Maggie for Hire

Crude as it is, this is a much better cover than my
Kindle edition had. This is how Maggie is actually
described in the book, all sass and biker leathers.
On the one I have she has massively 90s pop video
hair and a vest that looks like it was crudely beaten
from aluminium. Still, it's better than the one where
she's wearing stripper leathers and you can't even
see a full face.

Maggie McKay is a Tracker; basically a skip-tracer for the Otherworld. A child of both worlds, she is able to move with relative ease across the boundary between the mundane and the magical, find rogue vampires and ghouls, and bring them back to the Otherworld, dead or more dead. But then something goes awry and the vampires seem to be hunting a bounty on Maggie. Before long, she's got a contract to save the world, a long-lost uncle who might want her dead, and an unwanted new partner in the form an an irritating elf named Killian.

So, I admit, I read this book for two reasons: 1) I loved The Woodcutter, Danley's first novel, and 2) the Kindle edition was free. Maggie for Hire is, even more than The Woodcutter, part of a vast herd. It doesn't really distinguish itself in either direction, neither managing to be a standout success, nor yet more than ordinarily appalling. It's workmanlike, which may be pretty damning in and of itself, although the several favourite phrases textmarked in the Kindle edition suggest that it has at least a cult following.

I can understand how it might: Sassy hunter, gorgeous if lippy sidekick and a side-order of family angst; it's got everything a book of its ilk should have. As of book 1, however, Maggie McKay Magical Tracker doesn't really have much more than that (actually, that's not 100% fair; Pipistrelle the Brownie was kinda awesome.) It's a shame, because The Woodcutter felt like Danley had a lot more to say. On the other hand, I can not fault her industry. Maggie for Hire has four sequels, and Danley now has an even dozen books out in the past four years. I guess that's the kind of thing you have to do to make the bacon as an indie novelist, so maybe a little unevenness is inevitable.

The Rithmatist

Rithmatics is a magic forged in chalk. A Rithmatist can create, defend and breach barriers just by drawing in chalk, but it is not a skill that can be learned: Rithmatists are chosen.

Joel was not chosen, but he has a fascination for Rithmatics that is matched by an agile, mathematical mind and a superb geometric eye. The son of a chalkmaker, he attends a prestigious school on a scholarship, fitting in with neither the Rithmatic students, all bound for ten years military service defending the United Isles from wild chalklings, or the sons and daughters of the wealthy who attend the general school with him. Melody has position and wealth to spare, and was chosen as a Rithmatist, but can't even draw a circle. Pushed together in a summer elective class with eccentric Rithmatic theorist Professor Fitch, this odd couple are drawn into the investigation of a series of gruesome crimes involving Rithmatic students; crimes which could threaten the entire nation.

The Rithmatist is my first encounter with terrifyingly prolific fantasy novelist Brandon Sanderson. It's a slow-burner, paced more like a detective novel than a conventional fantasy or even school story, with the investigation and the magical theory surrounding it more important than dramatic duels or detentions. Joel and Melody are well balanced as protagonist and deuteragonist, one mathematical, the other artistic, and both qualities given weight within the setting and the magical system. Both are at times irritating - Joel in his absolute focus on Rithmatics and insistence that everything else is boring, Melody in her melodramatic self-pity - but the author is not blind to these faults and they are explored in the text rather than overlooked or excused (as in a scene where Joel is confronted with and confounded by politics and admits to failing his government class last year. "When am I going to need to know historical government theories?" he asks. "I don't know... Maybe right now," is the reply.)

Rithmatics is basically really badass
geometry.

The audiobook, read by Michael Kramer, is good, but suffers from the semi-illustrated nature of the book, and in particular the chapter-heading rithmatic diagrams which provide a great deal of visual context. Having the Kindle book as well proved a boon in this instance. The diagrams are part of a simple yet detailed magic system, although a couple of its facets felt brushed over, specifically that Rithmatists are only chosen to replace those who have died, and that one of the new rithmatic techniques which form a central plot point is so dramatically out of character for the rest of the system. I am sure that both of these facts have relevance, and even if not answered it would have been good to hear the characters ask some questions.

Rithmatics does not exist in a vacuum, however, and is clearly linked to the nature of a world in which the North American continent was shattered into a vast archipelago before any European explorer every reach its shores, and abandoned by its indigenous people in the face of wild chalkling attack. The pseudo-Anglican church with its monopoly on Rithmatists, the clockpunk aesthetic and the political landscape are broadly sketched, but clearly intrinsically linked to the history and nature of the world.

