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

Excalibur Rising – What Happens When a Crime Boss Wants a Sword?

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Author Eileen Enwright Hodgetts has a unique answer to why the legend of King Arthur is so strong yet we have little to no historical evidence the man existed.  (Best theories put him as a war leader fending off the Saxon invasion, not as a larger-than-life heroic king of all Britain.)  Her answer?  The king ruled in an alternate Britain around the 1100s and his knights slid through into our world to quest and run off their wild oats.

The novel Excalibur Rising picks up today, when an English historian offers an acquisitive Las Vegas crime boss the chance to purchase King Arthur’s legendary sword.  The boss assigns his curator, Marcus, a former television treasure hunter, to verify the details and get the sword if it’s authentic.  That starts a whirlwind of murder, trips to Florida, England, environmental protests, kidnapping, car chases, and semi-psychic tracking.

 

Characters

The main characters are Marcus and Violet, the semi-psychic that the mob boss contacts to help with the search.  Both are well written. We meet Marcus first and he’s about what you would expect from a man once famous, now slightly on the seedy side.  His television show is long gone as is his money and most of his self-respect.  He has not contacted his ex-wife or children in years and lives in his boss’s casino hotel.

Violet is pretty but plump, not at all active and lives in Key West with her brother and sister.  All three were adopted and no one knows anything about Violet’s background.  Violet’s brother is a wannabe actor and adds a lot of humor and snark to the story.  Violet herself is pretty greedy – that Conch house eats money! – and can often find recent history just by touching something.  She wants the mafia boss’s reward.

Despite initial reservations and distrust the two join forces before the meet a whole crowd of extra characters, some nasty, some nice and all too many dead.

Mordred (or his latest descendant) makes an appearance and is the same conniving, greedy, care-for-nobody that we all detested in the original Arthur stories.  His evil minions are alive and well and join to terrorize the people in their version of Albion.  King Arthur himself is the central point of the novel but appears only at the very end.

Plot

The author is telling a fantasy and writes well.  She sets her plot to move fast, from Las Vegas to London to northern England to Wales, picking up people and clues along the way.  The book moves fast enough that it’s easy to suspend disbelief, although after Marcus once more said there was no evidence for King Arthur whatsoever I wanted to raise my hand and point out the Saxon invader theory.  (As a theory it explains a leader, but none of the knightly trappings or round table or any of the Grail quest.)

Overall

I thoroughly enjoyed Excalibur Rising, in fact it was a very pleasant surprise to read a book as well-written with so many engaging characters.  It sets up for a sequel at the end, but can be read and enjoyed as a standalone.

Excalibur Rising is right between 4 and 5 stars.  It’s not quite there to get 5, but better than many 4 star novels.  I eagerly look forward to reading the sequel.

Note the links to Amazon are commission links.

The Return of Sir Percival – A Different Arthurian Romance

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King Arthur is dead.

The Knights of the Round Table are dead.

The Table is broken.

There is no leader left and Albion is disintegrated.  The dream of a united kingdom is dead.

Queen Guinevere has fled and all have deserted Camelot.

Morgana enslaves Britain’s people, conspires with murderous Saxon war chiefs and seeks the head of Merlin the wise.

The Return of Sir Percival is no ordinary Arthurian romance, no mere retelling of the rise and fall of a magical realm.  Instead author S. Alexander O Keefe bases his story on the historical invasion of Celtic/Roman Britain by the Saxons and sets it after Camelot falls and King Arthur dies at Cammlan.  In this retelling Guinevere was not unfaithful to Arthur; Morgana and Merlin were from the Eastern Roman Empire and bitter enemies and Morgana seeks revenge, power, wealth and status.

People

Morgana is a critical character, here a vicious, scheming, malevolent woman. Arthur and his kingdom defeated Morgana at the battle of Cammlan, but lost overall when no strong leader emerged to keep the British people united.  Instead the kingdom devolved into small pockets, some ruled by thugs like Ivarr the Red, others by family and clan groups, others more or less left alone.  Morgana seized the lucrative silver mines and allied with the Saxon invaders who will turn on her the minute she is unable to pay them off.  Morgana is a noblewoman from Byzantium, related to the Emperor, and is in Britain at his behest (and also from a well-founded fear she would be killed if she returns).

