More Books than Time

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

To Hold the Bridge – Old Kingdom Novella and More by Garth Nix

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Garth Nix published Sabriel, the first novel in his Abhorsen fantasy trilogy in 1995, ending with Abhorsen in 2003.  Since then we fans had to subsist on a novella, Nicholas Sayre and the Creature in the Case, published in Across the Wall in 2006.  The series is rich in world building, excellent characters, unusual use of fantasy themes, and quality of the writing.

To Hold the Bridge – Title Story

Nix used the same world but completely new characters in the novella To Hold the Bridge, published with other short stories in 2015.  We don’t see the royal family, Abhorsen or Clayrs.  The main character, Morghan, is a destitute orphan, bright, ambitious, tough and hard working.  He is handicapped with a bum arm but learned math, reading and some Charter magic by trading his work to an innkeeper in exchange for lessons.   The innkeeper was formerly a royal guard and thus educated and a minor Charter mage.

Morghan is taken on as an cadet in the Bridge Company, a firm that is building a great bridge that will increase trade and travel in the northern part of the Old Kingdom.  The company personnel combine engineering and magic and must be able to defend themselves against the semi-wild tribes people and Wild Magic practitioners.

Morghan worries about his future with the company, knowing he has nowhere else to go, and works hard for the Bridgemistress and his fellow engineers.  As often with Nix’s characters Morghan discovers unknown strength and character as he earns his place in the world.

This story was excellent.  It felt like a prequel to something else set in the same world but perhaps featuring regular Old Kingdom citizens.  My quibble with the novella was I wanted a map and there was none.  The newer E versions of the original Abhorsen include maps which I referred to a couple of times.

Other Stories in the Collection

A Handful of Ashes was my favorite.  It too featured young ladies coming of age, growing into their character and strength while defeating evil.

Infestation was an unusual twist on the vampire novel.  I was glad that these vamps were just plain icky, no glittering sparkling sexpots here!

An Unwelcome Guest was a funny take off on the Rapunzel story.

The other stories varied and I read two of them before.  Iron and Holly is a twist on the Saxon vs. Norman fight, and has been published elsewhere as was Old Friends.

This was categorized as YA fiction, mostly because several characters were 18 or so, just beginning their life’s path.  I’ve felt the Abhorsen books should have been categorized as adult fiction, although older teens will enjoy them too, and believe To Hold the Bridge also will appeal to adults.

Overall I recommend this collection of short stories and longer novellas.  Like all anthologies you may not like each story but will certainly enjoy some and likely find one or two that resonate in your heart.

4 Stars

 

Eleventh Book Is Not A Charm – Cast in Honor, Chronicles of Elantra by Michelle Sagara

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Cast in Honor is the 11th book in the Chronicles of Elantra, a series good enough that I read the first 10 books within a couple months last fall. Then a 6 month gap until now when our library could borrow Cast in Honor, published in late 2015. This review covers book 11 and the series in general.

The Good Points

Author Michelle Sagara built a wonderfully rich, complex world peopled with different types of people, all different. Two, Dragons and Barrani, are immortal, meaning they can be killed but don’t die of disease or old age. The two immortal people warred for millennia until the Dragon emperor established his rule in Elantra close to the Barrani primary place, The Halls. Dragons and Barrani buried the hatchet – more or less – but do not like or trust each other.

The elements themselves (earth, air, fire and water) have power and roles but are left rather mysterious and mystical. One of the most interesting characters is Evanton, the Keeper of the Elements. I was always glad to see Evanton with his wry sense of humor and quiet expertise.

The plot in books 2-10 move and are intriguing, although each has dull spots and times where you want to shake the main character, Kaylin and ask her to just grow up, will you?

The Weak Points

Unfortunately book 11 revisits and repeats the same problems as annoyed me in book 1 and occasionally in the other stories.

  • Too much telling and not enough showing
  • Lots and lots of thinking and not much action
  • Unclear motives and rationale
  • Plot elements that just happen and don’t seem to go anywhere
  • No character development
  • Sketchy and unexplained new characters and back stories with heavy doses of mysticism
  • Heroine Kaylin is unlikable, obtuse, defiantly and stubbornly ignorant of her magic, unwilling to learn to speak to her dragon familiar, to learn anything related to magic.  Yet she somehow manages to save the world in every book.
  • I don’t see how Sagara could build upon the new characters from Cast in Honor, and the book didn’t feel like a new story arc. Maybe it a throw away, a little lagniappe story tucked in a series where it didn’t fit.

