More Books than Time

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

Time Travel for Historians 2 – A Symphony of Echoes – Jodi Taylor Chronicles of St. Mary’s

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Jodi Taylor continues her frantic race up and down Time while Max struggles with an emotional seesaw in her second book, A Symphony of Echoes, in her Chronicles of St. Mary’s.  We start off with Max and best friend Kal jaunting off to late Victorian London to see Jack the Ripper.  Unfortunately they find Jack.  And worse, bring it back with them.

Plot

Max deals with Jack for the first quarter of the novel, followed immediately by: Max rescues Leon from dastards who kidnap and bring him to a future St. Mary’s where they also take over and kill most of the personnel (reason hinted at but not really explained), then Max takes over as temporary director of this future unit, visits Mauritius to abscond with some dodos as a works outing, returns home, witnesses Thomas Beckett’s assassination, gets incandescently angry with Leon, wrecks his car and drives it into the lake (necessitating tens of thousands worth of repairs),  gets stranded in Nineveh, gets rescued, reconciles with Leon, shoves Mary Queen of Scots into a locked room with Bothwell, and ends with her learning the next mission is to Troy.

Yes, the plot truly is this busy.  The emotional highs and lows go along in parallel with the action as Taylor shows us what Max is doing and we see how she reacts to and feels about Leon and her friends.  This is a book you read for the plot more than for the people.

There are plot weak spots.  For example, why would someone select Jack the Ripper/Victorian London when they can choose any time or place?

And why would Ronan and accomplices want to capture Max so badly that they first kidnap Leon and leave coordinates on the mirror in the men’s room?  I understand one villain hates Max but really, there should be easier ways to get her alone and vulnerable than to go through the fuss of getting Leon.

Max speculates the villains want to control a St. Mary’s point in time in order to have a base of operations; that makes sense but also invalidates kidnapping Leon.  They would have to know that the original St. Mary’s wouldn’t abandon Leon without a fight.

Characters

While Taylor shows us Max as a person with emotional depth she leaves most of the other characters less finished.  She tells us that Tim Peterson is calm and solid, warm and caring, but we see Tim in relationship to Max, through Max’s eyes.  We don’t get to know Tim.  We get more acquainted with Leon, but he too remains a bit vague.  Taylor concentrates on her plot and Max and everyone else is something more than backdrop and less than a full person.

Max’s reaction when Leon spurns her is overwrought.  Max and Leon have gone through some rough spots before but this time she goes up like a rocket and simply cannot stop being angry.  Max gives in to temper and severs relations with Leon in the first three books in the series and I think it’s flaw that the author corrects in the later novels.  I get tired of Max acting like a kid.

Overall

A Symphony of Echoes is very good, enjoyable, and a very fast read.  Don’t budget more than an evening for this despite the length.  The story moves so fast that I got caught up in the plot and, to some extent, the characters.  The book is plot-heavy, not so much driven by characters as it drives the characters and us readers.

I’ve read all of Jodi Taylor’s novels and this is one of the weaker ones, plot heavy and character light.  Mind you I still loved it despite the flaws.

4 Stars (3 Stars if it weren’t so entertaining)

 

 

 

Time Travel for Historians – Just One Damned Thing After Another – Jodi Taylor

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Just One Damned Thing After Another is a lot of fun wrapped around people and history, full of quirky humor and an incitement to delve into Wikipedia.  (I only thought I knew some of these events!)  It is the first of several books featuring Max, a historian working at St. Mary’s Institute for Historical Research which “investigate major historical events in contemporary time”, i.e., sends historians back in time to observe and record what really happened.

Max is a complex character who tries desperately to be one-dimensional, hard-drinking, loud, incorrigibly curious, uncaring, but her bursts of common sense and exposure to death and misery make her far more than the cardboard cutout she wants to be.  Max prides herself on her attitude and her “we can do this” approach, but gets sidetracked by the people around her and the human misery she views as part of her job.

Overall the book is reasonably well-written, although it jumps around a lot and we often lose the sense of time passing.  Everyone around Max is gung-ho dedicated to history (or to historically-inspired R&D) to the point where it seems almost a caricature.  Would you really be that thrilled to go witness a hospital blowing up after The Battle of the Somme?