It’s hard to show the character of someone as despicable as Morgana without making them cardboard, and O’Keefe does his best to show Morgana is motivated by more than spite and hatred.  She doesn’t like the northern climate and longs to return home to the Empire but dares not leave without securing the Emperor’s goals.  Characterization is moderately good.

Capussa is a great addition to the story.  He is a Numidian ex-gladiator friend of Sir Percival who joins him on his return home to Albion. Capussa is an excellent military strategist and helps Percival in battle but his biggest contribution is that of wry humor.   We don’t get to know Capussa as a person particularly, but he is a fun character.

The other main characters, Sir Percival, Merlin and Guinevere are interesting and enjoyable to read about but we don’t get to know them well.  In all fairness to the author it is difficult to show the characters of people that we think we know so well from legend, especially since O’Keefe discards much of the romantic trappings.  In this novel Guinevere was never in love with Lancelot; instead she and Percival were good friends on the verge of falling in love when Percival honorably left Camelot, first to build the northern defenses, then for his Grail quest.

Story Line

The plot here is excellent, very well thought-out, enjoyable and interesting.  O’Keefe based his ideas on actual situations to build a story that felt plausible yet was aligned with the romantic Camelot legends.  For example, early Britains did mine silver (and gold) and the Eastern Empire would have coveted the mineral wealth.  Britain was quite civilized after 300 years of Roman occupation, with good roads, some literacy, some sense of national identity.  It would be easy for the Eastern emperor to covet such a pleasant territory and its riches.

Writing Style

Author O’Keefe published a thriller, Helius Legacy, before he wrote The Return of Sir Percival.  He shows himself to be a careful writer, creates clear sentences and narratives.  The book moves a little slowly in parts, most in the beginning, and picks up the pace.  O’Keefe alternates between Morgana, the Saxon leaders and Percival for his main points of view which helps us keep the sense of time and urgency.

One weak point that I’d like O’Keefe to improve is the setting.  He did a good job on the back story and used Capussa and Merlin to help tell the story of what happened to Percival and to Albion, but the physical descriptions were weak.  Stories like this with scenes that depend on our sense of place need more vivid descriptions.  I lost track a few times where the characters were.

Maps would have helped.  It’s not necessary to have the action take place in the real-life locales – this is a fantasy – but something to show us about where Guinevere took refuge relative to London and about where Morgana ruled in her castle would have helped.  I wondered several times why Morgana didn’t take bolder action to follow up upon Arthur’s death and Albion’s disintegration, and knowing about where the various power centers were would have cleared that up.

Overall

This is the first of a planned series and I expect to read the subsequent novels.  I grew up reading imaginative Arthurian fantasy by T. H. White and Mallory and found most later novels set in the same legend (such as Mary Stewart’s The Crystal Cave) were disappointing.  The Return of Sir Percival uses the legend as backdrop and asks “What if?”.  What if Arthur’s kingdom wasn’t completely dead?  What if Guinevere was faithful and alive and ready to help lead people back to a unified Albion?  Setting the novel seven years after the fall of Camelot helped position this as a separate tale – and a good one.

4 Stars.  If I were rating solely on the imaginative use of the story I would give this 5 stars.  Overall execution and characterization were slightly less.

I received an advanced reader copy for free from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

 

 

A Crown for Cold Silver – Complicated, Confusing and Ultimately Unpleasant

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I started A Crown for Cold Silver during a month of intense busyness, reading 15 minutes one day, half an hour another.  The book started strong, with five different groups all engaged in life-or-death struggles in interesting and different situations.  I wanted to know more and see what connected these people, what would happen next, but it was hard when reading a dribble here and a drabble there.  Finally I had an evening with several hours and sat down to enjoy it.