I remember every high school English teacher telling us to show, not tell and it’s hard to do. Sagara wrote some complicated back story points that have to be told, but struggles to do so in any way other than just telling us.

We are told that Kaylin is perpetually late, has messy personal habits, is dedicated to her job as a Hawk (aka cop on the beat), fiercely loyal to her friends, not very trusting.  Sagara spends most of book 1 telling us these things. I almost tossed the first book back into the library return bag, but she had just enough hints of a real story that I read the series.

Besides the faults that Sagara tells us about, we can see that Kaylin is also rude, disrespectful, expects special treatment/is a spoiled brat, intellectually lazy and completely oriented to now, with no concern for future. Kaylin grew up hand to mouth (when lucky enough to have something in her hand to put in her mouth) so realize the spoiled brat part isn’t displayed in material ways but more in expectations as to how the world should operate and her unwillingness to learn.

Summary

Sagara’s Elantra is interesting and complex. She used the first several novels to help us understand the dynamics within the city and its history. For example, there are 5 fiefs in the center of Elantra, and I kept wondering why the all-powerful emperor didn’t just shove the fief lords out and take over. It’s not until book 3 or so that we realize the fiefs are quite different from medieval fiefs and a few books later find the fief lords are essential to maintain reality.

This is a series that you need to read in order as the plot elements and characters build upon each other book to book. You could read a couple of the earlier ones out of sequence but the last several follow one right after the other.

I almost didn’t finish the first book Cast in Shadow, but it was just that close to being good that I read on and went to the next. And the next, the next and the next, all the way through the 10th book. Now with book 11 Cast In Honor I’m back to wondering whether to bother going ahead. It just wasn’t that good.

3 Stars

The Butterfly Crest – Modern Fantasy – Japan, Myths and Travelogue

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I wanted to like The Butterfly Crest by Eva Vanrell.  The publisher describes a modern woman, Elena, who is caught in the endless war between pantheons.  It sounded so good and indeed the beginning was good, an auspicious sign.

Elena learns of an inheritance from her mother, who died 19 years ago, that awaits her in Japan, and travels there to retrieve whatever it may be.  She and her former guardian stay in an authentic Old Japan inn in Kyoto where they enjoy several days sightseeing with a fellow guest.  She retrieves her inheritance, a striking necklace but decides to leave it with the strange bank that her mother used.

Suddenly everything changes.  The fellow guest in one breath turns from kind friend to killer, attacking and trying to rape Elena.  She is saved by mystery man Eiry, learns she is somehow instrumental in a millennia-long civil war among pantheons and must leave everything she knows.

The Good Parts

Author Vanrell obviously knows and loves ancient Kyoto and shares her love of Japanese culture and ritual with us readers.  This got a little tedious after a while – we are reading a novel, not a travelogue – but she loves it so much that we have to share.  She did her homework on the various pantheons too, introducing all sorts of minor gods and goddesses.

The writing quality is good, albeit too much of it.  The author would have a better and more readable story with good editing and removed about 40% of the words.

The cover is beautiful, like a classic Japan scroll.

The Bad Parts

Elena didn’t seem real to me.  She is meant to be a strong female lead but she just seemed like a character, not a real person.  I didn’t like her.

The plot was contrived.  I couldn’t care less about the pantheons’ war nor about Elena’s place in the war, nor about the obvious romance.

Summary

I just didn’t like the book, couldn’t care about any of the people or their conflicts, didn’t care about the pantheons or Elena.  When the best part of a fantasy novel is the travelogue description you know it is not a book for you.

The publisher furnished a free copy via NetGalley in exchange for a review.   I always try to finish every NetGalley book, since it is a trust, but this one was a real challenge and a chore.  I skimmed the last half.  I noticed most reviewers on Amazon raved about the story and the characters (and agreed about editing the endless travelogue) so maybe it was just me.

2 Stars  (The writing quality and descriptions were too good to give it any less.)

Refreshingly Different – The Unhappy Medium – Contemporary Fantasy by T. J. Brown

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The Unhappy Medium was a happy surprise!  While the blurb made it clear that it isn’t a typical ghost/medium/seance/haunting book, I was delighted  just how different The Unhappy Medium is. I was engaged from the get-go with the character and the setting and plot but if you don’t care for books about science in the back story this novel may not be for you.

