Stephan Grundy’s Rhinegold

Rhinegold is a saga of fate and revenge.

The gods Wodan, Hoenir and Loki are travelling in the world of men when they accidentally kill the son of a local lord. The family demands the gods pay the murdered man’s weight in gold or be killed. The gods do pay this wergild, but the gold they hand over is cursed and will lead the victim’s relatives to sorrow and death, generation after generation. The novel describes the painful path the family must take in order to lift the curse and stop the cycle of killing.

I first started Rhinegold because I had never taken the time to learn the story of the famous hero Siegfried (Sigifrith), which makes up a major part of the novel. Having married a German, I would have said I understand the country and its culture pretty well. Rhinegold shook that belief.

There is something irrevocably alien about a woman who is party to her own children’s death because they were not courageous enough to murder their father to avenge their grandfather. Similarly, it seems particularly fickle of a god to sire a son on a line of humans and give particular members of that family favour, only to be the instigator of their doom some years later.

In general, the choices the characters make in the novel (and I assume the original story) feel horrifying or tremendously stupid, especially since the characters are generally aware of the grievous consequences that will result from their decisions. In today’s world, most of us would come to a fork in the road, see a choice and take the easier path. We would not fight in a battle where our defeat was assured.

Yet the Rhinegold characters believe firmly there is no choice: if one path would be to abandon honour and duty to kin, then it is not a possibility. Besides this, their belief is often that whatever choice is made, the end result would be the same – fate cannot be turned aside. The important thing is how a man (or woman) faces their destiny. If with courage, Valhalla awaits.

Although this ideal does make it hard to relate to the characters, there’s something very pure and gritty about it. It felt to me a little like watching a blizzard while being home and safe in bed. It is better to be living now, where we are easier on ourselves and others. The narrative also has a pleasingly circular arc such that at the end we feel we have moved back to the beginning.

I do have to admit to struggling a little – it is a rather long tome, but I am still thinking about it some weeks after finishing, so it must have been worth it. I’m going to give it a 3 out of 5.

Mitchell Hogan’s A Crucible of Souls

This self-published book won the 2013 Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy Novel.

Caldan is an orphan who has been taken in by a monastery. There he works hard and sometimes studies alongside the privileged sons and daughters of nobles who come to learn many arts, including Crafting, Swordplay, Dominion and Alchemy.

An accident leads to his expulsion from the monastery and he finds himself alone in a cut-throat city. To stay alive he has to make the best of the patchwork skills he learned at the monastery. As he tries to find his feet, an invasion force is preparing an assault on the city that will once more throw his life into chaos.

I have mixed feelings about this novel.

I’m constantly in awe of authors who self publish and make it. The world building was great and the system of magic even better. The problem was that I couldn’t identify with the characters – generally a deal breaker for me.

A Crucible of Souls is the “coming of age” type of fantasy novel and Caldan is your typical naive youth who is bound to make ten cringeworthy mistakes before breakfast. Perhaps it says more about me than this book, but that naivety annoyed me. It was also slightly boring. Did Caldan develop as the novel went on? In terms of skills, sure. In terms of character? I don’t think so.

Hogan compounded this error by packing Caldan in cotton wool. He never let things get really bad for the boy. He’d set up an awful situation where things could get very hairy, then sidestep it. I always breathe a sigh of relief when a character escapes a noose, but sometimes the noose has to catch them in order for the suspense to work.

Having said that, towards the end of the book I became more interested and if I’m honest I will probably read the next book in the series. If nothing else, I’d like to find out what happens to some of the minor characters who I found more interesting. I am also curious to learn the reason Caldan’s parents were killed. But I wouldn’t be urging too many people to follow my lead.

I’m going to give it a 3.5/5.

Mark T. Barnes’ The Garden of Stones

This fantasy epic begins with a politically driven war that shifts the balance of power in an age old empire.

Corajidin heads the house of Erebus, but visions have foretold that he will rise to rule all his people. Impatient for his destiny, he commits atrocities to accelerate his ascent.

Renowned warrior-mage Indris would rather not become involved in the conflict, having turned his back on old responsibilities after losing his wife. Yet even he can not escape the momentum of events.

Mari, Corajidin’s daughter, is caught between filial duty and doing what she knows is right.

Whether or not you like this book will strongly depend on how much you enjoy complex fantasy worlds – because The Garden of Stones is all about the world. Barnes creates a multi-layered banquet for the senses and the mind with detailed descriptions of settings and culture that will scintillate a particular type of reader.