Unfortunately, the strong beginning peters out.  We see how the characters will connect, what may eventually bring them together, who may oppose whom.  But none of the characters is likable or interesting enough to keep going.  About half way through my evening I found myself distracted, wanting to do just about anything aside from finishing the novel.

Too Much Back Story

The world in A Crown for Cold Silver has a complex geo-political back story, something that usually fascinates me and keeps me going.  A challenge with building a new fantasy world in a novel is moving the story along with action and character development at the same time as explaining the back story and helping the reader understand the context.  This is essential for a novel that has geo-political/religious/cultural conflicts and it is where author Alex Marshall fails to deliver.

A Crown for Cold Silver has plenty of action, lots and lots of action, and some character development.  I liked the characters less he more I learned about them, not a good sign.  None of the countries or religious groups were attractive either; the Crimson Empire apparently used assassination and regicide and duels to transfer power and the main religious group was sadistic.

Just Not Interesting

The combination of overly-complex and un-illuminated fantasy world with unlikable characters and what felt like a pointless plot (revenge no matter the cost) left me feeling “so what”.  In fact I could not quite finish the book even though it was from NetGalley.  (I’ve managed to get through some real stinkers but this one was just too bad to read.)

Maps might have helped but I think the main problems are the unlikable people and the fact the actions take place in a world that we know nothing about.

1 Star

I received this novel from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

Blood and Honour – Fun Read by Simon R. Green

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Before the Nightside and Eddie Drood series Simon R. Green wrote several novels in quasi-medieval settings full of threatening dark forces and political enemies, loosely gathered into the Forest Kingdom series.  (Blue Moon Rising and the Hawk and Fisher stories are in this series.)  Blood and Honour is set in the same world, in the Kingdom of Redhart.

Our hero, Jordan, is an actor sadly fallen on hard times, now a travelling player working small town streets for a few ducats.  Three men offer him 10,000 ducats to impersonate Prince Victor of Redhart as he contends with his brothers for the throne.  Jordan is no fool and rejects the offer until he learns that Victor is aware of and approves; of course he gets a higher fee too.

Once in Castle Midnight (don’t you love the name?) Jordan finds the role is even harder than expected.  And yes, he is playing the villain.

Winning Characters

Jordan is a man in a hard place.  He figures out fast that Victor will kill him the minute he can and he knows for sure that Victor’s brothers will be happy to see him dead.  Not only that, but with the king dead, the Unreal is oozing into the castle, deadly to everyone whether actor, servant or king.

Jordan has a pretty good idea what a king ought to be, caring of his people, fair, honest, noble.  Neither Victor nor his brothers is anything like this ideal and Jordan doesn’t particularly want any of them to succeed their father.  Jordan has a few very tough choices to make and unerringly chooses the path to bring peace and restore goodness.

I enjoyed Jordan immensely.  He turned a horrible situation into something that may turn out just right, yet he never whined (or at least not much) and he faced the problem without blaming everyone else.  He took action when action needed to be taken.  And he never lost his sense of perspective or duty or honor, even when those around him failed to remember theirs.

Green does an excellent job showing us the characters, not telling us.  We see how weak and despicable Victor is when he blithely orders all 25 kitchen workers hung because he was poisoned, not caring that many were children, not even caring that he just killed off the people who make the meals and everyone likes to eat.  We see how evil Dominic and oldest brother Lewis are by their attacks and use of undead and Unreal.

Plot, Setting and Writing Style

Blood and Honour moves fast and we feel like Jordan must, with everything turning to ruin, no good way out.  The Unreal are fascinating as are the ghosts and factions in Castle Midnight.  I stayed up late to finish this!

I’ve had mixed feelings about Simon R Green’s writing before.  He does an excellent job with story and people complicated with creepy settings.  Many of his later books are downers, where you end the novel feeling like you need to take a bath and go look at rainbows and springtime flowers just to get up the next morning.  Blood and Honour isn’t like that.  Yes, there are evil, undead nasties, greed, dark sorcery, castles with bloody fangs in the walls, sharks and treachery.  But Jordan brings clarity as to what should be done, how things ought to work, and his clear thinking keeps us readers optimistic even when everything is going to ruin and damnation.

