Okay, let’s start off with the fact that this is a really good book. I’m saying this up front, because I know I’m going to waffle in places out sheer ignorance, and I don’t want to put people off.
Rob Hayes has been making a bit of a name for himself in the self-published fantasy community, but this is the first of his books that I’ve read, and it won’t be the last.
Never Die is set, I think, in an alternative world version of China. (This is the waffle bit, by the way.) With possibly a bit of alternative world Japan. Or not. Here’s the problem. I know sod all about the history and mythology of China or Japan, other than having watched a few Wuxia movies. So I don’t actually know whether Hayes has based his story accurately on Chinese (or Japanese) mythology, has done it loosely, or whether this book bears the same relationship to Chinese / Japanese history and mythology that, say, Game of Thrones does to British history and mythology. The fact that I keep saying Chinese / Japanese shows just how ignorant I am about all this. It’s probably best to say that I should leave any discussion of his use of history and mythology to people who know what the fuck they are talking about.
So, onto the story. Legendary swordswoman Cho, known as the Whispering Blade, is killed in the defence of Kaishi City against a bandit army. Then, she finds herself resurrected and bound to the will of a strange boy named Ein. He needs her help to kill the corrupt Emperor of Ten Kings. She isn’t the only hero the boy needs, and he proceeds to resurrect and recruit other heroes, all of whom have powers of one sort or the other. Some of whom aren’t actually dead and who have to be killed first by Cho and her comrades.
Hayes does a wonderful job of taking us through this world with its heroes and monsters, all the while carefully dropping in hints that things aren’t quite the way our characters believe them to be. Time in particular seems to be passing oddly.
A couple of things on the negative side, none of which are enough to stop this book being a recommendation. There are a few places where another round of proofreading would have been good. No book is ever 100% free of typos, but from time to time, the number became noticeable and distracting. This is also not a character-driven story (which is okay; not every story should be). We never get incredibly deep into the characters or incredibly close to their point of view. Again, this isn’t something that is wrong with the book, but if you prefer your books to be character-driven, you may enjoy this slightly less. That’s not to say the characters are poorly done. Cho, and the other main hero, Zhihao Cheng, the Emerald Wind, are the best realised, but all are believable and engaging. They are just not massively deep.
While this is, to some degree, a martial arts fantasy, it doesn’t try to shove in too much action, instead letting the story drive where the action occurs.
Overall, despite my waffling review, I really enjoyed this book and I will definitely be picking up more of Hayes’s work.
Myke Cole is better known for his military SF novels, so this is a bit of a change of genre.
The Armored Saint is a well-written, straightforward, simple fantasy story without many subplots or diversions. In an age of increasingly large epic fantasies, this will undoubtedly appeal to a lot of people, and I certainly found it refreshing (although I still love those vast epic fantasies).
The world of The Armored Saint is fairly standard medieval with the added feature of being ruled and structured by a rigid and violently enforced set of religious rules. The Order who enforce them claim that their oppressive rules are to prevent the demons, vanquished by the emperor, from returning to the world.
Heloise comes into conflict with this Order when she and her father are accosted by them on the road. The Order use their power to intimidate and try to rob the pair and then later oversee a massacre of a neighbouring village.
So much, so fairly standard for fantasy, although the claustrophobic rule of the Order is much more visceral and strict than in many books.
The strength of the book comes partly in the very well realised character of Heloise, who is definitely the stand-out character in the book; others are less well developed. But the main strength that Cole brings to this book is the tension that he creates in scenes of confrontation. There is relatively little actual violence, but the threat of it, the powerlessness of the Heloise, her father, and other villagers, is genuinely and literally nail-biting. I’m not sure I’ve read another fantasy author who brings so much tension into simple confrontations. I wish I knew how he does it.
The action climax and the ‘twist’ that precedes it, by contrast, were less interesting although perfectly well handled.
Four stars, because The Armored Saint has some outstanding aspects but it may lack a little heft in other areas.
I’m making a conscious effort to seek out good self-published fantasy. I’ve read some self-published fantasy before, of course, but only by accident, as it were. Some has been good, some has been less good. So I wanted to actually go out of my way to find the really good self-pub stuff that I might be missing.