I will confess upfront that I am not one of these readers. To me, the world always has to take a back seat to the plot and the characterisation. In my opinion the extreme world-building of this book got in the way of the story.

Consider these statistics. In the first two thousand or so words of the novel we are introduced to:

• Eight character names (we only meet four of them)
• Six place or geographic feature names
• Eight different groups of people (Family Names/Race names/Order names)
• Seven fabricated words or concepts for objects or magic
• Four rank titles

All this detail at the start of the novel slowed the action down – the opening battle scene had the pace and tension of a tea party. And Barnes continues to introduce new names, concepts and facts almost all the way through.

Having said that, the descriptions did evoke a strong sense of place (if not necessarily character), and the world Barnes has created is original. For example:

In Seethe fashion there were no exterior walls in the Hai Ardin. No doors. Crystalsingers had coaxed the growing formations into seemingly random steps, chambers and tilted columns. In some areas the high, semi-vaulted ceilings of the Hai-Ardin were open to the sky. Translucent beetle-shell hangings adorned the walls. Ilhen crystals shone like jagged candle flames frozen in time.

Another highlight of the novel was Corajidin, who is a better rounded villain than found in most series. He is not a bad man, just one with strong ambition who ultimately is driven towards immoral actions by failing health. His desperation and impatience with his mortality sings through every scene he inhabits. In retrospect, I found him more interesting than either of the other viewpoint characters. Sometimes I even wanted him to triumph.

In summary, although I personally didn’t particularly enjoy this novel and am going to give it a 3/5, I think many fantasy readers who love detailed worlds will devour it and pant for more.

Brandon Sanderson’s Words of Radiance

Sanderson’s Words of Radiance is the second instalment in his Stormlight Archives about a world facing destruction from the voidbringers of ancient myth.

Most of the world’s inhabitants are oblivious of the danger, but some have been piecing the clues together that point to the trouble to come. Unfortunately they also have vastly different ideas about what to do about it.

It seems obvious that the order of the Knights Radiant will be involved: a long defunct order of men and women with special powers.  Yet the budding “knights” come from diverse backgrounds and are afraid of revealing the extent of their powers. Can they get past differences in class in cultures to confide in each other and build the trust necessary for a functioning order? Can they discover the long lost secrets they will need to survive the battle to come?

These questions are not fully answered by the end of the book, leaving a lot to do in the next instalments. Even so, I loved it.  All of it. If I had to choose one word to describe it, it would be brilliant. If I had to choose two, I would say brilliant and long.

I seem to find less and less fantasy books that are really long. Many people find this a good thing. After all, the shorter the book the better for busy people.

Personally, I prefer longer books. It takes me a while to warm up to characters and I like to take some time to enjoy them once I’m familiar with their quirks. Plus, I’m a bit cheap and I always consider the value/price ratio before I purchase a book. If I have a 200-page book and a 1000-page book on my wishlist for the same price, I’ll always buy the latter first.

Words of Radiance was therefore manna from heaven.

I’m in awe of how much the characters develop — they are certainly not the same in the second book as they were at the start of the series. But I’m most in awe of Sanderson’s world building, which is intensely detailed and immensely broad in scope.

I’m going to give this book a 5/5. I bow to Sanderson’s superior abilities and pray it won’t be as long a wait for the next one in the series as it was for this one.

Daniel Antoniazzi’s Within the Hollow Crown

Within the Hollow Crown feels like a Terry Pratchett – Michael J. Sullivan cross.

I like Terry Pratchett for his humour but not necessarily for his plotlines. It’s difficult to have a serious quest if all your characters act in such a ludicrous manner. Antoniazzi manages to strike a balance such that although the narrative tone is Pratchett-like, the story is more generic epic fantasy.

The Rone nobility do not know it yet, but they are about to be overrun by the Turin, indigenous tribesmen of the land the Rone stole hundreds of years ago. The tribesmen’s plan basically involves disrupting the Rone succession, which they know will cause bickering and infighting.

But is the succession really the true succession? Two scholars are about to make a discovery that could change everything.

There are some predictable elements of this story, but the characterisation is fantastic and the humour makes up for all flaws.

I’m going to give it a 4/5. Looking forward to reading the next instalment. Before I wrap up, here’s a taste of Antoniazzi’s style:

Corthos was a pirate.