Set in today’s England it features brilliant physicist Dr Newton Barlow as he blazes a stellar career researching nuclear fusion and a side media line debunking the supernatural.  Sadly he is less wise than smart.

Cold Fusion Anyone?

Newton first accepts post doc money from a R&D company then accepts their job offer to explore the tantalizing hints he sees of nuclear fusion from collapsing bubbles.  He’s unhappy that his employers restrict him from publishing or talking to others, but very glad of the income and research support.  At least he’s happy until the 2008 crash when the company’s investors start asking for solid results – NOW.  Newton tries to soft pedal his findings but the more he explains the more the media pushes:  Just when will we get cheap power from bubble fusion?  Next decade?  Sooner?

Poor Newton has no leg to stand on and he’s alienated so many that he has no allies.  Soon he has no job.  Then he has no wife (which is no loss whatsoever), no daughter, no house.  All he has is a tiny income, an old Citroen car and booze.

I liked this part of the story.  We got to know Newton and the box he managed to fall into.  Plus the research process is fascinating and author T. J. Brown did a great job showing us how commercial realities and science sometimes run together – and sometimes clash.

The Medium

Newton even manages to get fired from a popular (aka crank) science magazine because he’s too depressed and too upright to write garbage.  Just when he’s hit the all time low Newton learns that his old friend and fellow skeptic, Dr. Sixsmith, is terminally ill.  He rushes to the hospital but is too late.  That is, he’s too late until Dr. Sixsmith shows up in person.

Dr. Sixsmith pulls Newton into a brand new world, where he works for an ancient Greek (also dead), making sure that the bad dead guys stay dead and the good dead guys stay remembered.  Despite his skepticism Newton does excellent work and is soon dedicated to the effort.

Characters

Newton is excellent, a full person, still not terribly humble even after his drastic fall.  His girlfriend and daughter are less well drawn.  The best characters were the Greek dead guy bureaucrat, the vicar and the arch villain.   Outside of Newton the characterization was good but not great.

Humor and Plot

The Unhappy Medium is funny, full of snarky, dry humor.  Newton’s ex-wife adds a whole layer of nasty that the author manages to turn into funny.

The sinister property developers and evil arch villain are dedicated to evil, or, for the developers, to profits without consideration of any morality or social considerations.  For example their fondest wish is to raze St. Paul’s in London and build row houses.  Just listening to their spiel gives one the creeps – yet we have to smile at how deluded they are, how their dedication to money and destruction leaves them unhappy and living in a cold dump.

The arch villain isn’t funny because there are people like that, folks who are perfectly happy to kill everyone in the name of terror and control.  He’s a maniac but a scary one.

The book has some goofy theological backdrops, perfectly fine for a fantasy, but I do hope no one takes these seriously.

Overall The Unhappy Medium is a 4 star book.  If the other characters were a bit better done and the plot just a tad more focused it would be 5 stars.  I’ll look for more by author T. J. Brown.

 

Foxglove Summer – City Boy Goes to Country – Rivers of London – Ben Aaronovitch

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Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series gets better and better.  We last left Peter Grant devastated by a massive betrayal in Broken Homes.  Weeks later in Foxglove Summer he’s off to Herefordshire to check a former Folly member, now retired, as a possible suspect in a case of two missing 11 year old girls.  Peter quickly rules the former wizard from suspicion and offers his help to the local police who are overwhelmed.

Peter is pretty sure this will be a straight forward police case and is looking forward to something simple – no wizardry, no Faceless Man, no Tasers, no Mother Thames or her brood.  His happy certainty lasts right until he checks out the girls’ cell phones, found abandoned and non functional.  Peter recognizes the tell-tale pitting of electronics exposed to magic.

This is our first time seeing Peter operate alone and he does a grand job.  He searches all the past witness statements for “oddities” and sure enough, finds that one of the girls had an invisible friend. Sleuthing the modern way, with cheapo cell phones set up to register magic, plus plenty of gumshoe work and listening to what’s not said yields success.

Peter’s developed his magic skills immensely, witness the fact he could blow out fence gates on the run, something Nightingale said only about half the older generation could do.  He gets tantalizing clues about Nightingale and the debacle at Ettersberg and further insight into magic’s place in the world beyond London.

