Fantasybookspot - Magic Artifacts/Items

Tigerheart

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 15:58:45 -0400

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.

Lavinia

Fri, 30 May 2008 15:48:43 -0400

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.

Paper Cities, An Anthology of Urban Fantasy

Sat, 17 May 2008 19:59:20 -0400

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.

Embrace the Night

Mon, 12 May 2008 22:16:25 -0400

Embrace the Night, Karen Chance’s third volume in the Cassandra Palmer series is a fitting sequel to the first two. Fast paced and filled with faeries, kids, vampires, mages, ghosts, incubi, gargoyles, magic spells, evil plots, backstabbing and surprises – this one follows the lead of the first two and adds in a bit more of each to ‘kick it up a notch’ so to speak. In this novel, Cassie is now Pythia, the most powerful living clairvoyant with the charge of keeping the current timeline from being corrupted through unscrupulous use of time travel. Cassie’s familiarity with vampires and ghosts is an aid to her for this post but she has just a few tiny little obstacles to surmount. The first issue she has to deal with is a geis placed upon her by the very old and very powerful vampire Mircea. Just for complications sake, during one of her trips to the past, she accidentally caused the geis to be intensified. Another problem she must manage is her deal with the king of the faeries. She has agreed to retrieve an ancient book of magic for him. Not just any book but one written personally by Merlin and sought after by everyone who is anyone in the magical community. It hasn’t even been seen in hundreds of years, yet she has to find it and recover it. Working against her are the mage’s Silver Circle and various factions of this or that group that either want to kill her or control her because of her power.

Cassie, however, has friends. She has the permanently cranky Pritkin, war mage extraordinaire who is not only an expert on demons, but the son of one himself. Can she trust him? She also has Casanova, an incubus in the employ of her former tormentor, crime boss and vampire Tony. Can she trust him to not betray her to Tony? Then there are the gargoyles who illegally work the kitchen of the casino where she’s hiding out, Francoise a powerful witch transported from the past, and of course, Billy, her gambler ghost friend.

The action begins immediately and carries through to the final page. This one goes quickly and drags you along for the ride. Full of quirky humor, a bit of steamy romance, and lots of inventive magic and mayhem it is an enjoyable ride to follow along as Cassie attempts to control her gift, save her life and those of her friends as well as to get the magic, faerie and vampire communities off her back. Being new to the post of Pythia, she has to learn as she goes. Her jumps through time seem to be both too easy in a technical manner, as she decides she must go to a certain place and time and does so – even though in the last book it was explained that her magic was tied to a disarray of the timeline and that would be the only way she would travel back in time and would also dictate when she arrived; and too inconsistent – as her multiple leaps bring her physical discomfort some times but not others.

All in all a very engaging book that had me leaping through the pages, and since it is nearly double the size of the previous two, it kept me engaged for a decent amount of time. Now that Cassie is getting settled into the Pythia role, I expect that the series can branch out from personal-to-her stories to more stories of her working at the role of Pythia and keeping the timeline intact. I will definitely be interested in finding out what happens next.

The Golden Rose

Thu, 08 May 2008 09:35:59 -0400

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.

The Magician and the Fool

Sun, 04 May 2008 13:56:06 -0400

Barth Anderson’s second novel, The Magician and The Fool, is marketed as a thriller in the DaVinci Code mode, with the hidden history behind the Tarot being the focus. Indeed, the novel is fast-paced and full of spectacular deaths, chases, and secret societies. But Anderson flips the script of the traditional thriller, and creates something much richer and more mysterious.

Jeremiah Rosemont is an former art historian who has left his tenure track career to hide out in South American, living the carefree existence of a nomad. Part of his leaving academia has to do with his frequent run-ins with his former friend John C. Miles, a whacked out Timothy Leary type who believes in the mystical properties of the tarot and its occult origins. In the past, Miles and Rosemont were a kind of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid team of tarot readers in Austin, at a punk-hippie club called the Circus of the Infinite Wow. Both had considerable power in divination, but where Rosemont didn’t truly believe in his prophecies, Miles clearly did. When Rosemont became a respectable academic, Miles made it his mission to heckle Rosemont wherever he made a presentation. The final insult came when Rosemont gave a career-building talk, one that would have led to a prestigious position, and Miles embarrassingly appearred in the audience, ruining his chances. Rosemont is in Nicaragua when he receives a mysterious summons to Rome, accompanied by an airline ticket. Upon his arrival, he is plunged head-first into a whirlwind conspiracy, having to do with authenticating a series of paintings that may be the basis for the modern tarot deck. Within hours, he witnesses a horrific murder and experiences strange phenomena, such as sudden shifts place and odd visions.

In Minneapolis, a homeless man known only as Boy King begins to have visions of his own. Boy King is a tarot reader who lives in an abandoned warehouse, hiding from someone—or something. Boy King is a broken man, and at first, it is unclear whether the complex patterns by which he lives his life are real or a projection of his psychosis. He is a sorcerer of sorts, surrounding himself with protective talismans and ghosts. When we meet him, he has made a conscious effort not run anymore, and face his destiny, whatever it may entail. Boy King’s sections of the novel are slightly more mystical than the Rosemont sections. They are told in a feverish prose style that emulates the enigmatic nature of tarot readings.

Back in Rome, Rosemont—“the fool”—learns of the occult beginnings of the tarot tradition, which predates the cards themselves. It goes back to ur-Eygptian gods, includes the Fall of Troy, and the ancient fight between Romulus and Remus. He learns these chunks of secret history while on the run from two sinister figures who are searching (and murdering) for the mysterious paintings—DiTrafana and Transom.

The connection between Rosemont and Boy King, and the fate of the paintings makes for suspenseful reading. The resultant novel, though, is less like a commercial thriller than it is like ‘secret history’ fantasies of Elizabeth Hand, like Waking the Moon and Mortal Love. Like Hand’s work, Anderson’s supernatural occurrences aren’t just pyrotechnic window dressing. They are an exploration of the effect myth has on the modern world. Anderson uses leitmotifs through his work—the image of brothers echoes through out the novel, and Miles/Rosemont have a rather more complicated relationship that’s hinted at. At one point, the openly gay Rosemont falls in love Miles. Creatures of myth wander through the streets of Madison, WI, Rome and Minneapolis in both hidden and overt forms. The miasma of elder gods haunts the text. The magic system is wonderfully perplexing. It involves pockets of time, sudden shifts in locale and states of consciousness, and unexplained but intriguing terminology. The tricks that the author-magician plays are persuasive, even if they are trippy and open-ended.