At least, that’s what he told people. Usually pirates tried to pretend they weren’t pirates, to avoid trouble with the local constables. But for Corthos, his case was exactly the opposite. He hoped, dearly, that people would think he was a pirate. He wore an eye patch over his perfectly healthy left eye. He spoke with that particular brand of poor grammar that delineated his profession. For a short time, he even had a stuffed parrot strapped to his shoulder.

Corthos’ only regret was that he had never lost any limbs, and didn’t have any peg-legs or hook-hands to show off to the ladies at the pub.

And for most of his life, he was also lacking in one other respect. He didn’t have a boat.

Freda Warrington’s A Taste of Blood Wine

This is Twilight as historical fiction by an author who can actually write.

World War Two has only recently ended. Life in England goes on.

Charlotte is a painfully shy girl. She finds it hard to even be frank with her family. It doesn’t help that her sisters appear to be the type of society belle who only ever think of themselves. They have already decided Charlotte is a hopeless wallflower.

Certainly, Charlotte would rather be at home with her scientist father than fishing for a husband in London during the height of the season. She’s looking forward to coming home when her sister meets Karl von Wultondorf. As he’s a vampire he is, of course, literally deathly handsome.

Charlotte feels uneasy around him. Which shows good sense, as he lives off other peoples’ blood. Her sister Maddy is so besotted, however, that she orchestrates a meeting between Karl and her father. Karl is interested in her father’s science; He wants to investigate the scientific impossibility of his existence.

The introduction leads to a working relationship, throwing him into Charlotte’s life and leading unsurprisingly to the start of a love story.

The nice thing about this book is that it doesn’t try to make vampirism attractive – unlike Twilight there is no drinking of animal blood. It’s kill humans or starve. It also doesn’t try and make families accept their blood-sucking relatives. It doesn’t try and prove that the hero has perfect self control. He lusts for Charlotte’s blood like any other human’s. The book feels more realistic this way and also makes less forced the endless self examination endemic to this type of novel.

Where I think it goes wrong is there is absolutely no reason really why Karl should have chosen Charlotte. She is just as affected by his glamour as everyone else. He could have her any time he wanted, as he could numerous other women. We are told there is “something” special about her. I couldn’t see it. She seemed deathly boring to me.

I don’t think I’ll read any more in this series – I didn’t like either of the main characters enough. Both of them agonise about themselves too much, and although they are intrinsically evil because of their propensity to drink blood, they are otherwise goody two shoes.

Looking back, the thing I enjoyed the most was Warrington’s language. She has a wonderful flair for describing scenes in a way that (at least for me) escapes the usual clichés. Here are a few examples:

“She could see the wind, and it was solid: a hill of liquid glass that turned slowly over on itself like a wave.”

“Now she found the truth that lay at the heart of everything: all the fears, veiled warnings, knowing smiles, restrictions; the blood-red stamen at the centre of society’s tightly folded flower. The paradox of an ecstasy that was fretted with danger.”

If I’m going to give it a 3/5.

Steven Campbell’s Hard Luck Hank: Screw the Galaxy

I fell in love with this self-published work.

The excerpt below from the novel’s opening epitomises its soul:

It was a five-block walk to the nearest stairs or a fifty-foot plunge straight down to the gray metal sidewalk.

I jumped.

After a lazy mid-air summersault, I landed approximately on my head. My guns flew from my holsters and I tumbled a good ten feet.

“Ow,” I said to no one in particular, rubbing my neck.

The jump is unexpected and it’s the perfect way to introduce the special abilities of the main character – Hank is almost indestructible. But he’s not a hero. He’s not even particularly bright. He’s just a guy doing his job, which is serving as a negotiator and general dogsbody for the criminal underworld that is the space station Belvaille.

If bullets don’t hurt you, it’s going to give you a different view on life. That perspective shines out of every page. Hank doesn’t have any ambition. Or any real hobbies. He doesn’t even really want to get into pretty girls’ pants. He just does his job and then goes to the casino and blows a lot of money buying drinks and listening to peoples’ stories. Of course he won’t remember those stories. He’s lived too long for that.

Luckily, he’s not the toughest man on Belvaille. There are entities – I’m not sure I’d call them people – who are perfectly capable of kicking his arse. So we’re still interested in seeing if he succeeds. In fact I enjoyed every moment until about three quarters through. At this point the book changed from typical grungy urban sci-fi to a kind of space opera cross. It didn’t work for me. Hank works in his element. He just seems stupid outside of it.

Having said that, the beginning was so awesome I’m going to have to give the book a 4.5/5.

If you’re interested, Campbell has also written about his story towards self publishing his novel here.