New Characters

Peter’s been entranced by Beverly Brook, sort-of 20-something daughter of Mama Thames and this time she shows up to help him out.  He helps her too, in several interesting ways.  Beverly is more human when she’s with Peter but she still has her river goddess innate presence.

We meet several new characters:  DCI Windrow and Inspector Edmondson, the leads on the kidnapping case, Dominic Croft, whom Windrow assigns to work with Peter, normally shrewd journalist Sharon Pike who bizarrely accuses the cops of covering up the real culprit, offering as evidence a piece of the plastic backing from a candy bar, the parents, Hugh Oswald the former wizard now bee keeper and Mellissa his granddaughter who may be part bee herself.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see Dominic or Sharon knock on the Folly door sometime to learn magic.

Aaronovitch makes these people real to us.  We don’t get a full character dissection on any of them but he shows us enough that we recognize them.  They are types yes, but with enough added humanity that they are people, not cardboard cutouts.

Setting

Peter’s way out of his element in the wilds of  Herefordshire but in true Peter Grant spirit quickly learns his way around and gets familiar enough with the local background to spot anomalies in the reforestation efforts.  He’s a amazing person whom I’d like to meet sometime.

The only map is on the front cover and I’m not familiar with Herefordshire – good thing we have Google maps and Google Earth! – but you don’t need to know the real countryside to follow the idea of wooded hills, pastures, fields, small towns, ridges and creeks.  Aaronovitch gives enough detail to make it interesting without trying to make it too realistic.

Plot

The plot was great.  As with all the Rivers of London novels we have lots of unanswered questions.  Who is the fairy queen and why did she want the girls?  Why did she want Peter and what did she plan to use him for?  Why did the unicorns chase the escaping girls right into the arms of Peter, Beverly and Dominic?  How did the fairy queen make a second, identical girl?

And last, how on earth would Peter et al explain the second daughter? And that they were giving the spare girl, who happened to be the biological human daughter, to Fleet to raise?

Summary

I have loved all the Rivers of London novels, but if I had to pick a favorite it would be a tie among Midnight Riot, Broken Homes and this one, Foxglove Summer.  It’s fun seeing Peter grow personally and as a wizard, London commentaries are hilarious, tension ever increasing, and minor characters are fun and well developed with just a few sentences.

5 Stars

 

Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge – Drink Up and Kill Monsters

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Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge starts fast and fun, when new business grad Bailey Chen is attacked as she walks home from her job as a bar back.  Luckily she drank a screwdriver before leaving because her attackers were monsters – tremens – and the screwdriver – when made just exactly perfectly – imparts super strength.

Barkeepers are magicians who keep the world safe from monsters and get their super powers by mixing cocktails exactly right and using pure ingredients.  They are members of the Cupbearers, dedicated to keeping the world safe from tremens and use the Obvlinum to erase memories from us non-barkeepers.  (Presumably they make the drinks slightly wrong when serving to us regular customers.)

New idea, yes!  Great concept, unfortunately the rest of the book fell a bit short.

Once past the opener, Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge read like YA fiction, with Bailey, her high school best friend Zane, and Zane’s girlfriend Mona the mysterious, forming a love triangle. In between they serve drinks and fight monsters and worry about the politics in the bar keeping hierarchy.

I didn’t like the characters.  Bailey got As in high school and college by memorizing and makes flash cards about the company that she’s interviewing for a business job. She doesn’t know what she wants to be, only what she wants to own (apartment in trendy but cheap part of town), and as she herself put it, is a teenager grown old, not an adult.

Zane was on again/off again, inconsistent in loyalty and love, self-centered.  The other characters were equally boring and a politically correct mix of genders and backgrounds.  None seemed to exhibit particularly high moral standards or interest in much beyond food, sex, drinking and killing monsters.

The most interesting parts of Last Call at the Nightshade Lounge were the drink recipes and tidbits culled from the barkeeper’s manual, The Devil’s Water Dictionary.  These snippets had the same fun, tongue in cheek feel as the opening scene.

3 Stars.  The concept is 4 stars, original and could be fun, the teenage angst and modest characterization are distracting enough to warrant the lower rating.