These events take a toll on Max and the others.  She and a few others compartmentalize, separate their feelings from their experiences.  Some leave St. Mary’s.  Some act stupid.  To me the biggest weakness of this first novel and all the others is how poorly the characters face and deal with the emotional toll from seeing other people die, including all too often, their friends and colleagues.

I loved the plausible historical accuracy – of course the author is guessing for meat to add to history’s bones – and the novel inspired me to check references to learn more about the background and key players in these scenarios.

This first novel takes Max and colleagues back to Edward the Confessor’s coronation, World War 1 and the Cretaceous, back to the Cretaceous twice (one an unauthorized rescue), on to the burning Library of Alexandria to rescue scrolls. That’s quite a range although Max manages to get injured in two of the events and wet on by colleague and friend Peterson in the other.  History, you see, is jealous of herself and barely tolerates historians observing.  She does not tolerate even tiny interference, such as warning a mugging victim.

The plot is full and busy and moves at lightening speed.

There are plot holes.  For example, why does Thirsk University fund St. Mary’s?  How on earth can it justify the enormous expense for historical research?  (We learn in a later novella that St. Mary’s founder actually captures British government support and patronage which filters through Thrisk.)  Even so it is hard to imagine the funding nightmares.

There is one serious sex scene in this first novel that I did not see as necessary.  Just One Damned Thing After Another has the usual vulgarities and a couple blasphemies against the name of the Lord.  I didn’t like either the smutty scenes or the blasphemy, but I’ve learned to read past them.

The biggest flaw from a narrative / literature perspective is the constant harping on historians being disaster magnets.  They apparently have the attention span of a fly and can’t stop themselves from acting stupid.  Jodi Taylor uses this as a convenient catch-all to explain any inconsistencies or flights of fancy that creep in.  I understand someone not wanting to stop a good thing (like watching dinosaurs) to deal with housekeeping, but the characters do this all the time and it gets a little annoying.

Overall this is a very enjoyable start to a very enjoyable series.  I would not recommend reading all the books immediately after one another because some of the flaws become obnoxious with repititon.  I do recommend that you read the first three books close together, Just One Damned Thing After Another, A Symphony of Echoes, and A Second Chance because these flow one after the other.

4 Stars – Almost 5

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Monster Hunter Memoirs: Sinners by John Ringo and Larry Correia

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The Monster Hunter Files, an anthology of stories set in Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International world, prompted me to read other books by Larry Correia or set in his world.  John Ringo has written three Monster Hunter novels, that star Chad Gardenier, also called Iron Hand, set about 30 years prior to the rest of the series.  I reviewed the first novel, Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge here.  Ringo tells a pretty good story although he does go off on tangents.

Ringo’s second novel is Monster Hunter Memoirs: Sinners, tells more about Chad, this time fighting waves of monster invasions in New Orleans.

I didn’t enjoy this second book quite as much.  Sinners has plenty of action – New Orleans attracts plenty of people that believe in and practice witchcraft or sorcery – and this activity fuels the ongoing problems.  Sinners does not have quite the character depth.  We already know a lot about Chad from Grunge; we know he’s fatalistic, unwilling to say no to carnal desires, a lounge lizard, brave, smart, a natural leader, and has a good sense of humor.  Sinners builds on this Chad foundation but now we see him more as a hardened fighter, less funny, less introspective, less humble and more obnoxious.

Sinners has some very good points.  Although Chad is a girl aficionado Ringo avoids smut.  Chad talks a lot but thankfully avoids giving us the details up close and in person.

I really appreciated the Catholic, religious angle.  Remember, Chad died in Grunge and came back because St. Peter asked him to.  He converted to Catholicism in Grunge and although he’s surely not the most faithful worshiper, he believes and takes advantage of the sacraments to strengthen himself and cleanse his soul.  Ringo covers this with a light touch, just a few sentences.  If you don’t believe you can still enjoy the book.

Maybe I liked Sinners less because I read Monster Hunter International at the same time, and simply had a surfeit of monster, guns and violence.  I don’t know.  I will read further books in Ringo’s series because he is so good at telling a story, but I think I will wait a while for those.

3 Stars

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The Mongrel Mage – Recluse Novel by L. E. Modesitt, Jr. – Not His Best

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I read everything Modesitt writes although sometimes I wonder why.  Some of his novels are excellent, full of interesting, well-developed characters, rich setting and back story, detailed world building.  A few are less rewarding to read due to an abundance of minutia, slow pacing and wooden dialogue, but all have something to offer.

