured at the end of “Serpent,” and look forward to meeting again, even if Averil must leave to marry at the wish of her evil uncle, the king. There seems to be no escape from her duty as a royal, but the magic in Averil and Gereint, while strong individually, is practically unstoppable when united.

She is sixteen now, and he seventeen, and a year makes all the difference as they confront those who would use the hidden serpent evil to destroy her uncle’s enemies. Their maturity is evident as they search for ways to thwart the king, struggling to accept that sometimes, even with the magic they share, they need to ask for and graciously receive help from the adults in their lives.

The two continue to wrestle with their desire for each other, but Averil’s insistence that the social constraints surrounding her position make their union an impossibility, along with Gereint’s respect for her concerns, keeps their relationship pure without ignoring the physical aspects of their attraction for each other. Their kisses grow more passionate, and the frank discussion of their desires makes their frustration believable.

The romance is woven into the story so well that it remains a part of it without overwhelming the larger frame, the physical and mental fight against Averil’s power hungry uncle, the king of Lys, who will stop at nothing to rule the kingdoms around him, including Quitaine, left in her hands upon the death of her father, the king’s brother.

Averil and Gereint’s emotional journey echoes typical adolescent development; while they struggle against fantastic forces in a stunning medieval world, their insecurities are universal. The individual’s place and importance in the world, along with the necessity of careful trust in others and the notion that things aren’t always what they seem, were brought up in the first novel of the War of the Rose trilogy and are explored further in the second.

Readers who pick up "The Golden Rose" without the benefit of the background in “The Serpent and the Rose” may be a bit lost as they catch up over the first few chapters, primarily because of the complexity of some of the relationships between characters. The author’s attention to detail and elaborate description bring these relationships to life without overdoing it.

It is a sparkling, iridescent world she creates, but as a character driven piece, the novel stands out because of the careful consideration given to emotional and physical feelings. The cover art, courtesy of the award-winning Donato, echoes these details in a disturbing yet beautiful scene of loss from the story. While not marketed as a young adult novel, this trilogy would be appropriate and attractive to such an audience, while maintaining adult appeal. I look forward to following Averil and Gereint’s resolution of their personal and political problems in the conclusion of this engaging romantic fantasy.

Unquiet Dreams takes fans of Urban Fantasy back to what the subgenre could and should be. Urban Fantasy has long been relegated to the slow simmering back burner reserved for the thick, sloppy cheese that is comforting, unsurprising, and coagulates into a lumpy mess far too easily. There are perfectly good Urban Fantasy books and perfectly horrible ones. Fortunately, "Unquiet Dreams" is one of the very good ones.

This is the second book in the series, after "Unshapely Things".This volume stands alone quite well, with enough recapping incorporated into the story to help new readers understand what Connor Grey is talking about without bogging down the pace. Connor Grey used to be part of the Guild, a magical police force that takes care of problems within the magical community, but after a nasty encounter with a powerful elf robbed him of his powers, he does freelance work with the human police. A teenaged human boy dies in the street and when Connor is called into the investigation, things spiral into a much larger and much more dangerous case. Clever readers will be able to figure out who the culprit is in advance, but the journey to the revelation is still well worth the read. Del Franco's Boston is a city that has been changed by the emergence of magical creatures but still retains most of its character. The city is populated with a variety of beings, many of whom are represented in any number of other fantasy novels. What sets this book apart is that no single class of characters is bad or good, rather they run a spectrum, though they've been subjected to stereotypes, much like their human counterparts.

The book keeps its crime scenes quite descriptive without delving too much into horrifically graphic tableaus. It's both more entertaining and far less stomach-turning than the average episode of "CSI." It's paced well, with little drag and little lacking in plot development. The characters could easily have disintegrated into a mush of stock and cardboard, but they rise to the story almost effortlessly without seeming contrived. The whole book carries an air of careful plotting without ham-handed manuevering. None of the breaks in the case seem contrived and there aren't any deus ex machina moments.

Connor Grey isn't a perfect character. He's a fallen hero who's still scraping himself together. The reader can feel sympathy for his struggles, but also see that he's one of those characters who most likely led himself to his plight. He's a very readable and compelling character.

This book was highly enjoyable, and I will definitely be seeking out the rest of the series. I'll also be buying copies of the first book for friends who enjoyed books like "War for the Oaks" by Emma Bull and Terri Windling's "Bordertown" series. I will also be holding out hope that more readers and publishers will take notice and start publishing more Urban Fantasy titles. The subgenre just faltered a little, like Connor Grey, and it doesn't deserve to be either forgotten or ignored.