Marry the Queen, Get the Kingdom: The King of Attolia

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Megan Whalen Turner delivers another solid novel in her The Queen’s Thief fantasy series.  The King of Attolia picks up a few months after The Queen of Attolia with Eugenides married to Attolia, but reluctant to assume the king’s power or take authority from his wife.  Unfortunately, just because Gen is reluctant does not mean others are squeamish about usurping power; all it does is make him look weak.

We see the action through Costis, a member of the Queen’s guard. The King of Attolia opens with Costis sitting in his room contemplating execution and disgrace after hitting King Eugenides in the face.   Gen comes into see him and decides to make Costis his bodyguard instead of hanging him.

Costis then witnesses Gen’s approach:  Gen lets his gentlemen/courtiers run over him; he never is seen seeking his wife’s bed; he seems bored and flighty during court; he does nothing when a noble composes a witty song about what (supposedly) didn’t happen on his wedding night.  Despite Gen’s past escapades as the Thief of Eddis, the nobility and court believe him lightweight.

Over time Costis sees that Gen is in fact aware of every slight and we watch along with Costis as Gen is wounded fighting off an assassin team.  One of my favorite episodes is when Gen tracks down a finance minister for a crash course on types of wheat, then hustles one of the wheat-growing nobles out of bed to confront him with tax evasion for reporting the wrong type of wheat.  Of course no one believes that it was Gen who did the legwork; even the cheating noble thinks someone must have betrayed him.

Slowly, very slowly, Gen believes his wife when she asks him to take on his authority, and slowly he digs himself out of the hole he let the court push him into.  Eventually Gen assumes his proper place as the King of Attolia.

Summary

I enjoyed all three books in The Queen’s Thief series.  Turner gets the cultural and geographic settings just right and captures the feeling of menace and danger hanging over Gen.  The court scenes are delightful as are the confrontations with various villainous wanna-bes.  She built Gen into a real person and in this novel, also brings Costis to life.  He’s a foil for Gen, but takes on a more solid character through the novel.

The King of Attolia is fantasy because everything takes place in Attolia, an imaginary country based on ancient Greece and because the gods are active now and then.  There is no magic, no quest, no talisman to seek or to destroy.  Using a fantasy setting without the heroic trimings lets author Turner spend her time on making the people and the setting and conflicts interesting and believable.

Libraries classify The King of Attolia as YA along with the previous two books, The Thief and The Queen of Attolia.  The Thief is a bit lighthearted and has younger characters, fun for older teens.  The Queen of Attolia is more sober, with more serious conflicts and character development, suitable for teens and adults.  Likewise adults will enjoy The King of Attolia as will teens.

5 Stars

 

Broken Homes – Supernatural Mystery Suspense Fantasy – Ben Aaronovitch

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Picking favorite books is a little picking favorite kids; you can’t.  So far I’ve loved all of Ben Aaronovitch’s Peter Grant/Rivers of London series; Midnight Riot was grand, introducing us to Peter, his buddy Lesley, boss Inspector Nightingale, crypto-pathologist Dr Walid, assorted semi-supernatural rivers and semi-dead bad guys.  Moon Over Soho gave us jazz vampires and introduced the Faceless Man.  Whispers Underground was just a tiny step down the wow! scale as we plodded through London’s sewers and discovered the Quiet Folk.

Now we’ve Broken Homes, combining the best of the first three with more suspense and mystery.  Inspector Nightingale goes into action, Peter and Lesley chase bad guys, and best of all, Peter does his usual intuitive/random/unfocused policing.

I enjoy Peter’s curiosity and intuitive feel for hidden problems.  Combined with his talent for messing up, his unique approach to problems makes him feel like someone I know.  Peter tells the story himself, using his own colloquial slang grammar (“me and Lesley”) and shares his thoughts as he goes.  He is refreshing, honest with himself and it’s fun to ride along inside his head.

The book works on multiple levels.  It’s a police/mystery/suspense story as Peter discovers the plot and sleuths connections that are as wispy as cobwebs, a character story, and a wizard/magic fantasy.  Peter is the common element and he’s a great character, well thought out, rounded, real.

Broken Homes ramps up the stakes for Peter and Nightingale.  Earlier we danced around small disasters and caught glimpses of a larger threat; this time we can see more.  The Faceless Man is an example. Inspector Nightingale calls the Faceless Man a criminal, and so he is, but his aims are hidden until the end when he tells Peter he is pursuing power, more magic power than he can safely use within himself.