The Mongrel Mage falls on the less-exciting side of the scale.  Modesitt places the events a few centuries, after The Chaos Balance when Cyador falls to the Accursed Forest, and before The Towers of the Sunset when Creslin establishes Recluse and the Westwind falls.  That’s an interesting time, when white and black mages co-exist, before the white order establishes their mage-ocracy and there should be plenty of room for Modesitt to write more stories in this setting.

Beltur lives in Fenard with his uncle Kaerylt, a strong white mage.  Beltur learns white chaos magic but isn’t very good at it.  The Prefect of Gallos sends his uncle, his uncle’s apprentice Sydon, and Beltur along with a small squad to check out some problems with the herders in the southern grasslands part of Gallos.  This section of the novel lasts a long time, pages and pages of riding, meeting with people, eating, riding some more.  Oddly, Beltur is viewed as weak but he is very good at casting concealment.

When the group returns to Fenard the Prefect summons them, attacks and kills uncle Kaerylt while Beltur escapes.  He flees to a healer he is attracted to, who connects him to black mage Athaal who is returning to Elpatra, part of Spidlar.  This then kicks off the middle part of the story where Beltur travels with Athaal, learns how to be a black mage and handle order, then gets himself employed to forge cupridium.

Eventually Gallos decides to invade Spidlar and attack Elpatra.  Beltur is drafted to act as a mage in support of a reconnaissance company and of course manages to save the country.

Major Problems with the Book

Beltur Character.

Beltur is a typical older teen wanna-be-entitled brat.  Uncle Kaerylt treats him well but not any better than he treats apprentice Sydon, and Beltur gets all the dirty jobs because Sydon dumps them off unless Uncle sees it.  But our hero manages to stifle his sighs and grin and bear it because he is so, so, so something.  Frankly I don’t see a problem with making apprentices or nephews work, and labor division never feels fair to those doing the work.  I kept wanting to yell at Beltur to get a grip, quit your whining and get on with it.

When he escapes Fenard, Beltur discovers he is actually more an order mage than a chaos mage, and darn good at it too.  In fact he’s pretty much the strongest guy around!  But of course he manages to remain humble etc., etc.

Then when he’s drafted he discovers that some of the other mages, those who have been order mages all their lives, think he’s a mongrel, not a real black, doesn’t deserve the pretty girl, and work to get him killed.  There is absolutely nothing given that would explain their attitude aside from jealousy over the girl and the fact that Beltur started as a white.  Beltur figures it’s because he isn’t good looking and is so powerful despite being trained as a white.

In a word, Beltur is obnoxious.

Beltur felt like a hanger onto which Modesitt hung the suit “Black Order Mage / Young Guy Finding Himself” and not like a real person.  ALL of Modesitt’s heroes are misunderstood, suffering types, ALL are stronger than/wiser than/better than and all are beset by other who want to kill/exploit/dominate them.  It gets tiresome.

Glacial Pacing.

After we spent a third of the book riding through grasslands, then another 10% or so journeying from Fenard to Elpatra, we then go on yet more tours with the reconnaissance company.  Modesitt used to write tight novels that balanced action with description, but he’s gotten way more descriptive in many of his recent books.  He doesn’t use the extra filler to develop his characters or increase tension.

The result is a book that is less enjoyable to read, doesn’t feel as meaty.

Formality.

Beltur himself says that he was raised by his father, then his uncle, to be quite formal and disciplined.  Formality itself isn’t a problem, but it adds to the overall slowness and lack of coherency.

For example, in all Modesitt’s books characters all conform to some dress code.  Black mages wear black, healers wear black and green, so on.  When they talk to each other they don’t make small talk or chit chat, they talk serious.  When they talk to people outside their group they are pure business.  Beltur buys a set of clothes from a tailor who appears quite interesting but never even attempts to talk to her.

The lack of normal conversation often underlies many of the plot conflicts.  Majer Waeltur didn’t know Beltur could shield himself and others or toss back chaos bolts.  Of course he didn’t ask Beltur either.  No one in a Modesitt book ever thinks to just talk to someone.