The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids, by Michael McClung was the winner of the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off competition for 2015, run by writer Mark Lawrence, so that seemed a good place to start.
The thief Amra Thetys agrees to look after a friend’s looted statuette while he bargains with a buyer. The next morning, the friend is found dead, brutally murdered. Amra is determined to find the killer and avenge her friend. What follows is an adventure full of peril, brutal magic, and fallen gods.
The best thing about The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble’s Braids were the characters of Amra, who is determined, sarcastic, and loyal, and her ally, the slightly disturbing mage Holgren. The story is told by Amra, and her voice stands out, full of energy and attitude. It’s unusual still to find fantasy where the protagonist has such a distinctive voice, and the book very much benefits from it.
I’ve given this four stars rather than five, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t read it. For me, the writing could have been tightened up in a few places, and the author’s fondness for occasional sentence fragments didn’t work for me, pulling me out of the story. The epilogue, which isn’t in Amra’s voice, seemed tacked on just to make it clear there would be further stories. But these are minor issues.
I’m very happy to have read this book, and I’ll definitely read more of the Amra Thetys series. I would judge my attempt to find really good self-published fantasy novels a success on this first hit out. Give it a try.
Four stars, edging on four and a half.
(I would add that I’m not a massive fan of this cover, but don’t let it put you off.)
I have not written a Christmas story this year. In fact, I’ve never actually written a Christmassy Christmas story. Sorry. My aim for next year is to write a proper one. But for now…
A long time ago, a long, long time ago, when Steph and I were younger and less exhausted, we put together a project called The December Lights Project. For the whole of December, we put up a short story every day, free to read, as a holiday gift. The stories were contributed by a group of wonderful writers who asked nothing in return, just the chance to spread a little holiday happiness.
The only thing the stories had in common was that they were all guaranteed to have a happy ending.
Like I said, I haven’t written a Christmas story, but I thought I would share my contribution to The December Lights Project again.
It’s my spin on a familiar fairy tale. Enjoy!
The Frog King
So, here’s how it happened.
Some people are really into traditions, okay?
I mean, seriously into traditions. It doesn’t matter what the tradition is or how dumb it might be. If it’s a tradition, it’s gotta happen just the way it always has, and that’s that. No discussion. These people, right. These people freak out if anyone just suggests that maybe, oh, I don’t know, things might change a little. That things might start to make some hopping sense.
Who wants to deal with that kind of raving, dribbling, eye-bulging freak-out? Sometimes, it’s easier to just go with the flow.
At least, that’s what I thought.
Boy, was I wrong.
All I’m saying is that if anyone says tradition to me again, they’re losing their head. I might be a frog, but I’m still the croaking king, okay?
Anyway, I was going to tell you how it happened. This was back when I was the prince, and a pretty good-looking prince, too, I don’t mind telling you. I was fifteen, I was hot, and it wasn’t going to be long before I was going to get married to some equally hot princess and have cute little prince- and princesslets running all over the place. You know how it goes. You’ve read the stories. Shiny wedding. Lots of gold, silk, horses and carriages, presents, and waving at crowds. Then a stupid number of too-soft mattresses, a bit of how’s-yer-father, and, as the French say, there you have it.
Everything was going swimmingly. There were plenty of princesses giving me the eye, and more than that, if you know what I mean. Which I think you do.
Then this old witch turns up at the castle gates and starts going on about tradition. Now, my dad, he’s a real sucker for this mumbo-jumbo. Astrology, witchcraft, dowsing, freaking crystals, the whole lot. And the witch has got this old book, and as far as my dad cared, if it was written down, it was God’s own truth, because why would someone write it down if it wasn’t true, right?
Don’t go there, okay, because I’m all over that one. But my dad was the king and what he said went and that was that.
So, the old witch, she’s saying that in the old days, in tradition, the princess has to kiss a frog, who then turns into a prince and they all live happily ever after, yada, yada, yada and whatever. Personally, I reckoned she’d been at the wacky-baccy. The thing was, she said, first the prince has to be turned into a frog, so the princess can kiss him and turn him into a prince. Which is a pretty roundabout way of going about things, if you ask me.
