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Book Reviews - Romance, Fantasy, Science Fiction - By an Adult for Adults

Lost Child of Lychford by Paul Cornell – Store Kindness to Defeat Evil

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Lost Child of Lychford is sequel to Witches of Lychford (reviewed here), a short, suspenseful novel of three ladies working to thwart demonic plans to break the barriers that protect our world.  The three ladies managed to defeat the demon but there are many worlds and many entities who threaten ours.  We meet two more in Lost Child of Lychford.

The lost child in the title is a toddler who originally appears as a ghost to Lizzie, who is the Lychford vicar cum apprentice border protector.  Lizzie must find within herself the strength to save the child and her town and her friends from the latest evil entities.

In some ways Lost Child is less powerful than Witches because we don’t really see how the new evil entities (again masquerading as people) manage to exert so much control over the three women.  It just happens, and all the while the three are dimly aware something is wrong but cannot save themselves.  Autumn, who was the weakest character in Witches, is stronger here but she still felt more like a character than a person.

Since we’re reading a fantasy suspense novel and not a crime whodunit, Cornell can get away with sparse explanations, providing just enough of a frame that we can suspend disbelief and go along with the story.  Still I would have preferred a little more meat on Lizzie’s story since she was being led to perform horrors in her church upon a child.  It was just a bit unsatisfying.

The ending was interesting because Lizzie manages to save herself with help from the ghost whom she had befriended.  Because she had been kind to the ghost child earlier, the ghost was able to give her back the strength to push off the control.  Judith later explains that Lizzie used the little boy ghost as a battery, storing kindness and goodness, then withdrawing when needed.  I love that metaphor.

Lost Child of Lychford is even shorter than Witches of Lychford, about 133 pages.  That’s the size of a long novella and I do wish Cornell would tie these stories together into one satisfying novel.  Reading these short books is a little like eating appetizers for dinner.

Overall the novel is well written with strong mood contrasts and good dialogue.   Characterization is moderately good with Lizzie confronting her own faith (or lack of it) with stress of her first Christmas as the vicar, while Autumn looks for romance and Judith deals with her own ghost.

4 Stars

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Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell – Moody, Magic and Money

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I bought Witches of Lychford by Paul Cornell by mistake (hit “Buy” vs “See”) and what a happy mistake it turned out to be!  The characters live in Lychford, an English town fallen on harder times.  A big chain store wants permission to build a store on the edge of town, promising jobs and an economic boost that have bedazzled most town folk.

The problem is that Lychford sets on a locus, defining boundaries between multiple worlds.  Destroy the town boundary and you destroy the world boundaries.  That sets the story.

Characters

Cornell sketches in the characters enough to capture our interest but the book is short and we don’t really know any of them.  None of them are witches in the traditional sense, more guardians of the borders.

Lizzie is a modern vicar, meaning she believes more or less and wants to overlook sin.  She is new to her parish and learning to tread among the factions in town and church and looking for a friend.   We see the tension between her belief (a bit tenuous but real) and her moral sense and her training to not “judge” anyone.

Autumn spent a year in Fairy and can’t quite believe it.  She has been in and out of mental hospitals and is a thorough skeptic.  The book doesn’t show why Autumn owns a magic shop since she doesn’t believe in magic (or God or anything).

Judith is an interesting old lady, antisocial and rude, the sort of person kids make fun of.  She is the only one who has any clue about Lychford’s special nature or any training in magic.  She takes the other two ladies on as allies only because she is desperate.  Judith is the most complete character.  Our knees ache along with hers as she walks home and climbs the steps to her apartment on misty nights.

We know a little more about each lady at the end of the story.  Cornell does a good job on dialogue and interplay among them; Lizzie and Judith feel like real people while Autumn isn’t fleshed out.

Mood and Setting

Witches of Lychford could be a bit creepy or full of fake magic-y stuff.  It’s not.  The mood is somber.  We know the situation is dire and we know Judith has spent the last 70 years alienating everyone so she has no allies and no one will listen and take her warnings seriously.  Cornell shows us the town’s spooky side only once, when the three walk through the surrounding forest and Judith points out the boundary lines.