Political Correctness

Let’s see.  We get a short musing on income inequality when Beltur realizes he made more in a couple days forging cupridium blades – which no one has done for centuries – than his friend Athaal made in a week spotting diseased sheep and plants.  We have a gay couple whom some see as “different”, almost mongrels themselves, and of course it’s only the evil mages who dislike Beltur who think this.  Once again traders care about money and status and nothing else, certainly not people or fairness or helping anyone.  Beltur just sadly shakes his head at the overall stupidity, cupidity of it all.  Gaah, I dislike this character!

Lots of science fiction and fantasy authors shove their politics into their books, sometimes by having the main character explain something (see John Ringo) or by matter-of-fact comments that of course thus and such is…  I don’t care for it unless the politics are directly part of the story.  In this case they feel shoved in.

No Map!

Not sure who fell down on this one, but the action all takes place in Gallos and Spidlar.  The book includes a map of the whole of the world and more detailed map of Hamor.  It was hard to keep straight all the roads to Elpatra, which side of the river we were on, why the better road was on the side opposite from the city, where Axalt was, Suthya, so on.

Put a nice, detailed map of Elpatra and regions around it, and a map of Candar that shows all these countries and cities.

Good Points

As usual Modesitt builds on his already well-developed alternate world, Recluse.  The backstory is hinted, not rehashed.

Overall

I used to buy most Modesitt novels because I re-read every one, many over and over.  But the later Recluse novels aren’t worth re-reading.  I don’t expect I’ll re-read Mongrel Mage either, although I’ll ask our library for the sequel, Outcasts of Order.

3 Stars

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Assassin’s Price by L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Imager Series, Finally a Different Hero

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If you read any of L. E. Modesitt, Jr.’s novels you are familiar with the basic plot and characters in his books.  We have the quintessential hero, a man (or woman in the Soprano Sorceress series) who has unusual talents, sees deeper and farther than anyone else, is self-controlled and emotionally disciplined, struggles to right deep-seated wrongs despite some amount of suffering.  The hero is always the person with the talent, the person who grins and ruefully shakes his head at the unfairness and how other don’t understand.  The hero is never the actual political leader.

In fact, most of Modesitt’s rulers and leaders are obsessed with power and money and seem to care little for the health of their people.  It’s the talented hero who cares and who forces the leader/ruler into governing wisely.  The other books in the third Imager series, Madness in Solidar and Treachery’s Tools, fit this formula.  Alastar is the enormously powerful imager who leads the collegium to once again serve Solidar and who pushes ruler Rex Lorien to act.

Assassin’s Price is refreshingly different as to the hero.  Alastar and the imagers play supporting roles and the lead is young Charyn, heir to Lorien.  The novel opens with Charyn acting as do most of Modesitt’s young heirs, petulantly demanding better pistols to overcome his inability to hit targets when he shoots.  We don’t see what exactly causes it, but Charyn grows up, matures to take responsible interest in commerce, innovation, people, the country’s finances, legal matters.

Charyn’s father doesn’t want him involved in much, seemingly resents his son’s interest, so Charyn does some of his work quietly.  For example, he opens a trading account at the new exchange so he can learn about the factoring businesses that seem to be growing ever larger and richer.

Villains in the past novels play returning roles in Assassin’s Price and we see new, different threats and conspiracies.  We get hints at the end that Charyn may increase council involvement in governing Solidar, which may eventually cause the Rex to fade out.  (From the first Imager novels set several hundred years after Assassin’s Price we know the Rex institution does not last.)  It will be interesting to see how this plays out in sequels.

Pacing

I’ve complained about Modesitt’s glacial pacing in past novels, books that go on and on without telling us anything new about the people or that have odd scenes that do nothing to advance the plot.  People walk and armies march for pages and pages, never really doing much in several Recluce novels, notably Heritage of Cyador and The Mongrel Mage.  (The bird attack in Antiagon Fire is a good example of an odd scene that adds bulk without content.)

Assassin’s Price moves along well.  There are a few slow spots and a few scenes that move a little too quickly.  The confrontations with Ryel and with his wife just happen, blink, and you miss them.  But overall this novel has the quality I enjoyed so much with Imager and Scholar.  It is by far the best of this new series.

Overall

I enjoyed Assassin’s Price considerably more than most of Modesitt’s recent work.   He has a story to tell, an interesting and likable character, decent writing, his usual solid world building.