Nobody did.
So, the next evening, I’m standing in the middle of some dumb circle of candles, as naked as the day I was born, while this pervy, dirty old witch dances around me, waving a dead, dried frog. And, yes, she was naked too. That I do not want to think about, thank you very much.
Five minutes later, I’m on the floorboards, croaking away, and all frogged-up.
My dad was delighted.
Everyone gathers around, the courtiers, my friends, my family, all the rest, as I’m tipped into a marshy pool outside the palace, and they all toddle off back to the comfort of the palace, leaving me with the mosquitoes, the flies, the fish, and a damned heron that spent the next week trying to spear me.
Now here’s where it all goes wrong. Because tradition or no tradition, princesses just aren’t going around kissing frogs any more, if they ever did.
And so there I sit, unkissed, totally frog, until my dad finally croaks it (ha!) and they’re left without a king. Then someone remembers me, and they all come poking around my pool.
By this time, needless to say, no one can find hide or hair of the bloody witch, and I’m still a frog.
Yeah.
Oops.
Which brings us up to now, with me still here, still green, and still warty.
Most of the time they leave me alone. Let’s face it. Frog kings are pretty useless at ridin’ and huntin’ and dancin’ and the cuttin’-of-ribbons, and there’s not a whole lot else in the job description. So here I sit, and everyone’s happy. Happier, anyway.
Except on Tuesdays.
And, yes, since you ask, today is a Tuesday. Fan-bloody-tastic. Thank you for reminding me.
I can hear the feet tramping towards my tank right now.
Tuesday is when the king receives petitions and hands out justice. It’s—yes, you guessed it—a tradition. God forbid that anyone would think that maybe a frog shouldn’t be handing out justice.
Well, here they are, the whole obsequious, slimy lot of them, decked out in robes that looked stupid two hundred years ago and which haven’t improved with time. Oh, your majesty, this, and oh, your majesty, that. Bah.
The chancellor bows, then scoops me up out of my tank where I’d just been contemplating eating a nice dead fly. Then we’re off, in procession, cymbals tinging and trumpets tooting, me in the chancellor’s cupped hands.
You couldn’t come up with something more farcical if you tried.
I could hop out from here and make a run for it, but with all these robed idiots around I’d either be captured or squashed by the time I got to the end of the corridor.
Sometimes squashed seems like an appealing option.
Here we go. The throne room is just up ahead. My loving people are waiting.
Bastards.
The doors are pulled back, the trumpeters blow themselves red, and out we march.
Oh. Oh. Dear God. They’ve put the crown out again.
Someone’s going to lose their head over this.
I want to hide my warty face in my little webbed hands.
The crown is sitting in the middle of the throne. And I’m plonked right in the middle, trying to peer over the rim at the sniggering crowds.
Oh, yeah. I’m going to hand out some justice today.
And… Hell. I recognise those banners draped like pondweed from the rafters.
It’s not just a Tuesday. It’s the first Tuesday of the month.
The first Tuesday of the month is princess day. God knows where they find them. Every scumming month they drag another poor, innocent princess into the throne room in the hope she’ll kiss me. There must be a lot of desperate royalty out there. Maybe we’re paying them. Maybe they’re far enough away that they don’t know.
All I know is that they’ve been scraping the bottom of the pond, so as to speak, with the ones they’ve brought in recently. And still no luck. Just a lot of horrified expressions and turned up noses.
Princesses these days, see, they’re more into Cosmo and Vogue and fifty-new-ways-to-satisfy-your-lover than squishing lips with frogs. Can’t say I blame them. I’m a frog and even I think it’s gross.
At my lowest, back in the pond, I did it with another frog. Yeah, it’s embarrassing, but what can you do? She was kinda cute for a frog. Nice shade of green and very smooth skin. Legs like you wouldn’t believe. Bit of a tongue on her, though. Clean up this pond! Don’t poop there! Were you looking at that other frog? The tadpoles were nice little things. Rather more of them than I’d been planning before I became a frog, of course. Still, plenty of heirs out there somewhere, although good luck sorting out the line of succession.