(See my review of Tales of the Hidden World for more about Simon R. Green’s darker stories.)

I didn’t realize until checking Amazon to write this review that Blood and Honour is book 2 in the Forest Kingdom series.  Reading Blood and Honour prompts me to get my copy of Blue Moon Rising out and re-read it, then get the other books in the series!

5 Stars

 

Review: Age of Myth – Book One of The Legends of the First Empire by Michael J. Sullivan

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With a title like Age of Myth Book One of The Legends of the First Empire you expect a lot of set up as the author builds a fantasy world with plenty of action, good guys vs. bad and maybe some decadence lurking in the bushes.  What makes Age of Myth so good is that it stands on its own, no cliff hangers, and the story is set in a small geographical area and over a month or two.  Sullivan built his world and his characters to tell a story – and they do.

Michael J. Sullivan delivers the action and good/bad guys, lots of intriguing back story and he does it all intertwined with the set up for a series such that you don’t feel the entire novel was a pilot for a new series.  The book reads fast; we get to know six or seven characters; there are hints of a great back story and best of all, there are several plots all moving together.

So often the first-book-in-a-series is half set up and the story and characters are sketches.  Age of Myth is well done and I’m looking forward to the continuing saga.

Plots

The blurb talks about Raithe who killed a “god”, in actuality a Fhrey, a race of long-lived, highly cultured people.  The killing does kick off some of the action as it sets up confrontation between Fhrey and the contemptible Rhune (humans), but it is only part of the story.  The Fhrey are divided internally with the magic-wielding Miralyith feeling superior to – in fact as gods – the ordinary Fhrey who cannot work magic.  The other Fhrey left the Instarya clan out in the wilderness to guard against the humans and buffer the pampered city dwellers.  Naturally the Instarya feel oppressed and are not happy with this division and their low status.

On the human side Raithe doesn’t actually do much.  He arrives at Dahl Rhen, a more civilized human town than he is used to, where he meets Persephone who carries the other main plot thread.  Persephone is the widow of the former chieftain and although she herself is unaware of it, the new chieftain and his wife are afraid of her influence and try to kill her.

Along the way we have other bands of Fhrey who appear and are willing to align with the humans, we have the naive Miralyith Fhrey Arion, a young lady seer Suri, a demon-possessed wolf and more.  The plots are complex but easy enough to follow, especially as Sullivan doesn’t tip his hand.  We suspect there’s more going on with the new chieftain but we don’t actually see it until Persephone does.

All these plots are foundations for future stories with enough content and strands for several novels.

People and World Building

Sullivan’s characters are people in their own right.  His female leads are especially well drawn; they aren’t your stereotype fighters nor shifty prostitutes or thieves.  Instead they are realistic people doing things that make sense for their culture.

We ride along with Arion as she first sees first hand how the Instarya fear and resent the Miralyith.  She doesn’t like it and much of her story deals with her growing awareness of the inter-Fhrey tensions and her dismay at recognizing she herself may need to get involved.  I wasn’t fond of Arion although I can see she will be pivotal in the future.

Persephone slowly learns just how much the new chieftain and his coterie hate her and how much in danger she is.  She is loyal first to her people, the townsfolk of Dahl Rhen, then to her friends and those she sees as helping her people.  She is careful to not draw the town’s attention to herself at first but the chieftain doesn’t know what to do and won’t take her softly voiced suggestions.  Persephone learns how strong she is only as the story progresses.  She was my favorite character.

Suri is the young seer who plays a magic-helper role plus is an interesting character in her own right.  Suri intuitively knows what dangers threaten and counsels Persephone to escape murderous clansmen and an enormous possessed bear.

Raithe, who initiates the Rhune/Fhrey war, plays a minor role.  He gets in the middle of things almost by accident.  Nyphron, the Instaryon Fhrey, is Raithe’s counterpart.