4 Stars

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Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge by John Ringo in Larry Correia MHI Universe

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I enjoyed Monster Hunter Files short stories (see review here) and requested several more in the series from our library.  First one up was Monster Hunter Memoirs:  Grunge, written by John Ringo using the backstory and characters that Larry Correia created for his Monster Hunter International series.

John Ringo writes well-crafted, fast-paced near future science fiction and fantasy novels, many excellent and a few (Ghost) that are unreadable if you aren’t into smutty violence.  He is generous to fault sharing his thoughts about society and politics.  The other thing Ringo novels have is bad language, lots and lots of cussing and vulgarities.  Grunge has cussing and violence and sociology and it also has a good story with interesting, likable characters.

Synopsis

Our lead character, Chad, has two professors for parents, mom an unrepentant hippy type and dad a womanizer who hunts coeds.  Chad dislikes his mother – it is mutual, in fact she hates him – and for spite decides to get a perfect C average, 2.00000, in high school.  That is harder than it sounds since you have to know the right answers in order to get half of them wrong.  He joins the Marines and dies in the Beirut barracks bombing.

The story picks up when St. Peter asks Chad to forego heaven in favor of a mission on Earth.  Chad agrees, wakes up into a shattered, agonizing body, heals in Bethseda and looks for the sign God promised him, 57.  The 57 eventually leads him to a zombie outbreak where he meets the Monster Control Bureau (FBI) and MHI (Monster Hunter International, a for-profit eradication company).  The story goes on from there, through his training and first many missions.

Grunge has some excellent, funny moments that highlight the dead serious situation that Chad is tasks to resolve.  The Old Ones are waking up and causing mischief – think vampires, werewolves, giant blood-sucking spiders, zombies, ghouls etc. and etc.  The Fae are not pretty Disney creatures but powerful creatures who do not like humans.  The vampires do not sparkle and do not seduce nice young ladies.  To quote Chad, if an Old One or Fae got into the world the whole world would scream for decades until there is no one left.

Characters

Thus Chad justifies his life.  He hunts monsters for a living, plays violin as a hobby, studies languages for two PhDs and is a lounge lizard the rest of the time.  He looks at cute coeds the way the rest of us look at spaghetti (or chocolate).  He becomes a Catholic but somehow doesn’t quite get the 6th commandment and thinks fornication is a Sunday-Saturday avocation.

Chad makes the novel work.  Ringo did a great job on him; he feels like a real person with virtues and failings, odd habits and quirks. Ringo doesn’t spend as much time on the other characters, enough that they too feel like real people, although with less detail.

Now for the less pleasant parts.  Chad talks about girls but we do not have sex scenes, more lust scenes.  There are a couple blasphemies, F bombs and other vulgarities, lots of violence.  Chad talks about his guns, but nowhere near as much or as annoyingly, as Larry Correia did in Monster Hunter International.  (I’ve not figured out why, but a lot of science fiction authors bore the heck out of me by describing space ships and lasers in overabundant detail, and it seems we can’t get away from it even with books like this with not a space ship in sight.  All I need to know is that 1., it’s a gun; 2., it’s big; and 3., it kills things.  I do not care what type and how big it is and what type of ammunition it uses, but apparently a lot of science fiction readers enjoy that stuff.  Me, I skim through those sections if the story is good and toss the book if it’s not.)

I recommend Monster Hunter Memoirs:  Grunge if you enjoy fast-paced science fiction-y fantasy or lots of action or a complex character.

4 Stars

The Monster Hunter Files Anthology of Fun Short Stories by 18 Fantasy Authors

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I had never heard of Larry Coreia or the Monster Hunter International novels before finding this anthology, The Monster Hunter Files, by chance in our library’s New Book section.  The cover is lurid, with a lady spiffed up in a typical ridiculous costume of bare midriff with cleavage and lots of black and red, slashing a nasty looking scaly creature with two long swords.  Anyone who reads fantasy knows the covers often feature midriffs and cleavage, so we overlook that and check out the author list and theme.  Hmm.  Two authors that I often like, Jim Butcher and John Ringo.  Why not give it a try?

Thistle, by Larry Correia (original Monster Hunter International author) is excellent, albeit with a twist ending.  The story has plenty of action and delivers a real sense of the desert Southwest, its dusty heat, beat up barely-making-ends-meet homes, the sun, the dry vegetation.  We meet Owen Pitt, main character in the first Monster Hunter novel, and see him risk his life to save a little girl.  Thistle is pretty good, enough that I requested a few more books in the series from our library.