I’d always thought that doing the you-know-what with a frog would be as bad as it could get, but these Tuesdays, they’re worse. These are damned humiliating. Back when I was Prince Hot and Sexy, I never dreamed that I could be turned down by so many slappers and old maids. And the expressions on their faces. Let’s just say I thought I looked green.
I sink a little lower behind the rim of the crown, eyes just poking over so I can see what they’ve managed to dredge up this month.
The trumpeters blow hard enough to rupture themselves (some hope), silence (except the odd titter) settles over the throne room, the doors swing open with a gust of cold air, and then … nothing. Zilch.
I push myself up to get a better view.
Heads are craning, whispers starting, and the number of princesses coming through the door is exactly zero.
The chancellor clears his throat.
A courtier hurries forward, his stupid, toes-turned-up slippers hushing and slapping on the red carpet, followed by a hundred pairs of eyes. He whispers into the chancellor’s droopy ears.
I’d never really thought how ugly human ears are before. Frog ears are just neat little holes. Human ears? Like something God squashed on in a moment of distraction and didn’t have time to trim away.
The chancellor straightens, glances quickly at me, then turns to the crowd.
“Her royal highness, Princess Gertrude of Ruritania, is, ah, indisposed and unable to attend the gathering,” he booms. “She sends her most sincere regrets to his majesty.”
Who knows. He might even have fooled someone. It’s pretty clear, though, that she’s heard about me. She’s not coming.
My advisors gather in a little huddle, like herons peering into a pond.
A moment later, the chief heron stalks up to me.
“Your majesty.” He bows, and I have to restrain the impulse to hop back as I imagine the long beak spearing down. “There are no more.”
I blink, confused.
“Every princess alive has been invited. They have come, and they have left. There are no more. We have exhausted the possibilities.”
If I were human, I would sigh. It’s over. No princess will ever kiss me. I will never be human again.
It’s almost a relief. I wonder, abstractly, what they will do with me now.
A chorus of indrawn breaths attracts the chancellor’s attention. He turns. I hop to the side of my throne to look past.
Then I see her.
She’s walking down the red carpet, wearing a dress of glittering green that catches the candlelight and throws it back. I have never seen anyone so beautiful. Blonde hair cascades down her back. Her skin is as smooth as a pebble. Her legs are slim and look like they’re never going to stop going up (and in the dress she’s wearing, believe me, I can see). Her hands are delicate and long. Her eyes are as bright and sharp as emeralds. Everyone is watching her.
I realize my tongue is hanging out, and I snap it back like I’ve caught a fly.
“You’re not Princess Gertrude!” the chancellor says.
She ignores him, and he fades back like mist over the water on a summer morning.
She steps up onto the dais. I look up at her, and that’s some view, I’m telling you.
Her eyes gaze down at me. I think I might faint.
“Tell me, your majesty,” she whispers. “Are you true?”
I croak.
“Are you loyal?”
Croak.
“Are you honest and brave and noble?”
Croak. Croak!
“Do you choose … me? For ever and ever?’
Croak!
She leans forward, and the view improves again, if that’s possible. My mouth feels as dry as a sun-baked rock.
Her lips are moist and soft. I watch them, goggle-eyed, as they descend toward me. I lift up my little frog lips.
We touch. She kisses me.
I feel the magic, like I felt it before, when the witch cursed me. Except this time…
She’s falling. Collapsing down. Shrinking.
Her robes crumple.
For a moment, I think she’s gone, disappeared like dew. But then, as I peer over the rim of that ridiculous crown, I see her.
She’s crouched in the middle of her robes. And she’s a frog.
A very familiar frog.
She glares up at me.
“What do you think you’re doing squatting up there on that throne?” she croaks. “Do you think the pond is looking after itself? You’ve got two hundred children waiting for you back home! Hop to it!”
I smile a wide froggy smile, and with a single bound, leap from the throne.
Some people are really into traditions. Seriously into traditions.