Sullivan built a world that feels real.  We can almost smell the woods and our stomachs are growling as Raithe and Malcolm run for their lives.  We can see the dirt and grungy towns that the Rhunes live in compare to the splendor of even the remote Instaryon fortress.  Sullivan doesn’t harp on the decadence the Miralyith develop nor the growing despair the non-magic Fhrey feel, but it’s there like a bit of a bad smell. I expect he’ll build on that split in future novels as it offers so many story line opportunities.

Summary

I enjoyed Theft of Swords, Sullivan’s first book of the Riyria Revelations but wasn’t as fond of the rest of the Revelation series or the prequel novels, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Age of Myth is excellent, well constructed, written carefully to give enough back story and world building to entice us but not tell all.

If you like solid fantasy novels written for adults with little or no romance, no sparkling vampires, plenty of action and a world so well built you can feel the dirt on the floor, this is for you.

I received this from Net Galley for free in expectation of an honest review.

4+ Stars

Fantasy, Horror and Suspense All In One: The Reckoning by Carsten Stroud

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The Reckoning is that rarest of books, a trilogy finale that stands on its own merits.  It is Book 3 in The Niceville Trilogy yet I found it easy to follow, enjoyable and readable.  I have not read either of the first two books in the series.

The Reckoning combines mystery with horror and a strong dash of supernatural fantasy.  People in Niceville are dying in horrific, gruesome ways, whole families are murdered, their killer dies cut in half by a shifting stalactite.  Thankfully author Carsten Stroud spares us details – no gory scenes or dripping blood – leaving the horror part secondary to the mystery.

Stroud has a gift for bringing disparate elements together and making the whole into a readable novel. Setting and characters are interesting and realistic.

The setting is Niceville, well described and the book includes a map, a ranch several miles out and a Florida beach house.  Stroud describes the settings well enough that you understand and follow the actions as characters travel around town and between the town and ranch, and town and beach house.

The main character is Nick Kavanaugh who is responsible to investigate a horrible murder of a Niceville family, and who with his wife Kate is fostering a 14-year old boy, Rainey Teague, brutally kidnapped in a prior book.  Rainey acts like a normal 14-year old but Nick can’t quite shake the idea that Rainey is far more than he appears.

One of the most interesting characters is Coker, an ex-cop wanted for murder and robbery.  He and his girlfriend are enjoying their beach house under an assumed name when they hear screams on top of an already-raucous party.  Reluctantly they call the police who find the usual, drugs, booze and underage girls.  The young men decide to revenge themselves and attack Coker.  Bad move as he disables and nearly cripples two of them.  This spirals into a game of cat and mouse with the mob, the FBI, a smart widow and assorted stupid side kicks.

Characters reference past events from the first two novels but Stroud provides enough back story that we can fill in the blanks without reading the earlier books.  He does an excellent job, the “bring them up to speed” parts are transparent, let out as part of the story, not patched in with some obvious add on.

Stroud’s writing style is good, with good pacing, reasonable dialogue, interesting characters.  I didn’t care for the events on the ranch or former asylum – nor did they seem particularly germane to this novel.  I think Stroud may have included them to tie up loose ends from the first two books.

Overall I recommend this if you enjoy suspense novels or supernatural suspense.  The fantasy elements are there to serve the plot and let the supernatural suspense lead the show.

4+ Stars

Seven Forges by James A. Moore – Set Up for Sequels – Fantasy Review

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Seven Forges by James A. Moore is set up for an ongoing series, with the author showing us two cultures so different that one will be an existential threat to the other, and cast of traditional characters for this sword and sorcery fantasy novel.

Plot

Seven Forges starts with a bang.  Merros Dulver, retired from the Emperor’s army, leads an expedition to the freezing Blasted Lands, looking for any traces of the people who once inhabited the area before it was devastated by a mage war.  He and his band are fighting for their lives against Pra-Moresh, huge predators of the icy waste, when Drask, from the Sa’ba Taalor people, intervenes and kills the remaining monsters.