He used Kickstarter to raise some money for the novel, but admits it was actually mainly for publicity purposes. Smart man.

I assume he used some of that on his cartoon YouTube video – a great idea. Unfortunately, although I love a good book trailer, I think this one is waaaaayyyyyyyyyyy too long and not well scripted. See what you think:

Good effort, even if it wasn’t quite perfect.

Brandon Sanderson’s The Way Of Kings

I’m not very happy with the Wheel of Time. Not only did it turn from a good series into one that moved at a glacial pace and put its characters through too much repetitious self agonising, but it has also led to Sanderson delaying the release of the second book in his Stormlight Archive series, of which The Way of Kings is the first book. I really do try and avoid the current situation I’m in: starting a book, falling in love with the characters and then realising that I still have months to wait for the next instalment to arrive. It may even be years if the author is as slow as R R Martin. The very things that I love about fantasy — the in-depth worlds, the three-dimensional characters and epic storylines — come back to haunt me. It seems it takes time to write these masterpieces.

Sanderson has certainly taken his time to set up his world in The Way of Kings. We are thrown into the novel at the end of an epic battle, when a group of supernatural knights decide that they can no longer bear the burden of saving mankind, over and over. They give up their duties.

We are then, we assume, introduced to the world that they abandoned, if centuries after the event, to a cast of characters which, if mainly male, are at least well painted. Their world is one that is shaped by periodic storms, called highstorms. This, fittingly, leads to all swear words being a variation of storm, eg Storm you! The plantlife has adopted to the storms and the animals are all variations on crustaceans.

One of Sanderson’s characters has reached rock bottom. Forced into slavery, he soon discovers there is still a worse place to be as he is demoted to what could be called hell on earth. The story centres around his fight to do the impossible and escape his fate.

On the other end of the spectrum, we meet a prince who is struggling to implement the dying wish of his brother the former king, while others deride him for his efforts, thinking him weak. He is also suffering visions during the high storms, which his enemies take as a sign of madness.

A young girl desperately follows a princess, hoping that the princess will consent to take her on as her ward. The girl’s motives for this are not at all pure.

An assassin tries to hide himself from people who might know what he is capable of.

When I reached the end of this novel I was truly hooked. The story was rich and the characters were faced with seemingly insurmountable challenges.

However, there were some things that stopped me giving this book a 5/5, instead settling on 4/5.

After reading Sanderson’s Mistborn Series, I was a little disappointed at how similar the magic powers are in The Way of Kings. In Mistborn, characters ate metal which they then burned in their bodies to achieve supernatural powers, such as strength, pulling or pushing objects to them, or keen senses. In The Way of Kings, the characters breathe in stormlight, which they then unleash in “lashings”. They use the lashings and stormlight to push objects around, give themselves strength, speed, etc. The first scene of the book, where lashings are used, is very reminiscent of Vin’s rooftop wanderings in Mistborn.

Another issue I have is that Sanderson has again gone for the doomsday approach. If the characters fail, the world will be doomed. Does every story always have to be about the whole world? What’s wrong with fighting for one farm? Sure, saving the world is weighty, but it makes it hard to keep the story brief. This series will take ten books to complete, if what I’ve read about it is correct. Given that this one was released in 2010 and it’s almost the end of 2012, I could extrapolate to say that I’ll be waiting thirty years for the end. If I see it at all. It’s entirely possible that Sanderson will have to engage someone else to finish off his series after he’s gone. As hinted at above, he is currently filling in for the deceased Robert Jordan.

So great book Sanderson, but timing wise, NOT HAPPY.

Jason Tesar’s The Awakened series

(Credit: Jason Tesar)

Tesar is god fearing man who has, unsurprisingly, decided to use scripture as a jumping off point for his first series of books. I have to admit, however, that I didn’t really get the feeling that it was biblical, probably because I didn’t read the first three pages of the book, which looked like an encyclopedia entry. I don’t like books that start with a long winded and cryptic explanation. So I skipped the beginning and started with the first action in the book. In hindsight, that wasn’t such a great idea as I missed the point of the story in many ways, but then I think Tesar probably could have introduced his concept better in a narrative fashion than using a dry, legal-looking list.

The (real) start of the books is set on our planet, with analysts talking about global warming and rising seawaters. We don’t know who they’re working for, but one of them has seen something strange happening in a country on the other side of the world, something which involves a lot of water appearing out of nowhere and a man escaping from some scuba divers.  The mysterious company decides to go and rescue the man.