The political wrangling and outright bribery feel all too real.  We can feel exactly how uncomfortable the seats are in the town hall and feel the tension as friends and family fall into opposing camps.  That part is good.  The scenes in Autumn’s shop do not feel quite right.  Autumn is much the weakest character and her shop the weakest setting.

Overall

Witches of Lychford is short, only 144 pages in print form.  Cornell tells his story and ends when the incident ends.  He leaves tantalizing clues that Judith, Lizzie and Autumn are not done with each other or with their duties to maintain the borders of Lychford.

Per Amazon Witches of Lychford is the first book in a 3-book series.  All three books are short and fast reads, about 1 to 1 1/2 hour each. I would like to see Cornell publish them as a single book.  I was able to get the second book from our Michigan wide Melcat library system.

4 Stars

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Two New Science Fiction Novels: Prominence by A. C. Hadfield and Fringe Runner by Rachel Aukes

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Prominence: A Space Opera Adventure (Blackstar Command Book 1) by A. C. Hadfield.

When I think “space opera” I think of grand vistas and complicated plots, books that are uplifting, showing human endeavor amid deadly danger.   The original Foundation trilogy is perfect example.

Prominence lacks the feel of grandeur.  Instead it feels like YA fiction where things just happen, and teen heroes save the day. For instance, our protagonist, Kai, is able to contact not one but two military leaders – admirals and equivalent – in a war zone, insult one and make demands on the other, and both admirals take his call and listen.  Further the military leadership sends Kai to find his missing father and retrieve a rumored piece of very high tech left behind by the mysterious Navigator aliens.  How realistic is this?

The blurb indicates the Coalition is fighting for its life against the Host, that the Host seeks its annihilation. Yet we learn near the end that both groups include aliens and some humans, that the main difference is the Host values life above all while the Coalition is “more pragmatic”.  That does not jibe with the annihilation bit.

I managed to finish it although the last third was difficult.  Hadfield had a reasonable story in the first third or so, then it got unbelievable and boring.  The characters are stock folks from the shelf.  Pacing and style are OK.

Overall 2 Stars

Fringe Runner (Fringe Series, #1) by Rachel Aukes

Fringe Runner is better than Prominence.  The novel’s main problems are uneven pacing and a thin plot with too many people acting far too gullible.  It wasn’t boring exactly but I never felt connected to the characters and the backstory was far fetched.

The two main planets in the Collective are Alluvia and Myr, both originally colonized by Earth, and a few smaller colonies called the Fringe  Earth allowed Alluvia and Myr their independence immediately but the two did not treat their colonies with the same pragmatic respect..  Alluvia and Myr keep the Fringe worlds and their people in tight control and treat them as little more than cheap forced labor or cannon fodder.

What I kept wondering:  Where is Earth?  If Earth colonized Alluvia and Myr, then it presumably is still around.  Why does Earth have no role or voice in the Collective?  No ambassador, no trade, nothing.  That doesn’t make sense.

Characters were a notch above cardboard but they didn’t feel real to me.  Main character Aramis Reyne should be fun to read about.  He’s older, arthritic, tired of living on the edge of bankruptcy, tired of his former friends think him a traitor.  Somehow I just couldn’t get interested in him.  In the last third of the novel Reyne is extraordinarily gullible, first falling for the old “my friend told me” and then following a complete unknown to a set up ambush.  Nope.  Sorry, but if Reyne is that stupid then he wouldn’t have lived past the earlier uprising.

The backstory was a touch unbelievable too.  Sure, I can see Myr and Alluvia acting like overlords and treating the Fringe like serfs, but I can’t see the Fringe members of the Collective military going along with it, or at least not making some trouble along the way.  The political situation described is too fragile to last as long as it supposedly has.

Writing style was OK.  Dialogue and pacing were problematic but again the biggest issue is sheer lack of compelling interest.  I kept putting the story down and having a hard time remembering who was who and what was happening even just a day later.  I won’t pursue the series.

3 Stars

I received both books for free through Instafreebie

Excalibur Rising: Book 3 Flee the Crime Boss and the One-Eyed Man

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I loved the first book of Eileen Enwright Hodgetts Excalibur Rising series for its intriguing take on King Arthur and its quirky characters who felt like real people. Book 2 was a bit of a let down and Book 3 drops us with a thud.  In Book 2 Marcus and the peasant boy Dristan flee Albion to Earth; now in Book 3 Marcus and Todd and Freddie flee from two mob bosses.