The plot thins after this, with isolated incidents that don’t flow together and no overarching conflict in the story telling sense.  The author sets up a major conflict that kicks off at the end of the novel, but dribbles out little fights that don’t tie together before that.

The expedition travels first to Drask’s land of the Seven Forges, then takes Drask and about 40 others of the Sa’ba Taalor back to the capital of the Empire to meet Emperor Pathra.  This begins the completely misunderstood engagement between the two peoples that is doomed to end in war.

Unfortunately the book falls flat at the point where Dulver and crew reach the Seven Forges.  Drask tells them that each Sa’ba Taalor does everything for themselves – crafts their own weapons, grows their own food, fights their own battles – and gives evidence that each adult is extremely capable with weapons and that every dispute is solved with combat.  The Sa’ba Taalor have gods that direct their actions and requires each to be self-sufficient.  Somehow Dulver doesn’t catch what this means.

The emperor, his wizard advisor Desh and Dulver all see the Sa’ba Taalor visitors as an embassy, a meeting designed to bring long term trade and good will.  They don’t realize that a people who sees everything as directed by their gods and to be resolved via violence will see the Empire as soft, as incapable, as undeserving.

The emperor agrees to let 10 of the Sa’ba Taalor go to Roathes, the southern country in the empire that is being invaded slowly by the neighboring Guntha.  The emperor believes the Sa’ba Taalor are there to scout the problem, confirm the situation.  The Sa’ba Taalor are there to “take care of the problem”, which in their lexicon means kill every Guntha on the shore.  Which they do.

At this point the wizard and Dulver wise up and realize they do not have compatible goals or understanding, that the Sa’ba Taalor do not value what the empire values.  And both get a bit suspicious and worried about their intentions.

Backstory and World Building

When I read fantasy novels I look for engaging characters, interesting backstory with tantalizing glimpses of what might be there, fun and fast moving plots, reasonable world building.  Seven Forges by James Moore has a good backstory but it falls flat.

First the idea that everyone is self-sufficient for food, for defense, for weapons crafting is intriguing but I kept wondering just how far that self-sufficiency extended.  Did each person mine their own ore and smelt it?  Did each one build their own house, weave their own cloth, tan their own leather?  We could see some cooperation among the Sa’ba Taalor who traveled to the empire, but where did they draw the line?

The fact that every one who wants something builds it themselves, yet that every dispute and every issue is solved by physical combat seems paradoxical.  In our world when violence is the only rule the weak are impoverished and we end up with warlords or gang leaders.

The Sa’ba Taalor demanded that the empire’s assigned ambassador, Andover, demonstrate his martial competence and stated that the Sa’ba Taalor would only respect him – and by extension everyone else – if he could hold his own with weapons.  The empire valued other things – the rule of law, the ability to solve problems with words and trade, commerce, art and music.   The Sa’ba Taalor see no reason to demonstrate their skills in the empire’s valued abilities, in fact it never seems to occur to anyone to show reciprocity.

Characters

The characters likewise lost their interest about a third of the way through.  I liked Desh the wizard and the emperor Pathra and Dulver was OK if two-dimensional.  The Sa’ba Taalor were boring.  You could substitute any generic bad guy/violent culture; the extreme self-sufficiency was the only novel point and as mentioned it didn’t make a lot of sense.

The character I like least is Andover whom the emperor appoints as ambassador to the Sa’ba Taalor.  This makes no sense.  Andover is nearly illiterate, about 18, unskilled, young, dumb, venal and gullible. Most emperors would appoint someone who knows something about the empire or its trade and can represent the emperor’s wishes.  The Sa’ba Taalor tell the emperor that their gods have chosen Andover, but why and why should that matter for something as important as the first ambassador to a neighbor.

Summary

Author Moore must have meant this as the set up for a series as we finally get to the real conflict between Sa’ba Taalor and Empire only at the end of the book and the whole thing feels like a set up.   Unfortunately Moore takes almost 400 pages to set up his world and the eventual conflict and after slogging through that much I really don’t much care.

3 Stars

(Amazon shows there are at least four books in the series now.)

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

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

 

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.