Small Problems by Jim Butcher was one of my favorites.  We have the slightly askew character with unexpected depths of humanity and heroism, a unique set of challenges, plus plenty of danger.  In other words, classic Jim Butcher.  I hope we meet up with Sid again in other Monster Hunter books.

Darkness Under the Mountain by Mike Kupari felt a little uneven although enjoyable.  I felt it ended just when it needed to start.

A Knight of the Enchanted Forest is a real treat, picking up on the Monster Hunter universe’s version of “elves” and introducing Glad, a young girl who likes Twinkies and Ho Hos and wins at Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune.  Glad is also a hard-nosed realist who can’t help it that no one believes that her science teacher really is a werewolf.  That’s OK because she’s willing to tackle the gnomes infesting the Enchanted Forest trailer park.  The author, Jessica Day George, combines a light-hearted feeling with a true sense of mission – those gnomes really are repulsive – and brings Glad, her father Winston and Her Majesty to life.

The story was good enough that I looked for novels by George; however she writes mostly YA fantasy, one of which I tried and did not care for, and Silver In The Blood, a fantasy meant for adults and older teens, which is quite good.

Another author who is new to me is Quincy J. Allen, writer of Sons of the Father.  This particular story is intense plot with fast action, not a lot of characterization or setting, an enjoyable read.

John Ringo’s The Case of the Ghastly Spectre reminds me a bit of his Hot Gate series and The Last Centurion, a good story, well written, some pontificating, a main character who wins with his head, not just his fists or his gun.

Hunter Born by Sarah A Hoyt is another story with a young lady heroine, this time Julie Shackleford age 16 and going to her first prom.  Sadly her date is an incubus who has other things in mind than dancing.

The other stories are also pretty good.  Unlike many anthologies all the contributors deliver at least a decent tale, some good and a few very good to excellent.  All the authors kept to the feel of the Monster Hunter International universe; several picked up on characters that got tiny mentions in other novels and built full stories around them.  The Jessica Day George is a good example of this.

The editors are to be commended for delivering a consistent good quality product in an anthology where the unifying factor is the underlying theme and background story.  Overall excellent job.

4 Stars

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Review: A Plague of Giants by Kevin Hearne Early Pacing Issues, Otherwise Excellent

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A Plague of Giants is the first book in Kevin Hearne’s new series, The Seven Kennings.  I enjoyed Hearne’s Iron Druid series and was glad to get a copy of this new novel from NetGalley.  The good news is, NetGalley expects one to 1) Finish and 2) Review each book.  The bad news?  We have to 1) Finish and 2) Review.  I almost didn’t make it through #1.

A Plague of Giants begins with a bang.  A tidal mariner sees an invasion force, scuttles many ships and warns her country’s leaders in time to repel the invaders.  Right away this gets us interested.  What is a tidal mariner, who are these invaders, what is going on here?  We get hints of the magic system with this tidal mariner’s story:  She expends part of her life each time she uses her kenning (magical gift, in her case water-related), and large tasks cost her years.  That sounds intriguing!

I settled in to read the rest…only the next section bogged down.  And it got worse.  Slower, and slower until the only things keeping me reading were a guilty sense of duty and a dim memory that thee Iron Druid novels have slow spots that are not too long.

By 25% of the way through (thank you Kindle for telling me how much more to endure) I thought seriously about skimming the rest and writing a short, negative review.  By 30% through the book starts to pick up.  Some of the disparate strands of story start to come together, book has more action than politics, we learn about a few new characters with interesting stories.

The Good Points

Hearne uses the device of a bard recreating and retelling first-person stories to show snippets from 10 characters in 6 countries.  Not all the character have kennings and of those who do, they differ.  This method gives us a plausible sense of in-person viewpoint.

Some of the characters are fascinating.  We are supposed to dislike the viceroy Melishev Lohmet, although I find him quite interesting.  He is conniving, sneaky, sly, dedicated to himself first, last and always. He is despicable – but interesting and I enjoy his sections.  Gondel the scholar and Nel Kit ben Sah are also well done.

Plague of Giants has a plethora of plot, big, little, over-arching, tiny subs, enough that it is challenging to keep the characters and their plot involvements straight.  I wasn’t sure at first whether the two giant invasions were connected, and if not, which was the main plot.  Hearne hints at some plots; for example, one narrator’s house guest seems more than she appears on the surface.  On the good side he wraps up the main subplot by the end.