I’ve been thinking quite a lot recently about the language we choose when we write fantasy novels, particularly when it comes to the last middle grade I wrote and the current adult fantasy I’m working on. I’m still trying to figure out exactly what I’m doing here, so I’m going to lay out my thinking, and you can all tell me if I’m completely wrong.
But first (and this is related), the brilliant translator Anthea Bell died recently. She translated some very important novels into English, but she will always be better known as the translator, along with Derek Hockridge, of the Asterix graphic novels from French into English.
Now, imagine you’re writing a secondary world fantasy (i.e., a fantasy novel set on another, alternative world). In your story you are, of course, writing about characters whose language is not English (I’ll keep saying English because it’s the language in which I write, but assume also any other real-world language). Now, you could write the whole thing in a made-up language (yes, we are looking at you, Tolkien). But that’s not going to get you very far.
Now, obviously the whole thing is made up. There is no fantasy world out there (*sniff*). But we’re pretending there is, and if we’re good enough at it, readers will buy into it. We will accept without having to have it spelled out that what we are reading is a ‘translation’ of whatever fantasy language your Point of View characters speak into English.
This immediately means that you have to make the same kind of choices that translator like Bell and Hockridge have to make when translating a book written in a French. How do you translate a joke or a colloquial phrase? Do you translate it word-for-word to give a feeling of the pattern of the language but risk it losing all meaning in English? Or do you choose an equivalent joke or phrase in English and lose the cultural hints and world-building that the language could otherwise give? Or do you mix it up on a case-by-case basis, dropping in a few fantasy-sounding phrases in between the standard English phrases?
And imagine you’re translating a work from a foreign language that was written in, say, 1400? Do you translate it into period English? Or do you translate it into modern English? How far do you go?
Let’s take the example of a fantasy novel that takes place in a period that is roughly equivalent to the Medieval period. (In other words, somewhere between the fifth and fifteenth centuries.) Do you choose to write it in English that would be appropriate for that period? I think the vast majority of fantasy writers would reject that choice. (Remember, Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales was published in 1387, towards the end of the Medieval period. The period was well over by the time of Shakespeare and the King James Bible.) Very few readers would be interested in fantasy novels written like that. Writing only using English words and phrases in use by the fifteenth century is out for most writers and readers.
But, at the other extreme, it would be peculiarly odd to pick up a pseudo-Medieval novel and read phrases like “hit the buffers” or “laser-like precision”. Including phrases that obviously refer to technology simply not in use in the period would be off-putting.
So let’s move on to more ambiguous examples. How about the word “okay”, which causes a degree of ear-steam from some readers. Although the origin of “okay” is contested, it was popularised in 1840. Clearly 1840 is far after the medieval period. But are you genuinely going to cut out every word or phrase popularised after 1840? That would leave you with a very dated-sounding language. Charles Dickens published The Pickwick Papers in 1836, so maybe you should use that as reference for style and language?
Again, I hope not. That just wouldn’t work for a novel written now.
Where do you draw your line?
For me, it comes down to the type of book you are writing. A funny book, like the Asterix graphic novels, lends itself to a much looser translation. Getting in jokes is far more important than reproducing the exact dialogue.
Also, if you’re writing a grittily realistic fantasy, ironically, you will probably end up using much more contemporary language, because it lends a harder edge to modern ears than more archaic language. If you’re writing a classic fantasy, like most of those published in the 1980s, you probably want to tone back your more modern phraseology, reduce contractions, avoid words that ‘feel’ modern (even if they aren’t). There are plenty of novels like that being written and published right this yea
I’m curious as to what choices others make on this, how you draw the line, what kind of language throws you out of the story, and so on.
(I’ll put a link in the comments to where I link this on Facebook if you find it easier to comment there.)
Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson, is one of those books that I started, read a few chapters, then put down, only to pick up again recently. I probably put books down too quickly when they don’t grab me, but then there are so many books.