Book 3 isn’t much fun.  Marcus and Freddie and Todd clutch at straws to find a way back to Albion.  Since Marcus just got back to Earth the whole thing feels like we are on a giant treadmill, rushing around and going nowhere.

The basic flow of the book is Freddie and Todd are on the run; Marcus and Dristan get back to Earth; everyone ends up at the inn with a dragon sign; Freddie, Todd and Marcus are now desperate to get back to Albion; Dristan sneaks off and Bors threatens everyone and acts nasty.  And at the end we on Earth might have a dragon hatching.

The writing as usual is good and Hodgetts introduces a couple new characters. Kevin, the local crop circle expert is great and Dristan develops as a character.

I am not sure whether I’ll read Book 4.

Book 3 is hard to rate.  Let’s say 3 stars.  Here are my reviews for Book 1 and Book 2.

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Excalibur Rising Book Two: What Happens When King Arthur Returns?

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I was eager to read Excalibur Rising Book Two, sequel to the unique Arthurian novel Excalibur Rising Book One by Eileen Enwright Hodgetts .  Excalibur Rising had unusual twists and characters, from a newscaster on the skids to a crime boss and a second world, one where Arthur truly reigned in the 1200s.  Book Two picks up right were Book One ended, and we spend the entire novel in Albion and meet a peasant family who finds a surprising sinkhole on their property.

Mordred is long dead but his heirs are very much alive and dedicated to killing Arthur and taking over the throne of Albion.  Violet and Marcus joined up with Arthur at the close of Book One, and now join him and his knights in Camelot.  Of course Mordred, after spending much time in our world, has excellent ideas for low-tech methods to bring down the castle.  Along the way his army conscripts all the peasants it can, including the blacksmith father we meet at the start of the book.

One problem that King Arthur has in all Arthurian legends is his lack of an heir.  He has Mordred, illegitimate and nasty, but no legitimate child.  Even if Arthur defeats Mordred Albion still faces a succession crisis and likely civil war.  Hodgetts finds a solution which is obvious and, to be blunt, a bit trite.

In this sequel we learn a little more about Albion along with Marcus and Violet, and as they do, decide it isn’t quite the place we want to live.  Albion is at war and Mordred will win.  Also, the ladies of the lake have hidden Albion from the rest of the world behind a mist.  What happens when Albion suddenly catches up with 800 years of history?

Characters and Setting

We don’t get much character development in Book Two.  People who are nasty get nastier, sneaky ones get sneakier, frightened ones get more scared.  The author keeps the characters we know and simply strengthens their characteristics.  The new peasant family are stock characters who didn’t engage me.

We learn more about Albion in Book Two and decide it’s not exactly the romantic paradise of the Arthurian legends.  Instead Marcus and Violet decide to return to Earth and start searching for a way home.  The way home is tied in with the Arthur’s solution to the succession, part of the reason the plot disappoints.

Overall

Overall Book Two is OK.  It is not as good as the first book which I rated 4+ stars to in this review.  Book 2 is good enough to finish reading and interesting enough that I looked forward to reading Book Three.

3+ Stars

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Not Dead Enough: The Windhaven Chronicles, Dark Fantasy

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Not Dead Enough: The Windhaven Chronicles by Watson Davis is a novella written as a series of short stories that fit together – and it is not the type of book that normally appeals to me.  It is dark.  How dark?  Very.  The main characters are a semi-dead demon trapped in a book and a vampire and the vampire is the better of the two.

I decided to read this after getting Watson Davis’ newsletter.  I get a lot of newsletters and most end up in the trash with me unsubscribed.  If the writer lavishes exclamation points or features teen girls I’m out of there!!  Like, totally out of there!!  (Teen-speak and exclamation points.  Ugh.)

Davis’ newsletter was good with light humor so I asked for the book – but didn’t know what Not Dead Enough was about until it arrived.  I opened it with a sinking feeling and ended up staying up an hour late to finish.  It was good, readable, with many interesting characters and an intriguing back story.  I am glad to have taken a chance.