Who doesn't like a map?

If The Rithmatist has a flaw, it is that it is all setup and very little conclusion. It's not without closure, and manages a good turn of action in the closing fifth or so, but is unmistakably, and self-consciously, part of a series. It's a series I intend to follow - when the next part is published and probably recorded - but it's there.

If there is a single sentence to sum up the book's achievement, it is that it makes dual-wielding chalk seem hardcore.

The Oversight

A drunken reprobate brings a girl, bound and gagged, to the door of a London house, where he has been told a Jew will pay a pretty penny for screaming girls. Thus is a scheme put into motion with the intent of destroying the Free Company of the London Oversight, the thin red line between the natural and supranatural worlds. Once hundreds strong, the Oversight has been reduced to a mere handful of members, the very smallest number able to perform their function. The girl, Lucy Harker, might be the first in a line of new recruits, or she could be the destruction of all they have worked for.

In The Oversight, author Charlie Fletcher sets about the creation of a world in which a company of individuals with magical gifts protects an unsuspecting human world from the depredations of the uncanny. Not that it is an entirely new creation, as the presence of Glints - exclusively female psychometrists, who experience the past recorded in stone as tooth-jarring visions, and focus their power through a sea glass heartstone - and John Dee - characterised as a serial killing arsehole* who travels through mirrors and murders Glints to use their heartstones as torches - connects it to the world of the excellent Stone Heart trilogy (which I reviewed in my past life as a teacher.)

The Oversight is divided into three main parts: The deeds of the struggling members of the Oversight itself; the misadventures of Lucy Harker; and glimpses of the doings of the villains of the piece. The first of these is a sort of desperate mystical detective novel, the second a paranormal fugitive Huckleberry Finn and the last a chance to wallow in the smirking evil of the repellent Templebain brothers, a vicious Viscount, and probably-Napoleon and his retained vampire.

The story of the Oversight's history emerges quite organically, without too much delving into the pronoun game or willful retention of vital information - two of the perils of emergent backstory - and while one development in Lucy's story seems a little counter-intuitive at first, it makes sense on consideration that a group of people trying to protect a paranoid natural ninja might consider it necessary to bung her in a sack temporarily for her own good. While the focus is on Britain, and especially London, there is a definite sense of a wider world in which the Oversight operate, and a good balance between their powers and competence and forces which nonetheless threaten them.

Simon Prebble is a good reader, which is a good thing, since my next audiobook is 30 hours of Prebble reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, which could otherwise get pretty tedious. Actually, I might set that one back while I get through the TV version, but it's on the phone anyway, and I am not remotely averse to picking up The Paradox if it has the same reader.

* I don't know why John Dee is so much the whipping villain of mystical alternate histories; possibly because he was English.

Anansi Boys

Fat Charlie Nancy hasn't seen his dad in years, and that's just how he likes it. It was his dad who named him 'Fat' Charlie, a nickname that has never gone away. When his fiancee insists on a family reunion for the wedding, however, he learns that his father is dead, that he has a brother, and that his father was Anansi, the Spider God. Soon, his brother Spider is in his life and living it better than he ever has, and Fat Charlie discovers what lengths he will - and will not - go to to get shot of embarrassing family.

A sort-of-not-a sequel to the vast epic of American Gods, and possibly taking place in the same fictional universe (or not) Anansi Boys is a lighter and more intimate affair, focusing on the West African trickster Anansi; or more accurately, on his two sons, Charles and Spider. It begins as an Anglo-American comedy of manners, before evolving into a white collar crime thriller, then a manhunt, and finally a cosmic struggle for the lives of the brothers and, in all probability, the soul and essential narrative of all humanity. The fact that this progression isn't utterly ludicrous should be praise enough.

Where Gods focused on the interface between Americana, technology and religion, the mythology of Anansi Boys is more straightforward. Anansi is a god, as are his sons, and all in all they just are what they are, even at the start of the book when Fat Charlie solely embodies the aspect of Anansi who suffers the karmic backlash of his many tricks. Whereas American Gods is about what humanity does for its gods, Anansi Boys is very much about what gods do for humanity, and what humans can do for each other, as the non-divine characters are far from unimportant.