In one chilling scene, Rosemont sees a horrible vision in a mirror:

“A gathering of many colored planes representing the angles and curves of his face stared back at him. The face in the mirror, though, was not Rosemont’s, not remotely…One moment his reflection looked reptilian or birdlike, but then, as the face turned, it seemed suddenly simian, and then the polychromatic mosaic of planes and surfaces frowned into a yawning circle of flower petals, before the light in the bathroom shifted…”

At the same time, Anderson adds humorous juxtapositions. One of the key scenes occurs in a Mexican chain restaurant, referred to as ‘the Chi Chi’s of the Damned.’

The Magician and the Fool is thoroughly enjoyable, and imbued with a rich sense of wonder. What starts out as a juggernaut thriller subtly and skillfully turns into study of magic in the modern world.

Magic Burns

Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:25:40 -0400

Magic Burns is the second in a new series from Ilona Andrews. In the first book, Magic Bites, we are introduced to Kate Daniels a magical mercenary whose heritage and experience has given her the ability to handle herself in difficult situations. Living in Atlanta after a magical cataclysm that renders technology unreliable on a regular basis, the magical pulses that are echoes of this magical upheaval occur in an unfixed pattern except for the large ‘flare’ that happens every seven years. That Flare is coming soon and apparently some magical beings are out to utilize that Flare to escape their prison and make Atlanta their new base of operations. Since these destructive demons intend to use the human race as fodder, Kate must work to stop their plan. Kate discovered all of this while searching for the mother of an orphaned waif who seems to have a great deal of innate magic herself.

This was a very fitting sequel to the first book, taking up nearly at the same time that the first closed. As a character, Kate seems a bit more fragile mentally than your average magic wielding heroine. Her past, including a dangerously powerful father and a murdered partner keep her from exuding the usual invulnerability. Her relationship with the Beast Lord is both convincing and compelling while being a touch out of the ordinary. Kate still kicks demon butt though when needed and typically gets herself in trouble with her smart mouth. While parts of the timeline for the magical catastrophe and certain areas of logic that Andrews used to constrain and explain her world seemed a bit sketchy to me; her characters, plot, magic and adventure carry the story along nicely so that this will not be a deterrent to any but the most pedantic.

I found this to be a satisfying, if short, urban fantasy adventure in the line of Patricia Briggs and Jim Butcher. Like their characters, Andrews’ heroine is a bit of an outsider who does not fit comfortably in one category and thus is able to cross differing cultures without undue difficulties. In my opinion, this book was definitely enjoyable enough for me to keep an eye out for the next in the series. I’ll give it a 7.

The 13th Reality:The Journal of Curious Letters

Sun, 13 Apr 2008 22:05:57 -0400

Tick, an introverted and intelligent young man suddenly receives a mysterious letter. By opening it, Tick launches himself on an adventure of a lifetime. Each subsequent letter holds a quirky and sometimes humorous clue, promising Tick danger if he continues and harm to others if he quits. Intrigued and compelled, he pursues each clue vigorously in spite of the risk involved. The mysterious clues drag him across the country and introduce him to a spitfire Italian girl and an all-American jock from California. Banding together, the trio commits to seeing the mystery through.

At the root of it all are concepts of time and reality, the forces that bind and drive creation. In The Thirteenth Reality, Tick discovers more than one reality exists. Life as he knows it continues in Reality Prime while as many as thirteen other Earths continue on different planes of existence. If this seems overwhelming, don’t worry. Dashner lays out his concept of parallel realities in a manner young readers can understand. Even the basis of quantum physics, aka kyoopy, becomes approachable!

I enjoy how Dashner portrays Tick’s relationship with his family. Too many times, parents are viewed as either the idiot contingency or the evil overseers. Not here. Tick’s sisters drive him nuts but he still obviously loves them. Tick’s dad is a wonderful character that supports and trusts him even though this means letting go of his little boy. In a world where Tick is often a target, at home he is safe and loved. Maybe that isn’t realistic, but who said fantasy had to be reality? Perhaps a little wishful thinking would do us all some good.

I liked this story. There are a few classic aspects that walk on stage, but these are presented in a fresh and believable manner. The evil witch (dressed in lemon), a giant with a quasi-Cockney accent, a dwarf as round as he is tall, mechanistic magic that blurs the line between technology and fantasy; all delivered in wrapping paper designed by Dashner himself. He writes in bold colors, splashing strong characters across the pages who demand your attention (and sometimes your fear).

This isn’t a sweet little fairy tale, bad things happen and our hero is faced with tough decisions. Dashner quietly leads his readers from an odd mystery into a hair-raising quest complete with flesh-eating monsters. As odd as some of the scenes are, though, the entire thing holds together. This is definitely a book young readers should sample.

Small Favor

Sun, 23 Mar 2008 23:01:06 -0400

Small Favor, the 10th book in Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files is another tale full of Harry Dresden’s wisecracking and wizardry. In this episode, Harry has been recruited by Mab, Queen of Winter to find and rescue the mob boss, Johnny Marcone. This is a job Harry would never take, except for the fact that he is in debt to Winter and must do it despite his reservations. Regardless of the fact that Harry is being harassed by minions of the Summer Court and that whoever kidnapped Marcone was not only a professional but very powerful, Harry is now on the case.

Asking questions of the right people, Harry discovers who has kidnapped the crime lord and is forced by Marcone’s people to set up a neutral meeting between his abductors and Marcone’s seconds. Macrons’ abductors are none other than the Knights of the Blackened Denarius, mages who have been possessed by fallen angels. Talks of this sort need neutral ground and a neutral negotiator. Harry decides that a meeting this dangerous requires a powerful negotiator and calls in the Archive, the living repository of all knowledge. Getting this sort of meeting set up while being stalked by Queen Titania’s enforcers taxes Harry’s resources. Living through the talks could be even harder.

I find that I enjoy this series for several reasons. The largest of those reasons is Butcher’s voice. Undoubtedly, his characters are of a sort who have lives that readers love to follow. I even find his secondary characters to be fascinating. Bob, Mouse and Mister are some of my favorites, and I love to hear about them. His fantasy Chicago, full of hidden magic and faerie creatures is also very compelling to us mortals stuck in our mundane lives. However, it is his voice that brings it all to life. The character dialog, Harry’s internal dialog, and his pop culture reference riddled descriptions make this reader feel as if the story was written specifically for me. If Mike Hammer was a wizard living in modern-day Chicago and had a fondness for sarcasm and snappy comebacks, his name would be Harry Dresden.