The Empress has used sorcery to compel Gartan to obey her, to assassinate and kill and bring pain to himself and everyone else.  She is now semi-dead, trapped in a book that Gartan wants to destroy.  The stories feature Gartan’s creative methods for bibliocide, from tossing it into a volcano to feeding to a sea monster to magic.  Gartan slowly sheds his Empress-driven cruel madness and regains some humanity.

Initially he wants to destroy the book because he wants to destroy the Empress, but as he progresses he accepts that he is in part responsible for the mess and responsible to keep the book from relaunching the Empress.  There are hints that Gartan was not always a vampire and I’m curious whether he eventually is able to free himself from that curse.

Overall this was a very good surprise, well written, with deft handling of scene changes and many varied minor characters who pass in and out through Gartan’s parade.  I enjoyed the dialogue which was refreshing, down to earth and written the way you can imagine someone speaking.

I would give this a solid 4.  It was enjoyable and well written.  I intend to read more by Watson Davis (and stay subscribed to his newsletter.)

This was an Instafreebie book, meaning free.  The links here generate commission if you click them and purchase.

Painted Pathways – Fantasy with an Artistic Flair

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Painted Pathways by Melinda VanLone and Sonja Field is an intriguing fantasy with a different feel to it.  Lark Previn is an artist who moved to New York from a small rural town and like most artists, she is broke and worried.  She’s not able to recapture the free spirited art she did as a child and her work is not good enough to keep her scholarship.

Things change when she receives a mystery gift in the mail, a set of brushes and paints.  With those she is transfixed, completely taken over by the need to paint.  Several days later when she wakes up she finds she has recreated the carnival she had envisioned as a child.  But these paintings are magic.  They have real paths to the carnival and someone threatening wants them.  And her.

The story flows well although the plot is somewhat confusing.  People die.  Or do they?  She meets a hawk who is a man, and a man who is a type of vampire.  Lark wants to understand the paintings and how she makes them but is terrified of losing more days in a fugue, forgetting to eat, to drink, to feed her cat.

Overall this is an intriguing novel; in fact I looked at more by Melinda VanLone.  The plot could use a bit more clarity and the character is somewhat flat.  We never learn why Lark is connected to the carnival, why she continues to see and paint it.  She learns to paint stories as they occur, or do the stories happen because she paints them?  This isn’t a great novel, still a pleasant read.

3 Stars

I’m not including links because this is not available currently on Amazon.

 

Recursion: Book One of the Recursion Event Saga. OK Time Travel Novel

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Recursion by Brian J Walton starts with a bang as Molly, narrator and main character, slides out of the time travel tunnel into 1950s Paris and a burning hotel.  The tunnel station in 1950s Paris is in a hotel basement and the entire building is on fire.  More, Interlopers – other time travelers from unsanctioned groups – are present and shooting to kill.

I thought this might be one of the time travel series where bad guys are trying to change history and the Time Patrol (or whatever name the author chooses) try to keep history on the straight and narrow.  Books with this time travel plot can be a lot of fun and it’s always interesting to see how the author will spin the inevitable paradoxes.  Will the time travelers even be able to change history?  Will changes spawn new parallel worlds?  Will the resulting paradox cause total collapse?

Unfortunately Walters’ novel started to flag a bit as we got deeper into the story.  I kept waiting for Molly to ask some obvious questions, such as the one prompted by her mentor, Helen’s comment, “that’s what the ISD pretends to do.”  C’mon.  Who wouldn’t follow up on a lead in like that?

The paradoxes were left as paradoxes.  Molly had multiple memory sets of different pasts, married, not married, and the Interlopers were able to change events by having someone and their time traveler duplicate get close.   Walters kept using the phrase “own timeline” to describe going back or forwards in time during one’s own lifetime.

I finished the entire novel but was not intrigued enough to look for its sequels.  Molly as a character didn’t have a lot of depth, although in fairness it is hard to be deep when you are running for your life.  The back story looked interesting but the villain and his almost-magical powers seemed ridiculous.  If I were the bad guy in this story I’d be doing a lot different things than chasing Molly to find out what her Dad was up to.  The bad guy was cardboard, a stock villain character.