The city of Elantris was once a magical city, inhabited by people with near godlike powers. Then, ten years ago, the magic vanished, leaving the city crumbling and those who survived the riots that followed its fall losing their minds to the pain of their accumulated injuries. They are stuck in a half life where they don’t have to eat and where pretty much nothing kills them but where they never heal. The inhabitants of Elantris always spontaneously appeared among the population, transforming overnight from ordinary people to demigods. Now, though, when they are transformed they become the same half dead men and women that Elantrians have become and are cast into the rotting city.
The book follows, for the most part, three characters: Raoden, the Crown Prince, who awakens to find himself transformed into an Elantrian and who is thrown into the ruins of Elantris, with its gangs of desperate, feral people; Sarene, a princess who was travelling to marry Raoden, but who finds herself supposedly a widow before she is even married; and Hrathen, a high priest of a fanatical religion sent to convert the country and given only three months to do it. If he can’t, the country will be invaded and the population slaughtered by the armies of his religion.
Elantris was Brandon Sanderson’s first novel, and he is a more mature and accomplished storyteller now. Nonetheless, this is an impressive debut. It is complex, satisfying, and told with a lightness and energy that many other fantasy writers would envy. Despite a few missteps, this is a very satisfying read.
You can see Sanderson developing themes and character types that he will return to in his later work, particularly in his absurdly epic Stormlight Archive series. For example, there are echoes of Raoden in the Stormlight Archive’s Kaladin. Raoden starts as a prince, falls to less than a beggar, and builds a new, loyal group from the dispirited dregs of Elantris. Kaladin begins as a doctor’s son and leader of an elite army squad, becomes a slave, and then forges a new, loyal group from the lowest of low slaves sent on suicide runs for the army. Sarene is a young woman heading to a foreign land in order to forge a political alliance through marriage to protect her country and who becomes a pivotal figure in her new country struggles. Shallan from the Stormlight Archive leaves her family to form a political alliance through marriage to save her family and, again, becomes a pivotal figure in her new country. Galladon, Raoden’s new friend and right-hand man in Elantris, certainly shares some DNA with the Stormlight Archive’s Rock. This is not to say that the characters are the same. Raoden doesn’t share Kaladin’s crippling depression, for example. But it is interesting to see how the character types have developed in Sanderson’s writing.
As I said, this is not flawless. At least one character, for example, is introduced too late on and then doesn’t really do anything, and one of the revelations near the end seems rather pointless. But it is highly entertaining, imaginative, and has enough originality to stand out from the bulk of debuts.
It also shows that I shouldn’t give up so quickly on books.
4 stars. A very impressive debut, by an author who has become one of the major stars of fantasy.
The Legend of Podkin One-Ear by Kieran Larwood is a high fantasy featuring rabbits. In that way, it follows a path long trodden by the likes of Redwall or The Wind in the Willows, although it has slightly more in the way of fantasy elements than either of those.
One Midwinter, an old bard arrives at the Thornwood Warren and, in exchange for food and shelter, begins to tell the story of the great hero, Podkin One-Ear, who, along with his sister, Paz, and their companions, defeated the evil Gorm. This first book in what appears to be at least a trilogy tells the story of Podkin as a young rabbit when the Gorm come to his home of Munberry Warren and Podkin, Paz, and their baby brother are forced to flee for their lives. It’s a story of survival, the gathering of a small band, and the first strike back against the Gorm, and it’s also a story about growing up, as Podkin goes from being a spoilt, lazy son of a chief to a determined young rabbit.
Initially, the bookending story of the bard seemed slightly unnecessary, but as the story progressed, it became obvious that there was more to that story too, and that it might become more important in future books.
I read this book with my nine-year-old son as his bedtime story, and we both enjoyed it enormously. You can always tell how greatly a kid is engrossed in a story from the amount of pleading for more pages when it’s time to stop, and there was plenty of pleading here.
Podkin One-Ear has a style and tone that immediately mark it out as a classic. There’s warmth – even a cosiness -, adventure, plenty of colour in the depth of detail and description, and appealing, iconic characters. It’s got terrible baddies in the Gorm, rabbits twisted by a kind of living iron and whose bodies are pierced through with metal, and heroes, such as Crom, the blind warrior, as well as a good host of supporting characters. At times, it’s gruesome and there are deaths of Podkin’s family and friends, although nothing my son couldn’t handle.
