Letters to Zell

What is it with everything being 'a novel' again? It's
oddly 19th century.

All is not well in Grimmland. The princesses Rory, CeCi and Zell (Briar Rose/Aurora/Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella and Rapunzel) have all finished their pages and get to live the rest of their lives as their happy ever after, but Bianca (Snow White) is troubled by her own pages and chafing at the restrictions on her freedom. When Zell and her family suddenly up sticks to Oz to run a Unicorn Sanctuary, it is the start of a major upheaval in the group which wil have potentially catastrophic consequences for all the beings in the lands of imagination.

Camille Griep's debut novel treads the well-worn yellow brick road of fairytale reimagining, but the quirky, backstage antics approach - the tale itself is represented by a princess's pages, the book is about what happens around and after them - is fresh. These fairytale characters exist in a world created by human imagination, and they know it, having the ability to cross into the real world to visit Disneyland for giggles and culture shock. The truth of their 'happy ever after' is that Rory is traumatised by the loss of her actual true love and his replacement with a boorish lug, CeCi deplores the loss of cooking from her life, and Bianca is a bi-curious free spirit whose pages require her to plan an execution into her wedding.

Griep expands on this through an epistolary format, presenting the unfolding events in an overlapping series of letters, each one providing an alternate point of view on something in the last before adding something new. It's a not unsuccessful mechanism - it was the primary means of writing for a century or so, after all - but it has flaws, and while the relationship between the princesses is portrayed as sufficiently close that the sometimes confessional tone is appropriate, for my money the immersion falters from not including any of Zell's return correspondence, especially when references to it are made and have to be in the counter-naturalistic format of 'as you say in your letter...'

Or is it just that email has changed epistolary expectations? In retrospect, it could be that. After all, it's less unreasonable to reiterate something said in a letter that someone might have written a month ago and may well not have a copy of.

Anyway, it's not going to turn the genre on its head, but Letters to Zell presents a relatively fresh approach to fairy tales, with princesses learning to define themselves outside their relationship and happy endings and princes who are varied and realised characters in their own right, but serve primarily as props to the princesses' stories.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

Fresh off the back of the recent TV adaptation, I went back to Susanna Clarke's first - and to date only - novel, this time in audiobook format, read by Simon Prebble.

Clarke's work tells of the restoration of English magic, some three or four centuries after the disappearance of its founding father. It is set in an alternate history, in which the familiar Kings and Queens of  our own history are only the rulers of Southern England, and latterly the stewards of the north following the disappearance of the King in the North (a magician taken by fairies as a child, who as the Raven King laid the foundations of English magic.) Gilbert Norrell, the first practical magician in three centuries, is determined to be rational and respectable, but his first and only pupil Jonathan Strange is of a more romantic bent.

Norrell craves the favour of great men and an order of law to bind magic to his own pattern; Strange longs for grand magic and the notice of the Raven King. The two magicians break with one another even as a sinister and otherworldly foe moves against them, and those around them are caught up in the conflict to their own detriment. At last, the two come together for what many believe will be a duel to the death, but which has far greater stakes than that.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is a grand and sweeping work (weighing in on Audible at 32 hours), full of footnotes and digressions laying out the history of English magic in tantalising snippets, from the rule of the Raven King in the North and the golden age of the Aureate magicians, through the decline of the Argentine or silver age, to a time of mere theory, when gentleman magicians scorn the idea of casting spells in order to excuse the fact that they can not do so. It is a world in which northern magic threatens southern rule, and even the potential existence of female magicians is seen as a threat to a typically Regency social order in which women have no place in politics and power.

As the story of the beginning of the return of English magic in this era, and the story of two gentleman magicians, the book is quite light on strong female characterisations (I complained of this in the first episode of the TV adaptation, but on revisiting the book it is striking how much was done to beef up the female characters there.) Arabella Strange is strong-willed, but ultimately becomes a victim to be rescued, and even the more dynamic Lady Pole is driven largely by emotion rather than the presumed masculine preserve of rationality. In part, this is due to the nature of the text as a facsimile of a period manuscript, but especially given that one of the key differences between the two magicians is that Mr Norrell considers women entirely unsuited to magical study while Mr Strange is noted to be more comfortable in female company than male, it is a shame not to see more of women.

