Clariel

The city of Belisaire is the cultural heart of the Old Kingdom, a place where the fuss and ceremony of Charter Magic is being replaced by the rationalism and craft of the Guilds; and if such a transition requires the assistance of a little Free Magic, then so be it. Caught in the middle of a power grab, Clariel wants nothing more than to be left alone to pursue her own path in the world, but even a loner is not an island, and so long as there is anything she cares for there is danger.

The fourth novel in the Old Kingdom series is a prequel, exploring the early life of a minor member of the Abhorsen line who will one day become the powerful necromancer Chlorr of the Mask. Clariel is a complicated character, who longs for freedom yet feels a pull of duty nonetheless. She defies the path that her parents have chosen for her, yet her earnest wish is to do good, and the apathy of her kin spurs her to a reckless and life-altering decision.

Clariel is a dark novel, even by the standards of a series in which the protagonists fight zombies and regularly - if only temporarily - die a little bit in order to do so. It's a pretty decent adventure, although for my money not as good as the main trilogy, perhaps because some of the tension is lost by knowing that the monarchy doesn't fall and Clariel won't die but will end up a necromancer at some stage.

Bedtime Stories: Blueberry Girl, by Neil Gaiman

Since we'e now reading most, if not every night with Arya, I thought it high time I started looking at the books we read with her.

Blueberry Girl is a poem written by Neil Gaiman for Tori Amos, illustrated by Charles Vess. It was given to Arya by some of Hanna's oldest friends for her first birthday. The book takes the form not of a narrative but of a prayer of sorts, asking an assortment of non-specific maternal deities to bestow their common sense blessings upon a child, 'a blueberry girl,' to guide her through life.

It is a lovely poem, invoking images from fairy tales and real life, and speaking volumes to any concerned parent.

It is the pictures, however, that have won Arya over. In particular, she loves spotting the owls on every page, and asking about the other animals she can see.

"Is a ow!"

Foxglove Summer

A missing children case sends DC Peter Grant out of his comfort zone (London) and into the wilds of Hereford (it's practically Wales for God's sake!) for the sake of due diligence. He only sticks around to help out, but before long, it's looking more and more like a Folly case, with invisible unicorns and who knows what sticking their oars in.

The latest from Ben Aaronovich was a book I approached with trepidation, since missing children plots give me the heebie-jeebies. It was bad enough when I was teaching, but as a father I can barely make it through an episode of Criminal Minds. Thankfully it was not the cripplingly terror-inducing experience that it could have been.

There is some time given to the evolving arc plot of the Faceless Man and Lesley - last seen escaping from Peter after the latter's blindsiding heel turn in Broken Homes - but for the most part this is about the case of the missing kids. I was glad not to see an actual appearance by the Faceless Man (it would be a bit much for him to be behind everything,) although at one point I thought that he and/or Lesley would put in an appearance and try to steal the staves Peter is given, following his sabotage of the Faceless Man's big power harvest.

I think I'm looking forward to the return to London. Aaronovich's grasp of London's landscape is stronger and thus its occult nature within the series is much better developed. Aspects of Hereford's supernatural side seemed a bit stock in places, whereas London's demimonde has always felt fresh. That being said, this is another good read and ducks the bleakness that dogs so many detective series.

Runemarks

The village of Malbry is a dull village, occupied by dull folk who never dream, or if they do aren't gauche enough to talk about it. And then there's the exception; Maddy Smith, who talks to the Outlander One-Eye and has a blatant runemark on her palm. Many people predict that she will come to a bad end, but only one knows that the world could stand or fall - again - on her actions.

When I first read Runemarks a few years ago, it was honestly not what I'd expected from the author of Chocolat. It's a post-apocalyptic adventurer, in which the apocalypse was the Norse Ragnarok and the new world is built on the ruins of the Middle world of Midgard and the fallen Sky Citadel of Asgard.

It's a good story too, full of twists and turns and betrayals, and with a wonderfully grim and impersonal adversary in the Order, a sort of church-cum-civil service. Maddy is a likable protagonist, and the characterisations of the Norse Gods are fun and irreverent, neither throwing aside traditional descriptions nor feeling that the Aesir and Vanir need to be portrayed necessarily as perfect beings, or even good people.