The Not So Good Points

It seemed to take Hearne several iterations to get the bard-telling-the-story method working well.  I wouldn’t say the first few viewpoints were confusing – it was always clear who was talking – but it wasn’t clear how they worked together, or even if they were supposed to connect.

After a few character sequences the bard starts each new session by introducing the character and sketching the background, how the little vignette fit in time compared to other events.  This is helpful to keep us focused and helps the pacing.

Characterization is uneven.  Some of the characters stari out as semi-reasonable folk, then slide down to nasty, murderous thugs, notably Garin Mogen.  Mogen is lava-born, controls fire, leads his people to escape the volcano eruption that destroys their home.  He is quick tempered and won’t let soft considerations stop him from settling where he wants. Mogen views things like ownership, permission, unauthorized forestry as soft, simply unimportant.  That part makes sense.  What doesn’t make much sense is that Mogen not only has no qualms about killing people with fire, he relishes it.  He wants to kill, to burn everyone who stands in his way.  At first Mogen was one of the most interesting people, but we readers quickly decide he needs to go, just as fast as someone can get him gone.

I don’t recall reading it in the novel, but it is as though one becomes the element one controls and it takes the kenning bearer over.  If that’s the case then it’s hard to see how Mogen had kept his people together as long as he did.

We are supposed to like Abhinava Khose (Abi) but I find him tedious, overly dramatic, in fact a typical older teen who thinks they are important.  This is not a flaw in the writer, but my reaction to a spoiled brat who later makes good, solely by accident.  In fact I think it’s to Hearne’s credit that he creates characters that are so realistic.

Some of the plot points were hinted.  Refugee Elynea lives with Dervan, the main POV character and a close friend of his country’s elected ruler.  She wants a job but when Dervan finds her one she is angry.  Supposedly she is angry because she didn’t need his help, but I feel her response to situations is slightly off all the way.  No doubt we’ll see more of Elynea in sequels.

The book does not have an ending.  Hearne stops telling the story at a point where a couple sub-plots finish and the main plot takes a breather, but it is clear that the story will continue in sequels.  I prefer books like The Iron Druid novels that flow sequentially, but one can enjoy reading them out of order.

There is no map and we readers need one.

Did I mention pace?  The excruciating slow start nearly swamps out the good points.  I don’t know whether a little more editing would help, or staying with one character longer at the beginning would make it more readable.

The pacing problems make A Plague of Giants hard to rate.  Do I base it on the last half, 4 stars?  The first quarter, 1 star?  Let’s say overall 3 stars.  Good story, interesting characters but a pace that derails the reader.

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Daughters of the Storm by Kay Wilkins Character-Driven Fantasy

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This book should have been great, featuring five sisters, daughters of the King of Thyrsland, each different.  One is the warrior queen-to-be, one a seflish romantic, one almost overwhelmed with her gift of foretelling, one an immoral tart and one drowning in religion and madness.  The king is ill and his wife, Gudrun, fears and hates Bluebell, her oldest stepdaughter, and distrusts and dislikes the other sisters.  She clings to her son from her first marriage and hopes to maneuver him into eventually ruling in place of warrior Bluebell.  Doesn’t that sound like an enticing novel?

The setting and back story should be great too.  Thyrsland follows the old religion, which doesn’t differentiate between men and women for ruling; the romantic sister is married to Thyrsland’s old enemy who calculates that switching to the Trimartyr religion will push his son to the fore as Thyrsland’s eventual ruler.

Unfortunately the story doesn’t jell.  The plot has many strands and parallel stories that don’t make full use of the inherent conflicts.  It felt like an extended set up instead of a story.  It didn’t hold my interest after the first fifth or so.

Plus, as a book that relies on characters, there is no sister to like, none is the eventual heroine.  All the sisters are flawed and Willow, Ivy and Rose are despicable.  I like Bluebell the best.  She cares for her country more than herself and is smart, cagey, realizes the religious threat.  On the other hand she has a genius for making people hate her (mostly deserved) and doesn’t seem to care that she exacerbates the threat from raiders, step mother, step brother and her erstwhile brother-in-law.