When we see the person being rescued, it’s obvious he’s not part of our world. Then Tesar takes us back to the world that the man came from — a far flung empire still in the sword-wielding stage of technology. There we meet a new character who has a brush with mystery sailors, coming off the worse for the encounter. He dies trying to tell his story to the governor of a nearby city, Adair, who later turns out to be our mystery man rescued in the other world.

Unfortunately, we don’t meet the real main character of the story, Adair’s son Kael, until later. This to me was a fatal flaw in the books, because I’d already sided with Adair and couldn’t like Kael as much as I should. Adair disappeared mainly out of the books after the rescue situation is explained, leaving me feeling hollow.

However, once I became used to Kael as a main character I did warm to him. He is ostensibly “executed” after his father disappears (off to the alternate world), but in reality he’s whisked away to a monastery where he learns to fight with other boys.  He doesn’t feel right about the monastery’s god, for whom he’ll be fighting when the training is done. He fails a test set for him by the high priest of the order and goes his own way. Unfortunately for him, his time at the monastery comes back to haunt him as the boys start appearing while the empire comes under attack from the outside.

100,000 people have downloaded copies of Tesar’s first book, which he’s priced for free on Amazon and Smashwords. I  have to admit that somehow I managed to download the whole trilogy for free (it’s supposed to cost $4.99) , which was a bonus. The freebie did have an unforeseen drawback, however. I thought I’d only downloaded the first book. When I reached the end of the book, I thought I had two further volumes to go, but I had actually read all there was. The finale had more loose ends than in an unravelling sweater, the most important of which for me was, what happened to Adair?

After looking at Tesar’s blog, it seems that he will write another book to complete the story, but he intends to write a number of prequels first. That goes into my “how seriously to annoy your readership” category.

Still, I did enjoy the books. The fighting scenes flowed well and the characters were believable. There was also enough original content in the story for it to feel fresh. However, I really think Tesar should have rethought how he started the book. Clunky prologues are so last decade. It’s also necessary to address the central theme of your story in the story, not just in the beginning.

After all, he promises in his blog:

In book xx  of his debut series, Jason Tesar delves into the heart of an ancient legend, expanding an epic saga that will journey from earth’s mythological past to its post-apocalyptic future, blending the genres of fantasy, sci-fi, and military/political suspense.

I didn’t get the feeling at all that he’d delved into the heart of an ancient legend. It felt more like he attempted to build a good story on a clumsy background. I’m hoping that the books yet to come bring more of the mythological flavour he’s promised into his writing. But I don’t feel like reading the prequels and probably will have forgotten about Tesar by the time I he gets to complete the story he’s already started, so I may never know if they do.

I’m going to give this series a 3/5. If it had been finished properly, it would have had the potential to be a 4/5 or higher.

Telling people where to go

I’m trying really hard to do another draft of a fantasy book I’ve been working on for years. I put it in the bottom drawer when my job became really hectic and have only recently taken it out and dusted it off. I decided to add another point of view into it, although I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do, and the book once again seems to be taking a life of its own. I feel the characters change as I write them and I worry that this will alter the careful summary that I’ve written up so I don’t get so lost in contradictions like last time.

But that’s a subject for another time. The thing that’s actually bothering me today is what my husband said to me last night when I read him the first section of the book. There was a period of silence after which he said that he wanted to know what happens next, but that he didn’t like the first sentence.When pushed, he said that he didn’t think he would act the way the main character did if he was in the same situation.

Now, most people would be thinking it must be a real dog of a novel after that response, because if family and friends aren’t effusive in their praise, then who will be? But my husband doesn’t lie. He can not lie. Not even to make me happy. So I was reasonably OK with what he said. I mean, for one thing, he doesn’t act like anyone does in any situation. I did agonise over whether I would change the first sentence, but ended up deciding that I didn’t really want to change it right now, or indeed much of that first section at all, because I know I’ll lose momentum. And that made me wonder about what I would do if he said that he really despised a plot point. Would I change the whole novel? Should I change the whole novel because of his opinion?

I’ve realised that this is one of my biggest problems. I’m a compromiser. I always have been. I can always see things someone else’s way. If they say, ‘I don’t like this’, it makes me think I could change that, instead of thinking ‘Well, that’s OK, but I actually like it better like this’. This means that I might change it ten million ways if I received ten million different opinions. I guess that shows I need to grow a spine and could even suggest I’ll never be any good as an author, but despite that, I’m not going to stop trying. I just need to try and decide what criticism needs to be adopted and what can be vetoed.

Anyone have any suggestions?