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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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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.)

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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.

 

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

 

A Couple of So-So Novels – Devan Chronicles and Jyra

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The God Decrees: Devan Chronicles Book 1 by Mark E. Cooper is classical epic fantasy set in a quasi-medieval world.  Cooper writes well and tries a few twists on some standard fantasy elements.  Lord Keverin’s best friend and most capable wizard gives his life to bring a strong wizard from a distant world into Keverin’s castle to help defend and defeat invaders.  The twist is the champion turns out to be Julia, a dedicated gymnast practicing for the Olympic games.  Julia does not want to be in Keverin’s world and certainly does not want to defeat the oncoming army by killing them with magic.

Add to the mix the normal me-Tarzan you-Jane nonsense, feuding and treacherous neighbors, an archbishop who accuses Julia of witchcraft and heresy and you have the first novel, The God Decrees.  Somehow the mix just didn’t work for me and I abandoned the book about 3/4 through the first book in the 4-book series.  It felt trite and not compelling enough to read; I couldn’t care about the characters.

2 Stars

I read Jyra because author Blake B. Rivers sent a request to join his advanced readers group; the email was friendly and short so I moved Jyra up and read it the other evening.

Rivers noted Jyra is his first ever novel.  Unfortunately main character Jyra is dry and factual, who knowingly struggles with social clues, sarcasm, nuances in conversation and motives.  I’m not sure why he chose such a challenging heroine because the story itself is actually quite good and would have been enjoyable with a more interesting character.

Jyra’s story is about parallel or nested worlds all under attack from Something.  Jyra knows this Something is real because she has seen it.  I would like to see Rivers explore the seeming contradiction between the dry, factual Jyra and her readiness to believe in and act upon what almost anyone else would believe a dream.

Overall the story is decent.  Rivers has the germ of a good plot here and I hope he develops it, perhaps along with developing Jyra into a real person instead of a facsimile.

3 Stars

 

Wreckers Gate – Classic Epic Fantasy From a New Author

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Wreckers Gate intrigued me with its cover and blurb.  General Wulf Rome is too successful, too charismatic, too uncouth for his king and the nobles.  The king sends him on a should-be suicide mission that ended up with Rome and his friend Quyloc finding a strange ax in the desert that enables Rome to usurp the throne.  The ax somehow links to the imprisoned god Melekath and when Rome takes the ax it allows Melekath’s primary servants to escape and prepare for Melekath’s eventual full release.

Wreckers Gate reminded me of David Eddings’ multi-volume works.  Way back in the distant past goddess Xochitl imprisoned Melekath. Xochitl’s primary servant Lowellin comes to Rome and Quyloc to warn them of the upcoming apocalyptic battle, and tells Quyloc to visit the frightening other world Pente Akka for a weapon that will battle Melekath.  Lowellin also visits the Tenders, the now-disgraced sisterhood who served goddess Xochitl until they allowed themselves to be corrupted.

Writing Style

The plot is similar to Eddings’ and other authors’, with the humans fighting for one god against another and with deep-seated evil rolling over the lands.  I am not an Eddings fan but his best books grab my interest and I care about the characters.  I was able to stay aloof from the characters and events in Wreckers Gate; it was interesting and I was moderately curious, but ultimately it remained only story, it did not feel personal.

Wreckers Gate is author Eric T. Knight’s first novel and it is pretty good considering.  He creates an interesting back story that may come out more in the sequels.  We can feel the underlying tension between the nobility and their new ruler Rome, among the Tenders, between Quyloc and Lowellin.  There are hints that there is more to the Xochitl-Melkath story that will come out in sequels.

Knight is at his best describing the settings.  The city had smells and noise; the desert had wind and scorching heat and bitter cold; the Tenders’ home was shabby and poor.

The overall writing quality was good.  The story was clear even when switching among viewpoints and Knight sketches in the back story without spending undue time rehashing the forgotten past.  Pacing was pretty good although I thought it bogged down a bit when we were with the Tenders.

First in a Series

Wreckers Gate is the first in a series of five books.  With long series like this we always have the problem of losing continuity, forgetting what happened in earlier books, or the writer himself may take some odd shortcuts. All five books are out now available on Amazon as a boxed set here.

Also the story is pretty easy to follow because it has one main theme:  Melkath is escaping.  We need to remember who is on whose side, but there are not that many individual characters who play large roles so it’s easy to keep track.  I put the novel down several times to read other books that were more compelling and never had a problem picking back up or remembering who is who.

If you like epic fantasy and don’t mind long book series you will likely enjoy Wreckers Gate.  It’s well-written with reasonably interesting back story, plot and characters.

That said, I’m not sure I want to read 5 books in this series (I don’t much like epic fantasy series).  I will read the second book and see whether it’s compelling enough to continue.

3 Stars