There were a couple of minor issues with the book, which both my son and I picked up on as we read it. For instance, the rabbits don’t use iron, as the Goddess hates it and it’s the metal of the evil Gorm. But at one point, one of the characters is carrying an iron key. We both expected that to have some significance, but none of the characters seemed to notice and it never came up again (at least in the first book). We also thought that the big bad, the leader of the Gorm, Scramashank, was rather too easily defeated by Podkin through what should have been a rather obvious vulnerability, which we were surprised that none of the warrior rabbits previously beaten by the Gorm had picked up on.
In fact, if I have one criticism of the book it’s that Podkin and co found it just a little too easy to escape from or beat the Gorm at various points of the book, bearing in mind just how terrible the Gorm were supposed to be.
But these are minor points that didn’t get in the way of ou8r enjoyment of the story. I always like to use as a test of how good a book is how quickly I start reading the sequel, and we jumped straight into book 2 the moment we finished this one.
The Legend of Podkin One-Ear is destined to become a classic children’s book, at least in this household. Thoroughly recommended for any child aged about eight to twelve, and for adults who enjoy traditional adventure fantasy.
In between blowing bubbles with the boys (who are off school for the Easter break) and cutting the hedge at last (gardening is not my strong suit), I’ve been thinking about the sense of place in fantasy writing.
The reason I’ve been thinking about it is that I recently read the third book in an epic fantasy trilogy. I’d read the first two about six months before, but when I opened the third one, I didn’t recognise any of the locations. I had to go back and start searching through the first two books to figure out where all these places were and what their significance was.
Now, part of this is my fault. I tend to read late at night when I’m tired and I’m sure my brain doesn’t remember everything that goes into it. Hell, even when I’m at my most awake and alert, my brain is a colander with giant holes. But it’s also true that the real sense of place for a reader is kind of lacking in many fantasy novels. Part of it is because the names are often generically fantasy and so aren’t that easy to remember or distinguish. Part of it is because there’s nothing particularly memorable about the places.
I’m not going to say what the trilogy I was reading was, because there are many other wonderful things about the series and I don’t want to pick on one author in particular, but I’m sure you can think of books that are much the same.
It made me realise that one of the things George RR Martin does superbly well is give a sense of place. The last time I read any of the A Song of Ice and Fire books was when A Dance With Dragons came out in 2011. Yet I have no problem remembering the locations in the books. Ask any fan, and they’ll easily distinguish Winterfell from Kings Landing, Slavers Bay from Riverrun, Harrenhall from The Eyrie, The Wall from Sunspear. And so on.
There are literally hundreds of named locations in Martin’s series, and dozens which are major locations. But every one is readily distinguishable from the others. This is because all the locations are iconic in some way and their names tend to give hints as to what the location is. You’re not going to mix up Dragonstone and the Summer Isles, even if the books never visit the Summer Isles.
Another author who gives a wonderful sense of place in a much smaller setting is Ben Aaronovitch in his Rivers of London series. All of these books are set in and around London, but even for those of us who only occasionally visit the touristy bits of the city, he gives an amazing feeling for even the most out-of-the-way location. He does this through series of anecdotes about each location and its history, accompanied by ironic commentary on them which gives a sharp fix on each. The locations may be more mundane, suburban, even, at times, but they are every bit as vivid as the wilder, more spectacular locations of Martin’s world.
The year is 1814, and the Congress of Vienna has just begun. The Emperor Napoleon has been defeated, and the great powers of Europe have gathered in Vienna to carve up Europe among themselves. Along with them have come the powerful, the deposed nobility of old Europe, and the opportunistic, hoping to grab power and wealth for themselves. Amid glittering balls, parties, and salons, the great of Europe meet, plot, and position themselves.
Into Vienna come Lady Caroline Wyndham, a wealthy English widow, and charming con man Michael Steinhüller. Both of them have secrets. Caroline was born Karolina Vogl, daughter of a radical Viennese printer. Caroline’s father was arrested by the secret police and her childhood was cruelly stolen from her by dark alchemy in the cells of the secret police.