The audiobook is read by Lenny Henry, which is both a good thing - because he is very good - and perhaps a bad, since he already defines Afro-Caribbean culture for so many Britons. Regardless of the socio-cultural ramifications, the reading is excellent, with clear voices for all of the characters, from the nasal and obsequious Graham Coats to the George Sanders purr of his murderous counterpart Tiger.

The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle

It is the height and heart of the Industrial Revolution, Victorian London, a city of iron and steam. Horatio Lyle, inventor, detective, special constable and unwilling dog lover, is the embodiment of the brave new world, and as such is called in by Lord Lincoln, aide to Her Majesty herself, when a cultural treasure is stolen. Aided by Thomas, a young gentleman with a connection to the case, and Tess, a girl whom he caught breaking into his house, and Tate, the canine who long ago insinuated himself into his home, Lyle will find his scientific rationality tested by confrontations with things that man was, perhaps, not strictly supposed to wot of.

A Victorian urban fantasy with elements of steampunk in Lyle's advanced use of roughly contemporary science, The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle certainly features and unusual cast of characters. Lyle is a skilled observer and inventor, but is physically weak and afraid of heights, while his more robust young cohorts lack social polish and education in the one case and experience of the real world in the other. The plot is a pretty breakneck affair, and there were points where I could have stood a bit of a breather, but I certainly never found it dragging.

Stardust

"There was once a young man who wished to gain his heart's desire."

When a novel opens with the kind of line that you just know is going to appear at the top of just about every review or description written of it, you know that you have something special. So begins this review, and so begins the tale of Tristran Thorn in Neil Gaiman's Stardust. It seems almost disingenuous to go into the details of a book that is, if not universally acclaimed, then certainly pretty well loved and certainly known by most of the people likely to be reading this blog. The book has been out for years and I own three copies (original UK paperback, Charles Vess illustrated paperback and now Kindle,) so it's not exactly new to me, but there's a virtue all its own to a book you can reread time and again.

The most important, and perhaps most controversial thing I have to say about the book is that I like it better than the film. I like the low key, bittersweet ending and the fact that the girl Tristran runs off to fetch a star for isn't a worthless, preening snob. I adore the way the book wraps magic around old tales and rhymes far more than the film's Babylon Candle, and the inextricable blending of love and loss speaks to me in a way that the films genuine ever-after never has done.

But then I'm the kind of guy who likes the original ending of The Little Mermaid better, although truth to tell my own preferred version is the one where she shivs the prince for being a dick ('Oh, hey there girl who winces with every step; dance for me.')

Stardust. If you're only ever going to like one affectionate reconstruction of the fairy tale milieu, this will be the one. If you're going to like more of them, you've probably already read this.

Fire & Chasm

There are two great, primal forces in the world. The Fire is the warmth of creation, the Chasm the abyss of unmaking. All humans are given a gift by the fire, a singular magical ability that they can employ at will, unless they sacrifice that gift for the power of the many spells that can be drawn from the chasm. The Church worships the Fire, the Wizards' Guild studies the Chasm. The two clash politically all the time, but Az is the Church's weapon in a more secret war. Able to control the intoxicating power of obsidian - where fire and chasm meet - he is an assassin, a wizard killer, and an enigma even to himself.

Fire & Chasm is a fairly short YA fantasy novel with a decent bit of world building. Unfortunately, it has two major problems:

First, Az spends a lot of time bemoaning his lot, although overall he comes through lightly given how many people he has killed during the course of the narrative, including about a dozen wizards who were just trying to stop him breaking into their house in a fugue state. I guess we're supposed to forgive him because of the fugue and the horrors done to him, but in all seriousness these deaths are basically never mentioned except for their impact on the political landscape. After the immediate aftermath, they seem to prey on precisely nobody's conscience, ever. The other main characters are the wizard who made him this way, the wizard's daughter Leora, whose romance with Az has little conflict even when his fugues are revealed to her, and a cartoonishly diabolical High Priest.

The second problem is that the plot wants to be political, but the characters essentially exist within a bubble. The wider ramifications of their actions are reported, but never shown, and more importantly involve characters that we are not allowed to know and thus have little reason to care about. We never see anything of the political sphere besides the High Priest, who is a hands-on kind of guy and is never seen at court or engaged in subtle diplomacy and manoeuvring, just setting things on fire and torturing Az for shiggles.

Fire & Chasm isn't terrible, but an unengaging protagonist and an emphasis away from what feels like the more involving part of the plot mean that it fails to distinguish itself from the crowd.