Butcher’s fans will definitely devour this one just like the last nine. It has all the elements, danger, magic, romantic undertones, wisecracks, a multitude of pop culture references, evil beasties and arrogant bad guys, mayhem, threats, faeries, vampires and even the billy goats gruff. Seriously, they are there, I kid you not (pun intended).

Child of a Dead God

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 21:01:31 -0400

Fans of the Noble Dead saga have watched Magiere discover her heritage, assist in rescuing an elven assasin, and constantly remain on the lookout for more vampires. Now, driven to recover a powerful talisman, she finds herself blindly following a mysterious dream to a castle somewhere along unknown trails. She must find the talisman before her half-brother, the vampire Welstiel, finds it first and uses it for untold evil. Readers will also see into the mind of one of the Undead, Chane, a “child” of the vampire Welstiel. Created by Welstiel, Chane owes him allegiance for the half-life he leads but finds that allegiance challenged in the days to come. The two sides are joined by a third, a powerful elven contingency who seek the talisman also to use it’s power to further their own agenda. All three collide at the mountaintop fortress that holds answers to questions raised throughout the entire series.

For a long and complicated series, the book is a quick read and easy to understand. The descriptions of the Undead and their practices are chilling and a bit unusual in this age of overdone vampiric clichés. There are a lot of characters with very odd names, which can make it difficult to keep them straight. (I would have appreciated a cast list but I realize that serious fans would not necessarily need such a crutch.) The elven casting was as expected, but the political byplay wasn’t. The power struggle between the three groups adds depth to what could have been a shallow story.

Readers definitely need to read the series in order, otherwise they will be lost from the beginning. The action starts right in the middle of the story where the last book left off. Many allusions are made to previous happenings and the events in this book gain significance by the experiences the characters have already weathered.

I appreciated the way the authors crafted the sense that Fate can be avoided for awhile, but eventually she catches up with you. Several characters in this story are pushing the limitations of their destiny, but each one will be called upon to finish their chosen task whether they want to or not. Sometimes the action became a bit repetitive but the grand finale was worth it.

The end of the book served as a bit of a teaser also, so I looked up the series’ website and discovered the authors are preparing to continue the saga by beginning a new series. The website suggests there will be a couple of characters carried over from this first series but that the action will happen on another continent. The first book in the series should come out around January, 2009.

Storm Dragon - Draconic Prophecies Book 1

Fri, 29 Feb 2008 14:46:54 -0500

“Storm Dragon”, book one of the Draconic Prophecies, by James Wyatt is set in the Dungeons & Dragons world of Eberron. James Wyatt is one of the creators of the Eberron world. . Eberron is a change of pace from other D& D fantasy worlds, in that it has slightly higher technology with magical airships, artificially created warriors called “warforged”, and other elements. In some regards I suppose it is like a steampunk D&D world. Not being familiar with the details of the Eberron world I thought that a story by Wyatt, one of its creators, would be ideal for getting an overview of the world as we built into the story. That didn’t happen though. A familiarity with the world is needed to avoid getting lost in the dizzying assortment of names, places, and historical details. Is having some world background woven into the story an unreasonable expectation? Perhaps, but I admit to having that expectation coming into the book.

The other item that dominated my perception of “Storm Dragon” was how slowly events built up and the story finally gained steam. When the plot elements all come together though, much like one of the storms that main character Gavin Lyrandar can magically conjure, things really get going. That takes very nearly the entire book though, as things unfold slowly. Patience is required as we see Gavin Lyrandar and Haldren ir’Brassek get broken out of an inescapable prison in Eberron. Gavin is a man driven mad by obsession with a Draconic prophecy. As a result, he may know more about it than anybody. There are those who seek to fulfil the prophecy for their own gain, and they see Gavin’s knowledge as a key to it. Alliances are forged, broken, and reforged throughout the course of the novel. In many cases character motivation was passed to the reader in the form of riddle-like prophecy text. The constantly shifting alliances made it very difficult to determine who was key to the agendas throughout the story, who was a pawn, or even who the heroes of the story
would be.

Then there was the prophecy itself. It was the driving force that was shaping the world events in the story. But I still wasn’t clear what the prophecy was. It seemed a tale of Armageddon or of a war among gods on Eberron. These seemed to be, at least as I interpreted them, world altering events, yet something that some power hungry people thought that could bring to pass for their own personal gain. The role of “the bad guys” in the story seemed to be clear if they wanted to destroy the world in order to rule it. Their objectives and the exact outcome they thought they could achieve were extremely hazy, still very far into the book. While I like not being spoon-fed by a plot and being able to make my own interpretations and guesses until the author let’s me know whether I’ve been right or wrong, I was having to do too much of this to be able to settle comfortably into the book for the majority of it. While the bad guys were clear whether or not the expected hero of the story would actually play that role was in doubt for an unsettlingly long portion of the book.

That may have been by design as the clouds broke and questions were clearly answered in the climax of the story. However, it made for a frustrating read at times because I felt just as in the dark about which characters I should grow attached to in the story as I was at the beginning. I’m a sucker for a hero, especially when I’m reading fantasy. I want to find that character and travel along with him or her, even if that’s a misdirection to be revealed later in the story. But in this case I had a hard time finding anything redeeming in any of the characters for the longest time so I had nobody to invest in. For the majority of the story the character I liked most was Cart, the warforged. As a constructed warforged, he had a loyalty and innocence to him. Perhaps it is all my years of watching Star Trek: The Next Generation, and the obvious comparisons to the android Commander Data, but it was most interesting, especially in the early parts of the book, to watch Cart strive to interact with his companions as humanly as he knew how to, but still fall short of that.

Still though, it was apparent that Cart was a secondary character in this story. Perhaps he has previously had, or will get, his own book. But this one was not his. It was obvious that this book was Gavin’s. I was expecting to see the classic journey of the hero, ala “The Hero of A Thousand Faces”. So I waited for the character to develop, and his story and growth to occur along the way.