Broken Homes has great secondary characters, Betsy and Kevin of the slightly shady Tankridge family and Jake Phillips, socialist activist and balcony gardener.  (His garden sounded wonderful.)

Aaronovitch uses tiny details to make bit players real.  Example is how he presents Jake Phillips as dignified, older, dedicated in just a short paragraph.  Jake is completely unembarrassed when Peter catches him stooping to put a notice in Peter’s Skytower mail slot – a vastly undignified position.  Jake needs help to stand up, so we feel his age and arthritic back.

These encounters make the story richer, more real and add humor.  In fact Broken Homes had several laugh out loud scenes, particularly Peter’s comments on architecture and decorating.  Plus we got a rich list of new British slang terms and food types; I particularly liked reading about suet jam pudding.  For the uninitiated it is not the English version of Eskimo ice cream but a cross between a shortening-rich pastry, a steamed bread and jelly roll.  Maybe someday I’ll make one.

Broken Homes took the Rivers of London series on a slight turn that should result in better stories, a longer series, more difficulties and more realistic suspense.  Earlier we tiptoed through the tulips with Peter – despite horrible moments and murders in Midnight Riot it mostly seemed like magic was fun – but now it’s serious.  There are ethically-challenged wizards who don’t care whom they hurt (even if they do draw the line at mass murder) and there is something in the Folly basement…

Five Stars.

 

Decoding British-isms or English the Way Peter Grant Speaks

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I kept getting sidetracked when reading Ben Aaronovitch’s Broken Homes because I was curious about Peter Grant’s British-isms even when context made the meaning clear.  I kept my phone open to Wikipedia and Google and Dictionary and after a few hours reading as much online as in the book I decided to emulate Peter and note down what I found.  Then I read the book all the way through again without stopping – it is that good!

Kathy’s Guide to Peter Grant’s British-isms

Breeze Block = this one is grand.  It’s a cement block, and after living through 20 Michigan winters in a cement block house, “breeze block” is the perfect name.

Crittal strip window.  Crittal is an English window manufacturer, so I’m guessing this is a narrow transom window.

Damp Course = this one turned out to be my ignorance of building, not a British-ism at all.  It’s the waterproof layer one puts in a house.

Flat Packed Furniture = knocked down, stuff you buy in a box and assemble per the easy instructions.

Muggins = myself, me.

Mullered = beat up.

“Isn’t It” = rhetorical type question, way to end a statement without actually saying “duh, you dummy”.

Shebeen = pretty darn informal market, originally one selling unlicensed liquor

Tin = can.  (Yes, I know, anyone who reads any books by English novelists should know this one!)

Jam & Suet Pudding = Sort of a cross between jelly roll, pastry and lard in a steamed dessert. You make a pastry using suet (the cow version of lard and just as healthy), roll up with jam, then steam over boiling water.  Remember our English friends call desserts “puddings” and cookies are “biscuits”.  (Before I read the recipe I feared it might be a jam version of Eskimo ice cream.  Luckily for our English friends’ health, not so.)

Fried Slice = fried piece of bread.  Really.  Think of French toast but without the egg coating.

Candy Floss = cotton candy.

75 Inch Samsung Television in a Poor Person’s Apartment = Clue that said poor person might be collecting televisions that fall off trucks (or lorries).

Garden = yard, as in your front / side / back yard with lawn, bushes, trees and maybe a garden.

Krio = a real language, sort of a pidgin that Sierra Leone residents who originally migrated from Nova Scotia, ex slaves and similar developed.

Jumper = sweater.  This one used to throw me until I looked it up.  We call sleeveless dresses you wear over turtlenecks “jumpers” and they are ladies’ wear, not for men.  English men wear jumpers that are crew neck sweaters.

Artic = a type of articulated bus.

Lorry = truck.  This is one of the basics, like Hoovering for vacuuming or loo for bathroom.

Biro = ball point pen, so named because a gentleman named Biro invented them!

Council Housing = subsidized housing.  This was a fascinating topic, interesting to see differences between English and American solutions to house poorer people.  The town we lived in had subsidized housing but it looked just like regular apartment buildings, or sometimes people got vouchers (or equivalent) to rent a house.  It’s a little different in big cities where well-meaning planners built huge housing projects that today sadly sometimes are assaulted by gangs and may be rather nasty and unsafe.