Runemarks is well worth a read, and I'll be taking a look at the sequel after I finish Foxglove Summer.

Guardians of the Night (A Gideon and Sirius novel)

Michael Gideon and his partner Sirius, a German shepherd, are the entire staff of the LAPD Special Cases Unit, handling bizarre and hard to categorise crimes. That's why they get the call when a homeless man reports the murder of an angel by persons unknown in a silent, black car.

So, I'm going to be honest here, I was misled by the blurb into thinking this would be an occult mystery, and I think I may not have appreciated it as a crime/conspiracy novel as much as I might have done had I not been waiting for the other shoe to levitate. As it is, whatever the truth of the initial crime - and by the end of the novel it still isn't clear - this isn't a book about an angel being murdered, but about shady business practices and the corrupt rich.

It's an odd sort of detective novel. The original crime may not even exist and a second crime goes unsolved and may not have been a crime, while the denouement features the resolution of a murder not committed until the book is almost over. There is also an arc plot from the first book, which I haven't read; my bad.

It's not a bad book, although I suspect a doggier reader would get more from it than me.

Two Months of Kindle Unlimited

I have now pretty much concluded my time with Kindle Unlimited. It's not a bad concept - access to a collection of titles for £7.99 a month, including several with unabridged audio accompaniment - but although I am primarily a Kindle-based reader now, I've opted not to continue for several reasons.

1) Cost: At present, I can get by on £7.99 a month or less on books. In particular, I can get books, ebooks and audiobooks from the library.

2) Choice: The range is limited and I already have most of the really good stuff in paper format. I've read some right old tosh as part of my subscription.

3) Alternatives: In addition to the library option, as a Prime subscriber it turns out I already get one free book a month from a selection of pre-publication titles. That should keep me in random interest for a while at least.

4) It's Christmas: I'll probably have at least some books for Christmas, so an ebook sub will be wasted.

5) Flexibility: I can always pick it up again for a month or so if I fancy working through something specific.

Nostrum and Emaculum

Wrapping up my Kindle Unlimited experiment, I conclude Roberto Calas' Scourge trilogy with Nostrum and Emaculum, in text rather than audiobook format.

Nostrum picks up two days after the end of The Scourge, as Sir Edward Dallingridge decides that faith and prayer and patience aren't working to heal his plagued wife and sets off in search of the alchemist who is rumoured to have found a cure. Reunited with Tristan and joined by the sassy nun Beliscensia, he seeks out the island fortress where the alchemist works, hunts a dragon, is captured several times and continues to be menaced by his nemesis Sir Gerald and to experience greatly varied success in the employment of hand cannons.

Emaculum sees Sir Edward, cure in hand, struggling to return to St Edmund's Bury through the increasingly splintered jurisdictions of the many mad kings of the new England (one of whom is the actual mad king of England.) With the cure in hand he has a chance to save Elizabeth, but the Virgin Mary and St Giles have trials yet in store for their apparent favourite, now sworn to be the champion of the plagued, defender of those who can yet be cured of their malady.

As in The Scourge, Calas merges his zombie horror with a loving recreation of the approximate history of the period as it might have played out given the rise of a zombie plague in the wake of the Black Death. He keeps the source of the plague (god, the devil, ground up saints' bones) uncertain, and likewise the means of repelling them (holy relics, lichens and lepers) are never explored in anachronistic terms. The focus is on Sir Edward and his increasingly obsessive quest to save his wife or to die with her.

Sir Edward is brutal and Sir Tristan, his closest ally, seems almost inordinately pleased each time he manages to spike an enemy with the plague tincture. On the other hand it was a violent age, and their enemies are almost monstrous, which kind of makes them seem okay by comparison.

The Scourge trilogy is a decent historical zombie romp. It's more or less my first - at least in written form - although I'm sure the kindle store is full of the bloody things by now. It is thus my benchmark for the subgenre moving forward.