I waited a long time and was very near conceding that it wasn’t going to happen and this book wasn’t going to hit the mark for me. But then things all came together. Gavin found himself, both in character and as a character in the book that I found interesting and drawn to. Gavin had one huge moment of catharsis where all the bitterness and resentment of his life and particularly 26 years of imprisonment was washed away. But I thought he found a bit too much forgiveness, just a bit too quickly, especially toward the person who was responsible for having him sent to prison. That’s an awful lot of instant forgiveness. It seemed forced to me so that the plot could proceed along. Gavin also had a tearful reunion with a family that he had been “excommunicated” from for 26 years that was also too conveniently resolved. Again I thought it farfetched that 26 years of history could be undone that easily and painlessly. “Storm Dragon” comes in at a comfortable 344 pages, so these couple elements that were forced and rushed could have been expanded out in a less abrupt fashion in just a few extra pages. It didn’t seem like these pivotal moments of character growth and revelation had to be glossed over for the sake of the length of the book. I don’t claim to be the editor or publisher, so perhaps I’m entirely wrong there.

For all the slow build-up, “Storm Dragon ended very strongly over the last thirteen chapters. Better late than never in the “bringing it all together” department. The climax was a large battle sequence that was riveting and was the biggest page-turner of the book. I’ll even look past the fact that there was a beholder at the end that seemed to go down pretty easily. The end left us with questions and a setup for the additional books in this series, but it provided a happy ending for our main characters who had managed to step forward and take the title of “heroes” by the time the book ended.

I give “Storm Dragon” a “rising 6” on my scale. It walked a tightrope and teetered on the brink for me at the beginning. But James Wyatt pulled through and brought it home for me at the end. Looking over the whole book I have to give it a 6, but my opinion was definitely on the rise after the last 13 chapters. They saved the book in my opinion and were a solid springboard from which to launch the rest of the series.

However, to have more than just a average reading experience while reading “Storm Dragon” a reader will need to have two things, an appreciation and some familiarity with the world of Eberron and the patience to let the story come together.

Breath and Bone

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:47:58 -0500

Every once in a while a book comes along that redefines enjoyment and artistry. With Breath and Bone, Carol Berg has achieved just that. The magic in this story lives and breathes in the very words and phrasing of the tale. I have not read a more captivating work of art in sometime.

Readers are drawn seamlessly into Valen’s mind in this first person point of view tale spun effortlessly, woven with magic and such craft as to gift life into its very pages. Valen finds himself between the devil and the deep blue sea as his oaths and renegade reputation catch up with him. Bound to the bastard prince Oriel and struggling against a deadly addiction, he comes the overwhelming realization the kingdom and the very existence of all creation depend on him and his questionable decision making. At the root of it all lies the reason for his grandfather’s madness and the hatred he feels from his father.

The plot twists and turns, knarled like an old tree and filled with unexpected darkness. Hidden motivations come to light and questions raised by the first book in this series, Flesh and Spirit, are answered. The tale is filled with numerous characters yet each has an individual voice so readers easily can keep them straight. More than a typical quest fantasy, Valen struggles with questions many people face. Issues of familial devotion, abandonment, and loyalty are woven within the age-old conflict of whether the ends justify the means. Is saving the lives of hundreds worth the damning of one soul?

I could find no weak link in the golden chain of this story. From beginning to end I was held in thrall by the beauty and blending of myth and magic. Carol Berg is a gifted artist who paints magnificent scenes of prose. The only slightly negative statement I can make is to beware - know that every book you read from now on may suffer in comparison. Here is a book that will compel you to return and enjoy its texture and savor its depth. Bravo, Ms. Berg!

Dark Wraith of Shannara

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:11:15 -0500

When I reflect on Shannara, we are going back to the baby steps of a love affair with Fantasy that if not taken when they were, I would have probably found myself not inundated with advanced copies for a site I co-own dedicated to the subject of Speculative Fiction itself. It was not my first venture into Fantasy, but it was perhaps the first series I continued simply because it was Fantasy. Later in life I’d realize I was already a fan of the fantastic and it could be illustrated with books I read before – be it from Tolkien, Stevenson, Lovecraft, or others but I think then it was just about adventures then and Shannara offered another place I hadn’t been before, and at that age being someone who was used to and loved travel even then it was not only enough – it was optimal. I was as a child lucky enough to had already seen places and found myself at a place where so many rarely left their own state. Be it the Coliseum, the Parthenon/Acropolis, Pisa, The Sistine Chapel, Pompeii, Ercolano, the real Oktoboer Fest, Carnivale, Mardi Gras, Big Ben, Venice – Vesuvius or Fuji, the Pyramids, the Louvre a ride on The Orient Express and countless German and French castles and cathedrals and rugs from Turkey later – when I sat in history classes I always felt a chapter ahead, it was a review for me, not an introduction. Later, I’d I found myself in the dirty south of the U.S. which at the time was something not unlike exile from meaningful culture. Later, I’d recognize a highly functionable and welcome order to it all but at the time I think I was substituting that sense of wonder lost, with a maze of wonder at the library. I’m not at all sure if there were books I didn’t like then, in fact there may not have been even ‘good’ or ‘bad’ they were just all part of one large journey for me, some legs were just more memorable and some more staying power - better than I remembered - when I made the journey back, but if not, it does not taint what came before. To me I was just chillin’ with Huck one week, fishing with Ahab the next, sharing riddles in Hed after that, blew trees in the Shire a month after, all while walking through Shadow with my bud Brand who was babbling about chaos, and all because years before I wanted to go beyond where the wild things were. You see, Allanon and me, well, we go way back; before Bremen found him hiding all shook - we were already tight, even before me and Jessica used to have mélange sessions. I’d tell you my last name is Creel, but that’s another shadow, one me and only the Grimpond talk about but what you need to know is that when I wasn’t being a hell raiser as a youth, I could be found plotting my next secret vacance in my room, or what looked like plotting otherwise, why was I so quiet? Nobody complained, least of all me, because I was in my comfort zone – and I had been there before, and in fact I could fuck around and tell you how to get to Varleet from the Vale on a budget right now – like I said I’d been there before.

