Grac's book blog

'A Test of Wills' by Charles Todd

'A Test of Wills' by Charles Todd - anyone who's been reading this blog for a while will know that I'm pretty OCD about reading books in series order and this is the first in a series I'd heard about but never got around to picking up...

'A Test of Wills' is set in the aftermath of World War I, with our protagonist returning from the war to take up his previous post as a detective inspector at Scotland Yard. He'd been an officer, of course, and during his time at the Somme had been forced to have one of his men executed for cowardice in the face of the enemy; this man, Hamish McLean, now haunts Rutledge as a mocking voice in the back of his mind.

His first case on returning to work, as outlined in this book, couldn't be a worse fit for Rutledge as it involves the murder of one war hero potentially by another, with the only witness a fellow sufferer of shell shock. What Rutledge doesn't realise is that he's been given the case, not because of his experience pre-war but in the hope that he'll fail and destroy his own career in the process.

The only problem with this book, which is pretty well written otherwise with some twists I didn't see coming, is the way that point of view jumps around, sometimes from paragraph to paragraph. That can be quite distracting as it's not quite enought to figure out what's going on but still enough to throw off the reader. The series continues in 'Wings of Fire' and I expect I'll be adding it to my list of things to pick up if I get the chance...

'The Thief-Taker's Apprentice' by Stephen Deas

'The Thief-Taker's Apprentice' by Stephen Deas - having read Deas' other books ('The Adamantine Palace' and 'King of the Crags') quite recently, I was pleased to pick this one up in my local charity shop.

There's a tiny bit of crossover between the world of 'The Thief-Taker's Apprentice' and those others, but not sufficient that it can't be read regardless - the basic premise is that it's the story of Berren, who is a thief and a pretty good one, ekeing out a living in a city where theft can often be punished by execution. Watching one particular execution, Berren's path crosses that of Syannis, master thief-taker, and you can probably figure out from the book's title what happens next...

Apparently this is Deas' attempt at writing young adult fiction and unfortunately it's pretty dull. Berren doesn't really have much about him to cause the reader to be sympathetic to his situation, as he's pretty much the traditional teenager - unhappy with what he has and then equally unhappy when he gets what he wants.

This is meant to be the first in a series, with 'The Warlock's Shadow' due out in a couple of months, but there's not really anything about it that would make me want to continue on with Berren and Syannis.

'Sailing to Sarantium' by Guy Gavriel Kay

'Sailing to Sarantium' by Guy Gavriel Kay - as far as I can recall, I don't think I've ever read anything else by this author, although I've seen their books (and particularly those comprising the Fionavar series) around. This one was another charity shop pick, the blurb summoning up just enough interest to make me shell out £1 for a decently thick trade paperback.

The main character in 'Sailing to Sarantium' is Crispin, a mosaicist who has been summoned to the eponymous city at the behest of the emperor and who is woefully unprepared for the political intrigues into which he finds himself thrust. It has to be said from the outset that Kay has clearly based his worldbuilding on Rome and Byzantium, which is both comforting because of its familiarity and a little aggravating because of the infodumps that happen every so often courtesy of the research fairy.

It also feels a little like the writer had various ideas he wanted to get in to the story, whether or not they really fit - the birds that Crispin's friend makes being one of them, which I guess may figure more in the second half of the story? In themselves, those birds are an intriguing idea and it seems a shame that they're subsumed into another storyline altogether.

Anyway, I have picked up the second book in the series (duology?), 'Lord of Emperors', from the local inter-library loan scheme and look forward to seeing how this all works out. I've seen a few reviews on Amazon that also say this isn't the author's best work, so I may well check out some more stuff by him at some point...

'The Guild of the Cowry Catchers, books 2&3' by Abigail Hilton

'The Guild of the Cowry Catchers' by Abigail Hilton - back in April, I read and reviewed the first book in this series, 'Embers', which was sucessful in getting me to buy books 2 and 3. Despite the fact I knew these were part of a series of five, I apparently have zero self-control because I decided to start reading book 2 ('Flames') and was so sucked in by the events of that volume that I went straight on to book 3 ('Ashes') and now must wait for the remainder!

Like the first book, these stories are set in a world which is a series of islands, under the rule of a mysterious religious order, inhabited by grishnards (human from the waist up, griffin below) and other shelts (part-human and part various animals). The main characters are Gerard, former prince disowned by his father for marrying the wrong woman and now Captain of a corrupt police force, and Silveo, acerbic admiral with the requisite Troubled Past who always seems to have wheels working within wheels.