Per Wikipedia at one time about 25% of all families lived in council housing; I don’t think it was ever so high here.  From the photos and descriptions council housing ranged from individual houses to more commonly duplexes, 4-apartment buildings and on up.  Enormous complexes like Sky Garden apparently got a bad rep, just as the mammoth projects did in the US.

Semi = duplex, two houses stuck together, often mirror images of each other.

Terrace Housing = town house, two story apartments built together in a single structure, each separate entrance.

Estates, as in Council Estates, to Live on an Estate = I’m not sure why the names include “estates” but it apparently refers to a group of homes of any design that are managed together.  I thought this was an odd term, and to live on an estate sounded strange to my ears.  My guess is that the term drifted over from the old lord of the manor who had his tenant farmers who lived on his estate.

Sink Estate = really bad locale, don’t go after dark type of council estate.

There you have it, British decoded for American ears.  Now back to the book…

 

 

 

The Queen of Attolia – Megan Whalen Turner – The Queen’s Thief Book 2

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Like its predecessor, The Thief, Megan Turner’s The Queen of Attolia is engrossing, a novel targeted towards older teens that mature readers will enjoy.  (Read my review of The Thief here.)

The Queen of Attolia opens several months after The Thief, with our friend Eugenides once more skulking through a royal palace, this time the queen’s palace in Attolia.  The queen is furious at losing face when Eugenides escaped her earlier and is determined to capture Eugenides.  Eugenides escapes the palace chased by a mob of soldiers and dogs into a fence, gets a concussion and the queen captures him.  The queen decides to teach him a lesson and get revenge on her fellow ruler, the queen of Eddis, and cuts off his right hand.  Once Eugenides is healed enough to survive the journey the queen returns him to Eddis.

Attolia’s revenge sparks a low-intensity war, with raids and blockades, one that neither country can win while both further threatened by Sounis and Mede.  Eugenides and the Eddis queen divert Sounis, leaving the Medes embedded in Attolia’s court and eager to take over.

A Novel For Adults

The Queen of Attolia is a more mature, more thoughtful book than The Thief.  Publisher Harper Collins marketed it under their YA imprint and it’s listed that way in our library system and on Amazon.  Older teens will love the story but it is written for adults, even more so than The Thief.

Eugenides narrated The Thief in the first person, letting us revel in his cleverness and his success outwitting Sounis and Attolia.  Author Turner presented each episode developed and finished it as we expect in novels for adults, but with a sense of fun and lightheartedness.  The Magus talked of the looming threats from Mede that could rip to shreds all three kingdoms’ security ad freedom.   But overall The Thief avoided deeper issues or emotions.

The characters in Queen of Attolia are older, more thoughtful, more aware of the larger geopolitical landscape.  Turner uses the threats to each country’s future and to each individual to show tension between duty and love, imperatives and desires.

Turner relates the story in the third person, covering Eugenides and Attolia in turn, then shifting to the supporting characters while the plot steadily narrows their choices. The Mede ambassador manipulates a way to inveigle Attolia to welcome (more or less) the Medean forces – since treaties prohibit the Medean forces from landing on the mainland without an invitation.  Attolia must then decide whom to ally with, Eddis or Mede, and to what extent to build the alliance.

Characters

The Queen of Attolia deals as much with Attolia (the woman) as with Eugenides.  Turner develops her character by showing us how she responds to threats now and how she dealt years earlier with the problem of succeeding her father without being supplanted by her unloving fiance and erstwhile father-in-law.  She learned to be ruthless, direct when needed and discrete when that served.  She has forgotten how to love, if in fact she ever did.

Eugenides is very well done.  One thing I particularly liked was he was afraid, terrified in fact, of dying by inches, of losing his sight, being maimed.  So often heroes in YA fantasies are too caught up in their nobility to feel fear, and this was one reason I felt the book appealed to older audiences.  He too could be ruthless or charming, whichever he needed.

Nahuseresh, Mede ambassador to Attolia, is masterfully done.  He is wise, yet so constrained by his expectations for a proper female role (i.e., not as Queen Regnant) that Attolia can manipulate him – while he believes he is the puppet master, whispering advice and insinuating himself into Attolia’s favor.

Summary

I enjoyed The Queen of Attolia very much.  It is not a challenging book, no strange names, fairly short, straightforward plot, but the characters were well done and the plot moved along.  I’m looking forward to borrowing book #4, The King of Attolia.  4 Stars.