When discussing Shannara or Terry Brooks work in general – those that even take the time to do so anymore - many find it difficult to isolate a specific topic, having to express their stance on him and the fact alone should speak on his presence in the field. I myself am not gifted enough to buck that trend and as I type this I find myself unable to think in the box. I don’t love or hate the works of Brooks - but no different than any other writer at times I have loved and hated them. It is this relationship, this passion that defines fandom for me. Writers evolve and more importantly readers do as well and it’s not a shift that occurs one or in one direction. If we rightfully view the works of Rowling as an anomaly in regards to its measure of success in book sales – not just fantasy sales – then Brooks sits among the most successful who has ever done this and while to some that is somehow proof of impropriety against art itself, such stances prove to cause only minor chinks in the armor in one of the few writers in this field’s history that I think has a legitimate claim to being a generation’s introduction to the form – even if, irrefutably, largely borrowed beyond anyone’s attempt at shielding with the worst of paper-arguments ‘nothing new under the sun’. For myself, while presently – and for some years - my tastes have moved away from what Shannara has to offer but while I have aged and expanded upon my reading and bear with me, lore, of this corner of fiction that offers a perspective in a larger picture beyond the lines that are often the topics of heated and too often-linked discussions I try not to lose, replace, or dilute the veracity of my experience at the time. Addendums certainly - but no subtractions. The relevance of these statements to this review is due to the relationship that Dark Wraith of Shannara has with previous Shannara material, and more importantly, chapters I’m not only very familiar with, but chapters that I will always be familiar with. While it is The Heritage of Shannara arc that represents the best Brooks has shown in Shannara, and aside from his Word/Void work (in particular Angel Fire East) my favorite in his body of work, it seems to in his first three books in particular that fall into a timeline that sowed and cultivated the fanbase noted above. The Sword of Shannara, The Elfstones of Shannara, and The Wishsong of Shannara are not classic books, but they attempted to capture and perhaps even remind of classic tales in a form many had been waiting for, whether they were conscious of it or not. It is within these three books that the most resonant of threads could be found to truly test the waters of a market and platform I feel very strongly about: the OGN – the original graphic novel. With the success of King and Hamilton projects in sequential art, I’m interested in seeing more of and how others will follow suit and Brook’s attempt will be an interesting gauge due to that existing fanbase noted above.

When Dark Wraith of Shannara showed up at the door in January I must admit some measure of curiosity. I am perhaps a bigger fan of comics than I am in any other form of reading and I think that’s telling for anyone who is aware of how much time I put into a site like Fantasybookspot.com I love getting my VanderMeer, Erikson, Mieville, Zivkovic, Martin, Jonathan Carroll and Jeffrey Ford books – and releases by Saramago, Ishiguro, and McCarthy are close to spiritual experiences bound up and sold on shelves; Speculative fiction is close to my heart, but more than anything, I love my sequential art – I love my comics. It also presents a very low risk investment in my time, I tend to commit to my novels even if I don’t see anything of value hundreds of pages in – a habit that I think is the only plausible explanation on why so many people are familiar with books like The Fifth Sorceress. I have my own preferences and I get perhaps unequal opportunities to explore them and this format allows for a shot of Shannara I otherwise wouldn’t indulge in, and this is something I consider a fortunate circumstance.

Dark Wraith takes place some three years after The Wishsong of Shannara and utilizes principle characters from that book. This was an auspicious discovery for me as my favorite denizen of the Four Lands was introduced within those pages and the opportunity to see further adventures of Slanter was more appealing than I would have wagered. Wishsong, more than the other books really offered a group-quest that lingered due to the number of characters and the finality of where some of those paths led in how they would affect the survivors. It was also the end of the first arc and to the reader a geopolitical era and tone in Shannara that would be come forth from the Heritage arc. Because of this, I think it was the best place to mine further adventures and also a minefield due to a chance of pulling on strands knotted close to hearts. When finishing the 160 pages, I saw both of my thoughts play out. In familiar fashion a member of the Ohmsford family is recruited to continue their legacy as Allanon’s chosen champions and protectors of the land and this time –as promised - it will fall on Jair, burdened with his charge and a promise, he once again seeks out the Mwellrets who (in Wishsong) failing in their attempt and I guess strangely upset at being freed of being enslaved by the power of the Ildratch (because, you know, their evil) have plotted a new course of action: restoring the Druid Keep of Paranor to the land to unlock the knowledge within its walls. It should be said that there is not a tremendous amount attempted here, it’s a straightforward read that offers little in regards to searching for invisible thought bubbles mid-page but I think if it is aiming at the age-group I think it is, this wasn’t unforeseen or unintended. I was reading Brian K. Vaughn’s The Escapist (in collected form) at the same time and there is more going on, more weight on several individual panels and single lines in it then can be found within the entirety of Dark Wraith, but it offered this real interesting dynamic as when I was getting most disinterested in Dark Wraith I’d pick The Escapist up and it was almost telling me to take it (Dark Wraith) for what it was (anybody – and by that I mean everybody should – who had read The Escapists understands). What drove me nuts from the beginning was something that actually makes a substantial amount of sense in regards to character and story – a boy emulating someone he looked up to and able to manifesting what is most likely semi-fantasy even on its own but when augmented with legitimate need becomes something more. In comics nothing is guaranteed, especially death, and while there isn’t a true resurrection within the pages, given the nature of the original character, it’s close enough to want to reflexively argue otherwise – and that isn’t even a problem in itself or abnormal, but it did create this major and what looks to be the central element in any works to come after that if you find yourself not behind puts a very tangible ceiling on how much one can enjoy the story (and possibly further adventures). The death of Garet Jax (Wishsong of Shannara) is one of the really great deaths in the history of fiction – largely because it ended the existence of one of the most heinous, no-dimensional characters ever conceived. Garet Jax was a weapons master – unequaled, the best there is or ever was, yada, yada, yada.. He was also a walking deus ex machina – a mortal force of nature that would solve the majority of the quest’s problems by skillfully, hitting shit - sometimes hard. When he wasn’t (actively) being cool, we were being told how kewl he was by others. Let me say this about Brooks – he is consistently able to bring conclusions that satisfy and he does this by surrounding the inevitable saving of the day with a recognition of sacrifice and acceptance that does resonate and finds a corner in our memory that doesn’t fade. He showed this many times; with Amberle (Elfstones of Shannara), Allannon; he showed this with a debt and bond of two races being acknowledged by an injured Elf and Dwarf – and what these instances do is bind the allegiance of generations of Ohmsfords through representatives of the land – it is the people who become what they fight for, what they are loyal to, and through them the Four Lands and taken to the end the reader themselves. The death of Garet Jax, while welcome by me and clearly writing that was on the wall from the novel’s beginning was still one of those great moments in this child’s reading history. The ambiguity of the event, a mystery of whether or not the mortal demise of a man unequalled was in fact the reward he searched and trained for or was his sacrifice a delightful, if sobering, reality check. Say what people want to say, but these are terrific books for younger readers and Brook’s ability as a closer pays off. Like I said there is no true resurrection, thus it seems like I’m shadowboxing a bit, but the usage of the Wishsong that transforms Jair into Jax is strikes me as an element that would have been high on my list of not basing a story or a series of forthcoming stories on. The other underlining theme of Jair struggling to keep his promise of abandoning the Wishsong that he made to his sister and coincides with the familiar ‘power corrupts and eventually enslaves’ forms the apparent meat of the story that will take new readers for a tour and returning visitors a spin down memory lane. This is really an admittance of not caring for the fundamental premise and it was difficult for me to shake that as I read on as nothing really evolved from the transformation that made me not think just seeing Jair and Slanter reuniting to get by on wits, luck and experience would be more fun. I realize that some could consider it the sweetest thing imaginable, but for me it just strikes me as a decision that sounds better and perhaps even exciting as an idea thrown out there and dismissed after a second thought than it looks on paper and brought to fruition. What we are set-up for is basically a condition that allows Jair to handle any imaginable situation by being someone else and the balance is supposed to be given by Jair’s personal regret of lying to his sister in the course of saving his own life. That just cannot last for any length of time as the fundamental conflict for people who are used to reading even the least competent of fiction - indeed it got old just within these pages alone. We knew it was going to happen, we knew what going to happen when it did, we knew what Jair was going to ponder later and while it is passable – if not memorable - once it is a cycle that has to stop now and cannot carry another story. The backdrop of an adventure; the where, who, and when of it will not matter if these continue to be the bookends of the tale. I don’t know, I was looking for something to occur that even if not perceptible by the new reader, that was an attempt at really grabbing prior visitors – to let us know these graphic novels are projects that go beyond what we may want to read, but reads the afficianado has to read, filling in the gaps in the puzzle or introducing new ones – calling back to what some may hold dear, maximizing the fact that there is a fanbase that’s reading, waiting for that single moment of recognition that goes beyond bearing a name, when we look up and see familiar stars when we stop reading about wonder and start breathing it and Dark Wraith of Shannara never took that step for me. It was like following familiar tracks but upon catching up you find that they just belong to those wearing the same brand of shoes – the occupants, strangers.