This novel did not work for me.   I got it from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Had it not been for that I would have deleted it after the first fifth, as it was I managed to skim the last half.  I won’t look for the sequels.

2 Stars

The Girl In The Tower Katherine Arden Sequel to The Bear and The Nightingale Russian Fantasy

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The Girl in the Tower by Katherine Arden already has garnered high praise and (to date) solid 5 star reviews on Amazon, just as did its predecessor The Bear and the Nightingale.  The books are set in early medieval Muscovy ruled by princes under Tatar overlords.  The people are deeply religious, superstitious, uneducated, yet as Arden shows us, admirable.

I enjoyed reading about early  medieval Rus/Muscovy in both novels as it is an era and locale we seldom see in fiction.  The people must be fierce and hardy to survive the long cold winters, muddy springs and falls.  As the author noted, Vasya knows nothing of luxury.  To her being warm, having enough to eat, having dry socks are luxurious.  Ideas of beautiful furniture, wall hangings that are as much decoration as aids to warmth, of good food all winter, these are as fantastical as snowdrops in January.

We are meant to admire and identify with main character Vasya, the girl who found the snowdrops in winter, but I didn’t find her likable.

Vasya has dilemmas:

  • She can see the small household spirits, the ones in the bathhouse, the oven, the stable that almost no one else can, which in a superstitious age marked her as horribly different, a witch.
  • Vasya is a girl in an era when a high-born girl either married or entered the convent.  Vasya wants neither of these; she wants adventure, she wants to travel.
  • She refuses to compromise or to decide what to do.

Reading the first half of the novel was like wading through icy cold water.  We know nothing good can come of Vasya’s determination, there is no good ending possible.  Once Vasya meets Prince Dmitrii and she and her brother Sasha lie to him that she is a young man, she has even fewer options and none are palatable.

Prince Dmitrii grows in this sequel.  He had a small role in The Bear and the Nighingale, portrayed as young, somewhat self-indulgent.  In this sequel Dmitrii acts as a prince.  He routs bandits, tries to protect his people from avaricious Tatars, abhors lies.

The relationship between frost demon Morosko and Vasya is frustrating to read.  It’s obvious something is going on with Vasya’s sapphire and that Morosko feels more for Vasya than he admits or that he believes he should.  Vasya too has strong feelings but is confused as to what those are exactly.  She is intrigued by Morosko, is grateful to him, enjoys his company but finds him difficult and opaque and she does not love him.

I don’t care for teen fantasy novels where the 16 year old idiot girl captivates the 2000 year old vampire/godlet/demon/what-have-you because it’s just stupid.  To Arden’s credit the Vasya/Morosko semi relationship is believable – it has a quid pro quo at its heart although Vasya doesn’t know it – but the relationship still suffers from the underlying problems that Vasya is young and naive and doesn’t know her own heart.

My overall problem with The Girl in the Tower is that it is not enjoyable reading.  Every page brings the characters closer to doom.  We know there is no happy ending, that nothing will be resolved – because the underlying problem cannot be solved – and that makes it difficult to read.  Every page brought Vasya into more tanglements, more lies, more risk.

Vasya can not control herself while in Moscow, cannot follow her sister’s and brother’s commands to be quiet, to stay in the background.  She takes a bad situation and made it far worse for herself and those she claims to love, just because she cannot control her curiosity, her bravado.  I liked her less and less as the novel progressed.

This novel will get many accolades and probably awards, but I do not like it.  The writing is excellent; the setting is unusual and intriguing, but the unlikable heroine Vasya and miserable options she makes for herself make it heavy going.  In fact, had this not been a NetGalley where I’m obliged to write a review, I would have put the book aside and not finished.

If you are familiar with The Two Towers, the second book in the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkein, you know that it too has a sense of doom, of bad choices and no good options, of happy endings seemingly out of reach.  Yet Tolkein manages to create a sense of hope, with excellent characters and a plot that moves along enough to keep us happy, reading despite the overarching feeling of menace.  Arden’s novel lacks those elements, leaving only the feeling of menace, of doom, of a foreboding future.  Had I liked Vasya no doubt I’d like the novel, but as it stands, I do not.

How do I rate this?  Do I give it high marks for the excellent writing, originality, strong sense of mood, great setting?  Or rate lower because I do not enjoy it, do not like the character?

3 Stars.  2 Stars because I had to force myself to finish, 4 stars because of high quality writing