The writing was uneven.  The last third of the novel seemed disjointed and didn’t make a lot of sense while the first third was good.

Overall I’d give this 3 stars.  Keep in mind Walters is a fairly new author and may improve in future books.

I received a free copy via Instafreebie and the links here are referral links to Amazon.

Mini Reviews: Five Fantasy and Science Fiction Novellas to Miss

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These short reviews cover books that I want to remember not to try again.  Several were free from Instafreebie, meaning the authors are likely new and may improve in their later books.

A Magical Reckoning: Magic and Mischief Book 1

This is a set of 6 novellas about supernatural betrayal.  I only got partway through the first story because the back story is all about people who have [insert animal here] genes and thus have [insert favorite power] here.  The lead character has skunk genes that give her fatty glands in her back that secrete thiol, which can be either really really good stuff or not.  Unscrupulous evil people are dragooning skunk/people and forcibly draining their thiol.

Can we say “yuck”?

The writing wasn’t too bad.  N. R. Hariston, the author had a big backstory to tell and crammed as much as she could in the first few pages.  We know about the skunks, the evil dragoons, the dragon/people, the fact our lead is in some vigilante or police force.  What we don’t have is a reason to care about the character.  I decided supernatural betrayal is probably not a good sub-sub genre to pursue.

Warning!  Do Not Read this Story

Somehow I managed to finish this longish short story by Robert Jeschonek but it was a close one.  It isn’t very good.

Moon Men:  A Science Fiction Comedy

Author Chris Lowry describes this as extremely funny.  Not particularly.  It’s science fiction, sort of, given the aliens want to talk to our hero on the moon and he’s having a hard time getting there.  On the other hand, you can’t just point a rocket at the moon and expect to get exactly where you need to be.
I did finish it, mostly because I wanted to see what the aliens had to say but the story ended before our hero actually arrives.

Xander  An Incandescent Short Story

I didn’t get past the first page.  Main character is a teen boy with hormone issues.

Complicated Blue:  The Extraordinary Adventures of the Good Witch Anais Blue

This was boring and I quit almost immediately.
I don’t recommend any of these.

A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnson, Subtle Magic, Quiet Fantasy

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A Thousand Nights.  Doesn’t that sound like Scheherazade with the king who lets his wife live another night as long as she spins a tale he wants to hear?  E. K. Johnson’s A Thousand Nights is closer in spirit to Naomi Novik’s Uprooted than to the original Arabian Nights.

As in Uprooted girls are seized and taken from their homes, but unlike Novik’s tale the women are to marry the king and die after one night.  Our heroine – who is never named – knows that the king’s servants will choose her beautiful sister and instead puts herself forward to go in her place.  The wife doesn’t know what will happen or why the king takes his wives.  The other similarities lie in the grudging romance, the constant threat in the background of an otherwise placid country, fear, and sheer bloody mindedness that the heroine uses to keep her life and her wits.

I particularly liked the subtle magic and the nuances the wife must thread.  For example, she decides to stay with the king because she can survive but realizes no other lady could.  She gets a chance to kill her husband, but she knows a kingdom without an heir is a kingdom in chaos when contenders tear the country apart to grab the throne.  She realizes the kingdom tolerates the king because he is a just ruler who brings prosperity and peace despite sacrificing a young lady every month or two, so decides to conquer the demon…somehow.

Be warned that the story is slow in the beginning.  The wife does not know she will survive and she views everything she sees as the last time she sees it.  We go along with her as she wanders her palace suite, as she remembers her family’s tales, as she lets her husband hold her hands to eat her life.

A Thousand Nights is not for action junkies.  Don’t read this expecting fierce sword fights or blasts of magic.  Our heroine develops her magic as her sister builds her a memory shrine, in effect making her a small god while alive.  Her magic works from visions, where she is able to weave a fabric by imagining it, where she finds the metal that demons cannot tolerate by a waking dream.

Instead of action we have a bit of mystery, well-developed settings and emotion. A Thousand Nights delivers simple magic and understated romance, duty and emotional appeal.  And like Uprooted this is listed as YA, older teens but adults will enjoy it too; in fact it is likely more appealing to adults than to teens.

Overall this is an excellent novel.

4 Stars