It is, I know, awfully hip to say one loves the purity of black and white, and in the sense of seeing older works brought back in a collected or archive format with specific creators/pencilers I agree, but for the most part I’d be disingenuous in saying I prefer non-color. It certainly is appropriate and even optimal in some cases and this happens – I think – to be one of them. Jair himself echoed my thoughts early in the story, as an Ohmsford will once again find themselves on the banks of the Silver River on the way to a greater journey:

"Looks the same even after three years"

"I suppose the land never really gets old"

"Not like us"

"I was a different person last time I was here"

The black and white art helps creates this distance even when standing at what amounts to a figurative bridge in-story and for the most part I really took to the art. It is impossible for the visuals we created in our imaginations to be rendered as we saw it but there were no choices that troubled me terribly and even some that played out well and I think balanced the idea of a book for younger readers that still gave the sense of aging for those familiar with the novels and you can see this with Kimber who is a full blown tuttin now and apparently doesn't require clothing any longer. She lives in the cut, not a trailer park, still it is very alive. For the most part, the art exceeded expectations for me and managed find that middle-ground that was part of the contrast we’d see between the first two novels arcs.

Interestingly enough, I feel that the Dark Wraith of Shannara serves as better appetizer for the uninitiated to take a look at the novels and not as much as a product that at the end demands attention by those looking for more Shannara. This was a rather disappointing development for me simply because aside from seeming backwards to me, but from a purely selfish standpoint, as a former reader of Shannara I fall into the secondary category! I think in some ways, it may be underestimating the sophistication of the Manga reader, but I admit the American Manga market is something I don’t have near a comprehensive knowledge of , having not lived on those shores during it’s apparent rise in popularity and my own Manga reads are chosen with heavy deliberation as though I am a huge comic book fan and half-Japanese – I’m not what I’d call an avid fan of Manga. That said, it does give a gist of what occurred in the novel that will not leave the reader with the feeling of an incomplete tale, and that with just about everything else noted really brings us to the bottom line with this release. It’s damn well put together in terms of being friendly for anyone to pickup and comprehend – be it strictly Manga, strictly graphic novel, strictly comic book, existing Shannara fans, people who may have just read Wishsong of Shannara, or any combination of the above, but I finished not at all inspired to read on (the implication of further adventures and a continuing story is implied in the end – and by the time this review sees light possibly even announced) to any but the most loyal of fans and to me would be better suited as a nice online web comic project for fans to read between novels. I was reminded I once liked these characters but they were built with a shelf-life that I thought correctly optimized them already and nothing in these pages suggests otherwise. I think Brooks himself may have initially been aware of this (at the time) and avoided it with his early work by continuing tales in the setting with successive generations. What bothers me the most is that if you are like when you see a new project like this announced, you tend to reread source material to warm up for the event, but this 160 pages ends up not paying that off, indeed it doesn't seem to event attempt to.

The most interesting reading for me came after the story itself in the ‘making of Dark Wraith of Shannara’ segment that is also followed by a sketch-book of the artist, Edwin David. It’s rather brief but has some interesting insight on the collaboration between Robert Place Napton, who adapted (if I’m reading this correctly) Terry’s outline, David and Brooks. Visually I think Dark Wraith of Shannara is a success, the story itself does nothing for me, andI wonder how much could have been done about it, even though its really not relevant in terms of allocating opinion. It is what it is – no matter how it got there. Now in truth, I did find the story flat, a bit uneventful, it never approaches possessing any degree of suspense or a payoff and it reads very much like a preliminary outline put straight to paper. The story itself is just uninspired and felt more like a story that occurred without leaving any evidence it passed. It was like having that feeling that you just read a book but experienced a synopsis and when this occurs what happens is you get an opinion of a project that once finished, doesn’t deviate from whatever (preconceived) you had coming in. I found that upon completion I could describe (if asked) what happens in two - not unusually long - sentences in a manner that would make reading the actual 160 pages an absolutely redundant experience. I don’t like making comparisons out of thin air, as I said before at the same time I was reading this, I also happened to be reading the collected (hardcover) of Brian K. Vaughan’s The Escapists and while I can tell somebody what it was about as well (perhaps with two especially long sentences in this case) it would not in any way diminish the experience of the read itself – it had life beyond summary. There is nothing for the reader to bring to or take away from the story that they didn’t possess before. It just goes through the motions, and one feels like such a venue could be used to get dirty in the Four Lands and really what we are left with what seems more chum thrown to potential new readers than something those of us with the soil of the Westlands still stuck in our boots or seen the pride of Callahorn first-hand can get excited about. It is in a word, unnecessary, and when putting a brand that means something to many on a book, it’s the one quality you can’t be. It should be said I stopped reading Brooks after the Voyage of Jerle Shannara arc and there perhaps may be call-backs imbedded from material beyond that, that may add dimension to this graphic novel that I cannot be aware of but not once did I feel like I ever went back. One could, I suppose, possibly compare it to The Hedge Knight, which was material that chronicled activities that took place prior to the timeline in Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire and what you got was not a mind-blowing or essential addition, but still it was a piece, and with Dark Wraith and as someone familiar with the material and the legacy of the Ohmsfords it just doesn’t feel like a progression or even just a continuation of that, and if it tripped and fell flat, it somehow managed to do so without ever walking.