Michael, meanwhile, was once the apprentice of Caroline’s father. Neither has seen the other since their childhoods were shattered, and both have returned to Vienna with plans of their own, Caroline’s to save her father, and Michael’s to pull one last con before he retires. Neither of them expect to encounter the other, and when they do, both their plans will be in danger, and so will they.
I’ve said before that a really well-researched piece of historical fiction can be as full of wonder as the most inventive fantasy or science fiction novel, and this historical fantasy proves that. Every scene comes alive with wonderful, vivid, and sometimes alien detail that make you feel like you’re really there. I lived for six months in Vienna, and in Congress of Shadows, I really felt like I was back there, strolling around the first district or through the royal palaces. This is lush and all-enveloping.
The characters, too, are incredibly involving and well-conceived. From the moment you first meet Caroline, Michael, and the third main character, Peter Riesenbeck, you are swept into their stories, their fears, their desires, and their plans. But it’s not just the main characters who are so believable and enticing. There is also a whole array of historical figures – from the quipping Prince de Ligne and the paranoid Emperor Francis to the manipulative head of the secret police, Count Pergen – and fictional counterparts who leap off the page.
The story is fast paced and increasingly tense as Caroline, Michael, and Peter’s plans begin to crumble in the face of the dark alchemy wielded by Count Pergen.
This is a fantastic book and I have no hesitation in giving it five stars. I loved Stephanie Burgis’s previous historical fantasy, Masks and Shadows, but Congress of Secrets is even better.
The year is 1779, the place is the Eszterháza Palace in Hungary. The famous castrato singer Carlo Morelli is travelling to the palace as a guest of Prince Nikolaus Esterházy, but he is not the only one. He’s accompanied by a famous alchemist, Ignaz Von Born, and a man he suspects to be a spy. Already arrived at the palace is the recently widowed Charlotte von Steinbeck visiting her younger sister, Sophie.
But there are plots brewing at the palace. The Habsburg Emperor and Empress are about to visit, and there are forces at work who will stop at nothing to assassinate them. There is blackmail, alchemy, and betrayal, and not everyone is who they seem to be.
Masks and Shadows is a historical fantasy set in an unusual location with characters who are quite unique. If you’ve read Stephanie Burgis’s previous middle grade books, you’ll know she has a knack for convincing, lively, three dimensional characters with complex motivations, and in this, her first adult novel, she has been able to create some of the most interesting characters you’re likely to read in a fantasy novel, from the castrato singer, Carlo Morelli, playing a role he no longer believes in to Charlotte von Steinbeck, the very proper young widow who is forced to confront the scandalous fact that her younger sister, Sophie, is the very public mistress of Prince Esterházy. Then there are the members of the prince’s opera company who are unwillingly caught up in the plots and Sophie’s husband, a member of the prince’s guard, unsuccessfully trying not to regret the deal he made that allows his own wife to be the prince’s mistress.
Add to those the real historical characters in the book: Prince Esterházy and his wife, the princess forced to live in the palace alongside the prince’s mistress, the composer Joseph Haydn, and a host of others and you have a setting that is rich and highly believable.
This is an enormously well-researched book, full of colour and atmosphere, but it’s not one of those books where the author feels the need to pile all the research on you. The story is fast-moving, touching, tense and enormously involving. You will genuinely believe you are in the Esterháza Palace along with these wonderful and conflicted characters, and the story won’t let you go until you reach the desperate finale.
This book draws heavily on opera and the opera company contracted to Prince Esterházy. I am not a fan of opera (to say the least) and know pretty much nothing about eighteenth century Hungary but everything about the story thread of the company trying to put on a performance of Haydn’s new opera for the visiting royals while being unwittingly caught up in the various plots and under threat of disapproval from the unforgiving prince caught me up and enthralled me.
Masks and Shadows is the kind of book that utterly absorbs you and drags you through the conflicting emotions and dilemmas of its rich cast of characters.
I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes fantasy, historical fiction or romance.