It has been argued that the narrator - the pseudobiographical nature and scholarly layout of the text is suggestive of a specific narrator, rather than an authorial voice - is one of the new breed of female magicians who emerge alongside their male counterparts from the novel's climax, and there are hints of this even through Prebble's reading in the narrative's hints to the folly of men, and especially of men who do not pay mind to the value of women (see also and especially the short story 'The Ladies of Grace Adieu' in the collection of the same name, Clarke's only other published work of fiction, and the audio short story 'The Dweller in High Places' for a strong, period female lead from the same author.)

Not without its flaws then, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell is however still an impressive work, and most of those flaws are answered by its place in the wider canon of Clarke's short stories.

The Folklore of Discworld

I've never been all that interested by books about 'The Science of Star Trek', for example. It seems to me that wherever and to what extent I don't already understand the science involved in Star Trek on the basis of my A-level in Physics and general scientific curiosity, I'm probably never going to get it. I maxed out on science at A-levels. I'm also afraid that the really interesting bits will turn out to have been made up. The Science of Discworld was a different proposition. Since it was based around a fantasy series, and not science fiction, it didn't offer to immediately get mired in the hinterland between my own understanding and things far beyond my ken. I very much enjoyed the first two, and look forward to reading the others some day. It was thus with some anticipation that I picked up an audiobook of The Folklore of Discworld, read by Michael Fenton Stephens.

Sadly - and I've been putting this review off for weeks because I didn't want to say this - I found it lacking. I think this is my own fault in part. The book is an exploration of the Discworld's folklore and an expansion on its sources, where I was hoping for something which more looked at our folklore through the eyes of the Disc, as the Science series did. I also found the repeated suggestion that Earth folklore mirrored the Disc to be disingenuous after the third or fourth repeat.

The Folklore of Discworld is not a bad book, it's just much more a book about the Discworld than it is a book about folklore.

The Long Mars

It has been fifteen years since Yellowstone erupted on the Datum, gouging the heart out of America and plunging the world into a volcanic winter. Emigration to the worlds of the Long Earth has increased, and the population has become attenuated, stretching out across the near-infinite space of the stepward worlds.

The ur-pioneers Joshua Valiente and Sally Lindsay find themselves once more roped into adventures not of their own making. Joshua is recruited by the AI Lobsang to investigate the apparent rise of an intellectually superior subspecies of human, while Sally's father - Willis Lindsay, father of stepping - calls on her to accompany him on a mission not just to Mars, but to The Long Mars (roll credits.) Meanwhile, US Navy captain and veteran explorer Maggie Kaufman is sent out to delve deep into the Long Earth. With two 'Twain' airships and a crew of navy personnel and scientists, her goal is to travel a quarter billion steps from Earth, into worlds as alien as any Mars.

As with previous books in the Long Earth cycle, The Long Mars is a multi-stranded narrative with a somewhat take-it-or-leave-it approach to the conventions of dramatic closure. The main narratives are Sally and Maggie's, with Joshua's primarily serving to set up the final conflict which bring the two other threads together, and the dominant theme of the book is that of the alien. This theme is expressed in the many Marses which exist in their own long chain, distinct from the chain of the Long Earth and only crossing at the Earthless Gap (which may mean that a) every Earth's Mars connects to a different Long Mars, b) every Mars's Earth connects to a different Long Earth, or c) that the Long Mars and Long Earth intersect entirely, but not in a fashion which line up with one another,) but also in the remote Earths which developed in a radically different fashion to the Datum, and the thought processes of the Next.

As in The Long War, the science in The Long Mars is better than the fiction. Although written as a conventional narrative, it has more of a documentary quality to it, leading to an open ending and a lack of really likable characters. Again in common with the previous book, the most sympathetic character is a semi-outsider, aging rocket jockey Frank Wood. In the nature of high-concept hard SF, the resulting novel is more interesting than involving (I think I said the same thing about much of Neal Stephenson's oeuvre,) but it is definitely interesting.

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.