Shades!

Which is all it ended up being, nothing substantial; looks good, and while the spark of Jair’s future with Kimber leaves the faintest ripples of interest, there is just not enough brewing here that could ultimately make it recommendable and I find any attempt at lauding it impossible without following it with "for what it is" – and that’s usually the worst of signs.

Jay Tomio
The Bodhisattva

Grip of the Shadow Plague

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 11:38:49 -0500

Brandon Mull ups the stakes in this third installment of the Fablehaven series. Things are looking bad for Fablehaven. The artifact protected there is gone and all over the world secret refuges for magical creatures are collapsing in disarray.

Grip of the Shadow Plague picks up right where Rise of the Evening Star, book two, left off. After defeating one enemy and unveiling a traitor, Kendra and Seth plunge into the international world of magic. As Kendra travels to another refuge to locate an artifact of incredible strength, Seth faces another attack at Fablehaven. The creatures there are turning, not falling into evil like the fairies previously but actually turning into shadow - evolving into powerful and more threatening forms never seen before. Even those creatures known to be resistant to falling are changing and infecting those around them.

This is by no means a capstone to Mull’s series, but a continuation of the adventures of Seth and Kendra that lives up to the high standards he set with his first two books. Brandon Mull takes it up another notch with this one. Seth and Kendra face decisions that have no clear cut answer, carrying more weight and responsibility than before. There is a sense of growth and maturity in both characters, of the two of them coming into their own in regards to their talents and abilities. This is one aspect I truly enjoy about these stories. Seth and Kendra are not static characters, but are growing and developing as people.

Mull’s gifts as an author are obvious as he develops this story, carrying the tale forwards as he both widens the scope of the magical world and fills in back story that satisfies our curiosity and piques our interest. Once again Mull highlights doing the right thing, but for both Kendra and Seth the right thing isn’t so obvious anymore. Much like real life, issues are no longer clearly marked black and white and the repercussions for making a wrong move are devastating.

This is a book for young readers, but it will do more for them than just entertain. They will be encouraged to think and examine the situations, challenge them to agree or disagree with what the characters choose. Well-crafted, there are no weak points or shaky aspects to this book. From cover to cover, readers will fall into the world of Fablehaven and never want to leave.

The Unnatural Inquirer

Fri, 08 Feb 2008 10:09:48 -0500

The Unnatural Inquirer is the eighth book in the Nightside series by Simon R. Green. I’d probably have been better off starting with something earlier in the series, because this book felt a bit played out already and tracking the main character’s magical abilities was confusing at times. A lot of time was spent on worldbuilding—why Nightside works the way it does, the cool places on Nightside and the various characters and rules that govern this supernatural seedy, hidden side of London. The setting was actually quite fascinating, but while readers of the series might have been enjoying visiting old and dear characters, I found myself a tad bored with every little stop into yet another place. Each one was unique, but not always necessary in order to forward the story. There were interesting little what-ifs throughout: what-if buildings could rebuild themselves or what if religious zealots really could call down lightening, and the main one, if you could see what the afterlife really looked like, would you want to know?

There were some very dynamic characters in this book: John Taylor, the main character, finds things. He has the ability to look through time and see what happened in the past and then follow the past to the here and now, usually finding the person or object he is after. Of course, he needs enough clues in order for his inner eye to work. As he says, he has to know what question to ask. If he’s looking for an object, he has to know who to look for that might have moved or taken the object. He has to be in the right place. In this book something is blocking his powers, and he is forced into manual mode, searching for a recording of the afterlife without much help from magic.

Suzie “Shotgun Suzie” is Taylor’s girlfriend—and I suspect I would enjoy any Nightside caper that included more of her involvement. I am certain I would enjoy the winding tale of how the two of them came to trust each other enough to work together. In this caper, we instead get Bettie as Taylor’s companion; a reporter from the Unnatural Inquirer—(yes, it’s a play on the magazine and has a similar reputation.)

Bettie appears to be there so that Taylor has someone to talk to. She plays the dumb blonde, asking a lot of questions and supplying info dumps of her own. She was little more than a prop for most of the book.

There were other characters that probably played heavier parts in other books: the mysterious Walker who has the ability to give commands that Must Be Obeyed. He is some sort of enforcer/clean-up/self-appointed cop of Nightside and scenes with Walker were always quite interesting and well-done.

The plot--Taylor is hired by the Unnatural Inquirer to find an Afterlife Recording—a DVD the “newspaper” has already bought and paid for, only it disappeared before delivery. Of course, since it is seen as a valuable object, everyone else wants it too—collectors, religious zealots, the aforementioned Walker and the odd god creature. Taylor’s powers came and went as he tracked down the DVD—blocked by something or someone. I was never quite satisfied with the explanation given; yes, at the end, I knew ‘who’ caused the problem, but not ‘how.’

Perhaps because there are other books in this series, the borders of Taylor’s capabilities were never well-defined in this book. The most interesting scenes were at the beginning of the book where Taylor had use of his power and readers get to experience how he works. As the book progresses, he is steadily blocked—both in mundane ways and as he tries to rely on a few other secondary abilities that he has.

The ending had several battles, but frankly, nothing worrisome. Taylor’s powers just so happened to reappear in time for one or two battles, and when they weren’t working, it didn’t take him very long to talk his way out of trouble or otherwise free himself from disaster.

I wouldn’t hesitate to read one of the earlier novels in this setting because I suspect the whole series is a collection of quick, fun romps through a strangely magical urban setting. The premise for this story was good, the execution of it wandered, and in the end, it was much like bar-hopping with a guide that knows a city well—some places were fun, some had good music, some had interesting people with more than a hint of danger and some were dingy and tired with questionable food.