In 'Flames', Gerard starts to question the way things are and goes on to pay a terrible price firstly for doubting the way things are (just what is the relationship between the inhabitants of the islands and the gryphons?) and secondly for not doing quite as he's ordered. 'Ashes' continues immediately where the second book leaves off, with Gerard's life in tatters, betrayed by one he'd thought was his friend. It's only when he discovers the truth about what happened, and that there are folks worse off than he is, that Gerard starts to regain some purpose in his life once more.

On her website, the author says 'fall 2011' for book 4 ('Out of the Ashes') and I have to say I very much can't wait...

'Blood of Ambrose' by James Enge

'Blood of Ambrose' by James Enge - I've been quite fortunate recently in that my closest charity shop seems to get donations of science fiction and fantasy books I want to read, some of which then get recycled there by me once I'm done with them. This book is another from that source, an unexpectedly good example of the fantasy genre from a writer I hadn't previously heard of...

The basic premise of 'Blood of Ambrose' is that it's the story of two of the children of Merlin and Nimue, who are pretty nigh immortal and have a variety of powers - Ambrosia has been the mistress of a king and her descendants have ruled that kingdom for centuries even as she continues to live among them, while her brother Morlock is something of a bye-word for everything dark and mysterious. When the last of her line is still a child and his future is threatened by the man who's meant to protect both the kingdom and its king, young King Lathmar is forced to flee for his life.

What I really liked about this book, alongside the laconic prose, is that there's clear effort involved to make the main characters three dimensional. It would be easy to make both Ambrosia and Morlock caricatures rather than characters - Morlock in particular manages to escape his own reputation and end up doing things he knows he's probably going to regret, sometimes just because he ought not to do them. We also see Lathmar grow up, both physically and emotionally, to the point where he's ready to take on the role his royal birth has given him.

There are at least two more books already out featuring Morlock - 'This Crooked Way' and 'The Wolf Age' - if they're anything like as good as 'Blood of Ambrose', I'm more than happy to add another author to my list.

'The Rough Collier' by Pat McIntosh

'The Rough Collier' by Pat McIntosh - in direct contrast to the previous book, it was once again a pleasure to return to this series of books, featuring lawyer and reluctant detective Gil Cunningham. I don't think I've written about these books since I reinstated this blog, so let me just say that this is book 5 of a consistently excellent series set in the unusual surroundings of medieval Scotland.

In 'The Rough Collier' Gil and his new wife are visiting Gil's mother when he's called to investigate a body that has been dug up from a local peat bog. The village priest is certain it's a missing man from the nearby colliery but Gil isn't so sure, particularly when the explanation given for how deep the body was found involves the use of witchcraft!

Sure enough, not only is there the mystery around the corpse itself to solve, hampered as much as helped by the curiosity of the local folk for this unexpected entertainment, there also proves to be a mystery around the missing collier as well. This time around, as before, both Gil and Alys play their part in solving both mysteries, even if some things don't work out quite how everyone had hoped...

Another enjoyable outing, which makes me look forward to the next book in the series - 'The Stolen Voice' - these books continue to be ones I'd recommend to anyone who likes historical detectives and is a little bored with the current overload of Elizabethan-focussed plots.

'The Windup Girl' by Paolo Bacigalupi

'The Windup Girl' by Paolo Bacigalupi - I'm trying to resist the urge to begin this review with the words 'I really wanted to like this book, but...' and I can't help it because they really say it all. There are so many good things about 'The Windup Girl', so much thought has clearly gone into the writing of it and I can totally see why it picked up both the Hugo and Nebula awards. But even so, it's a book I just can't quite bring myself to actually like.

The book is set in a future where many of the world's cities have been lost to the sea, in a Bangkok where only pumps and dikes keep the water at bay. This particular version of Thailand is both reliant on imported foodstocks (carefully genetically modified to resist a variety of nasty diseases but also designed not to seed themselves, so the companies have a captive market). Despite this, the Thais have a seedbank carefully hidden, meaning they are not as reliant as the much-despised calorie companies would like and one of their representatives is trying to plot a coup which will also have the side-effect of making that happen.

The eponymous Windup Girl (Emiko) is also genetically engineered, a servant designed for perfect loyalty abandoned by her Japanese master in the slums of Bangkok. Naturally our two main characters meet and things happen for very little apparent reason I could see. There's a degree of ingenuity in how the character of Emiko is drawn, with various deliberate flaws from the design that leads to her aesthetic 'perfection' but even when bad things happen to her (as they inevitably do), it's hard to empathise.

For me, clever as 'The Windup Girl' is, there's something quite voyeuristic about all of it and it's that distance between audience and characters that means it doesn't quite work for me - in the end I couldn't really find it in myself to care if any of them survived what was inevitably coming and that's never a good sign.