Prisoner of the Iron Tower

Tue, 29 Jan 2008 10:13:01 -0500

Gavril faces his deepest fear-that he cannot exist without his Drakhoul. His comfortable life was turned upside down in the first book of this trilogy with the appearance of a smoky presence that wrapped around him and invaded his being. The Drakhoul, a dark and demanding creature, promised strength beyond reckoning and breathed sulfur into Gavril’s soul. This power came with a heavy price, however. Gavril sustained physical changes without and within, his body changing into a dragon with the appetite of a vampire. Unable to face living as a monster, Gavril throws off his familiar with the help of Kiukiu and looks forward to living as a human again. Unfortunately, without the power of the Drakhoul to protect his people, Gavril is taken prisoner and Eugene proclaims himself Emperor of all he surveys.

Ms. Ash blazes through her descriptions of people. As the second book in the series entitled The Tears of Artamon, Prisoner of the Iron Tower is Act II of a three act play. There are many characters and most seem to be playing more than one role. Attempting to identify the alliances made and betrayed can leave one breathless. Like a typical second act, life seems dark for our hero Gavril and the countries fighting for independence.

I enjoyed this one more than the first, which is a bit unusual. The author seems to delve deeper into the primary characters, making them real. Readers see into the mind of Eugene, the self-proclaimed Emperor of New Rossiyan. He is not a flat, all-out bad guy but is very human, a contradiction. The loving father, afraid to emotionally embrace his new wife because the loss of the first was so painful. This alongside of the imperious ruler who demands instant groveling, paranoid about all around him and whose dreams consist of all he sees bowing to him. Readers sense that if Astasia and Eugene could just communicate better, a love could blossom that could heal the agony in his heart.

However, the character development of Eugene is balanced by a frenetic bouncing between other characters, shifting the focus so much I became a bit frustrated. I wanted the story to land in one place and develop more. I think she attempted to do too much here, trying to balance the story of Eugene as a budding emperor with the rebellion in the south and the destruction of Gavril’s country in the north. On top of all this is the search to understand the Drakhoul and his kind, to control or banish him forever. The story dashes one way and then swerves the other, like the daemon-dragon of the tale. Reader, beware! Ms. Ash invests effort in creating her characters only to pitch them off a cliff for the sake of the story. My hope is Sarah Ash will resolve this story effectively in book three of The Tears of Artamon, The Children of the Serpent Gate.

Shadowmancer

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 11:59:05 -0500

Demurral, a vicar in a beautiful corner of Britain, is tired of pushing and controlling ignorant peasants. He knows he has the power to rule much more and is willing to do whatever it takes. In fact, he even doubts that God himself is doing a good job. He eagerly uses his power to command the spirits of the dead and release a demon from the crypt. Demurral’s greed, however, starts a war in this repressed community. The common people are challenged to choose sides. Are they for the vicar, the repression and evil he gladly proclaims? Or will they unite, join with the forces of light and overthrow the darkness?

Previously self-published in the United Kingdom, G.P. Taylor received such a great response that his book was picked up by one of the big houses - Faber and Faber. A vicar himself in Yorkshire, G.P. Taylor has put much of the local geography and history into this tale. His descriptions of the seaside and cliffs are one of the strong points in this book, placing the reader in the midst of the setting.

Written for adolescents, the character building in Shadowmancer is deceptively simple. Not much time is spent on each person, but the time spent looks into their deepest hearts. The story is mainly focused on the battle of good and evil - the Holy War fought here on earth. It is a swashbuckling tale of common folk once again being called upon to do their part in the eternal battle, of slaves finding freedom to live again.

For myself, however, the book contains a bit too much lecture for me. I believe in the message spoken throughout this tale, but for me - stories consist of characters. I want to know why they do what they do. At times the action moves so swiftly and the point of view shifts completely, I felt as if I lost the thread of the story.

Since the tale seems to be more important that the characters themselves, though, a reader needs to approach it for what it is. Shadowmancer feels more like a medieval bard’s work - spoken by the light of the fire in return for a loaf and a warm place to sleep. A book I will read to my children, or let them read, as it does not tiptoe around the truth; it pushes and demands the reader to see and compare real life with the tale.

Dragons of Winter Night - Graphic Novel

Wed, 09 Jan 2008 13:23:32 -0500

From the back cover of the paperback book (blurb) -

Now the people know that the dragon minions of Takhisis, Queen of Darkness, have returned. But the races have long been divided by hatred and prejudice. It seems the battle has been lost before it begins.

The companions are separated, torn apart by war. A full season will pass before they meet again—if they meet again.

It is always a pleasant surprise to find out that book that you loved, got turned into a graphic novel. That said though, visiting a world that you know and love in graphic form, it has to live up to some healthy expectations for the reader. Devils Due and their team brought it to life, and everyone should be very pleased by their work. Dragons of Winter Night, has the dark feel one would think it should and it comes across in the artwork and layout.

I thought the artwork was beautiful, and where it really seemed to shine was in the outdoor scenes and the artwork of the dragons. The characters were also depicted well for my personal tastes, whether or not they live up to what you envisioned them to be is something you have to look at for yourself. My favorite representation though was Kitiara, you can feel the evil bubbling below the surface, in her facial expressions. I always thought she was a great anti-hero to the group, and I can feel that in the artwork. I also enjoyed the depiction of Fizban as well; the humor of the character still shines through in the drawings. Overall the artwork had pretty big shoes to fill, if you go by the covers of the books done by Larry Elmore, and I think for the medium (a graphic novel can not be of the level of a single piece of canvas) the team of Kurth, Ruffino, Narvasa, Bradley, Rauch and Crowley, did an excellent job. They put together the perfect graphical companion to Weis and Hickman’s novel.

The adaptation by Andrew Dabb stayed pretty faithful and the overall feel and storyline stayed where they needed to be due to the restraints of the graphic novel medium. I personally find the graphic novel to be a nice companion to the book, but it still needs to stand on its own if one has not read the book. It worked for me on both of these levels as I had read this sometime in the 1980’s I believe. It does not hold the same weight as the book, but I do not believe it is supposed to. There is no way they can include everything and I found it to be a fun visualization after reading the books. Even if you are not familiar with the books though it is still very enjoyable just not of the same level I believe as someone that has read the books.

DDP always brings us something new for the fantasy crowd looking to dip their toes in the graphic novel and comic market. I think once you feel the temperature you will want to dive right in. Dragons of Winter Night, the graphic novel, is a great piece to own; visually telling what I consider a classic story in the fantasy book market