'Revenger' by Rory Clements

'Revenger' by Rory Clements - at some point when this blog was on hiatus, I'd read the first book in this series ('Martyr') and quite liked it, so I was happy to pick up this one in my local charity shop...

It seems that historical fiction set in Tudor times is the flavour of the month in the publishing world at present, though CJ Sansom's sales figures probably account for much of that - this series of books is set slightly later, in the waning days of Elizabeth's reign. Our protagonist is John Shakespeare, elder brother of the well-known playwright, and one-time intelligencer for Elizabeth's spymaster Walsingham.

In 'Revenger' Shakespeare hopes his spying days are over, as he's settled down with his wife and child to teach in a London school; naturally, further problems are waiting just around the corner for him as he's recruited by both Elizabeth's current favourite (the Earl of Essex) and her new spymaster as Essex appears to be plotting to usurp the throne on the queen's death. Matters are not helped by the fact that Shakespeare's wife is a Catholic and only grudgingly going along with the laws that govern religious practice at the time.

I can't say I was quite as taken with 'Revenger' as I was with the previous book, getting a little annoyed with Shakespeare at times, not to mention the sheer selfish idiocy of some of his wife's behaviour. The series continues in 'Prince' and as yet I'm undecided whether I'll be continuing along with this particular author...

'Seed to Harvest' by Octavia E. Butler

'Seed to Harvest' by Octavia E. Butler - although this edition is one volume, weighing in at 784 pages, it's actually a collection of the four novels in Butler's Patternist universe ('Wild Seed', 'Mind of My Mind', 'Clays Ark' and 'Patternmaster'). I've read other stuff by this author, with a few of her remaining novels still sitting on my TBR shelf, so I knew I was in for an uncomfortable read but the ability to run through the entire series in one go was too much for me to resist...

The first two novels are about a character called Doro, who has the ability to move from body to body and who has been selectively breeding human beings to provide him with ideal hosts, as well as killing off those who either won't obey him or who are a little too strong for his liking. He's particularly interested in individuals with various mental talents, such as telepathy or healing, as they make the most powerful hosts even though he cannot exercise their abilities when he takes them over.

In 'Wild Seed', Doro encounters Anwanyu, who has the ability to change herself into pretty much anything she wants and who hasn't really aged for centuries. Equally intrigued and threatened by her, Doro cannot quite get his head around why she won't just do what he wants. 'Mind of My Mind' is the story of one of Anwanyu's descendants, although she's still around, as the Pattern (a link between these individuals which the controller of the Pattern can use to tap into their powers) appears unexpectedly.

'Clays Ark' is about the introduction of an extraterrestrial virus, with a small community struggling to keep it contained, while also dealing with a post-apocalyptic outside world and kidnapping people to ensure that their community survives. In 'Patternmaster', Butler brings the whole thing together as the Patternists and the survivors of the Clays Ark virus clash and again power and control is very much the underlying theme of the day.

As usual, Octavia E. Butler writes a compelling story, even though a good chunk of it is in first person (which usually sends me to sleep) as her characters are so strongly realised that you're pulled into their experiences whether you like it or not. I can't say that 'Seed to Harvest' is a book I'd read again, but I'm glad I've read it and look forward to getting hold of the rest of her Xenogenesis series (I have 'Imago' and 'Adulthood Rites' and am missing 'Dawn').

'Ash' by Malinda Lo

'Ash' by Malinda Lo - picked this up through my bookswap website as I'd heard good things about it and wanted to see if it lived up to the hype. Unfortunately, for me at least, it didn't.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist, particularly with the cover art they went for, to realise that 'Ash' is another take on the Cinderella story - as in the classic version, our protagonist is left at the mercy of a stepmother and stepsisters, forced to work for a living while they live in luxury.

Where 'Ash' deviates from the usual line is in the other relationships Aisling has alongside those with her new family and the expected handsome prince. This is a society where the hunt is still very important, with the Huntress (yes, traditionally this highest of roles is female in this society) being allowed to sit with kings and being free from much of the restrictions otherwise placed on women. It's no wonder then that Aisling is drawn to the current incumbent of that role, while also dealing with a member of the faerie race who appears to know more about her mother than anyone ought.

It's an interesting enough read, though the choice Aisling makes seems unclear in some ways, and I expect the sheer presence of lesbian undertones would be enough to send some parents/librarians fleeing in horror. The author has also written a prequel in the same universe, 'Huntress', but I can't say I'm all that bothered about searching it out...