The Accidental Sorcerer
(The Rogue Agent trilogy, Book 1)
K. E. Mills
Orbit
Fiction, Fantasy
***+ (Okay/Good)
DESCRIPTION: When Stuttey's Superior Staff factory exploded during a visit from Department of Thaumaturgy probationary inspector Gerald Dunwoody, it wasn't his fault... but who would take his word over the irate factory foreman's? Gerald's just a lowly Third Grade wizard, after all, trained by correspondence course, with little ancestry and an unremarkable employment record, while Stuttey's manufactures the best and priciest wizard staffs in all of Ottosland. A factory with that reputation would never, as Gerald claimed, overload faulty thaumaturgical equipment just to boost profits. Besides, if the accident happened the way he described, any Third Grade wizard would be a smoking pile of cinders on the factory floor from the energies unleashed. Gerald himself can't explain what happened, or how he survived, but with the powerful company crying for blood it wouldn't matter if he could. Defamed, unemployed, and broke, he figures he might as well pack in the wizard gig, crawl back to his parents' house, and see if it's not too late to get started in the family trade of tailoring - until he chances upon a job offer halfway across the world.
The kingdom of New Ottosland occupies a small oasis in the vast Kallarapi desert, surrounded by camel-riding heathens. Founded centuries ago and subsequently forgotten by most of the world, they live and die by Tradition. The young King Lional has bold plans for the future of New Ottosland, and try as she might, his practical, headstrong sister Melissande can't talk him out of them... nor can the emissaries of the Kallarapi sultan, whom Lional antagonizes by refusing to pay the traditional tariffs for vital desert trade routes. But the king foresees a day when New Ottosland won't need to kowtow to the desert people, when they will be a force worthy of international respect and attention. All Lional needs to realize his plans is a Court Wizard, and it's up to Melissande to find him one.
The day Gerald Dunwoody accepted the job of Court Wizard of New Ottosland, he thought his troubles were over. Instead, they're just beginning... and before they're through, the factory explosion at Stuttey's will seem as insignificant as a pop cap in a playground.
REVIEW: This book starts out light, meandering towards goofy. Gerald, his friends and enemies, and his magic-dominated world feel clunky and caricatured. Time and again they act in ways that defied their own characters and general logic, just to get one more sarcastic line in or further the slow-building story. I found it difficult to sympathize with them for quite some time. By the time I reached the part where the emissaries of the desert nation were introduced - as infidel-hating grovelers to their triad gods - I wasn't sure I'd have the mental stamina to push through to the end. A few chapters later, the story starts taking some interesting turns. Shades of depth and darkness begin revealing themselves. Even the desert dwellers bring far more to the game board than their inauspicious introduction hints at, becoming far more than pseudo-Arab stereotypes. By the end, Gerald has visited many dark places and done many things he hadn't thought himself capable of... in good ways and bad. The very ending is pretty much foreshadowed by the title, but otherwise the story came to an unexpectedly satisfying conclusion. Unfortunately, the earlier clunkiness held it down in the ratings, as did some of the characters, who retained several of their more annoying traits long past the point where things went in an otherwise original direction. The worst offender was Gerald's sort-of-girlfriend Reg, a witch cursed centuries ago into a bird's body; not only was her personality so shrewishly annoying that I found it hard to understand how anyone could be friends with her, but she kept contradicting her own desires not to reveal her sentient nature by firing off her ever-loaded tongue at the drop of a proverbial hat. I don't expect I'll follow the rest of the trilogy, but I wouldn't rule the possibility out if I found a cheap enough copy of Book 2.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Sunday, June 5, 2011
June Site Update, Reviews Archived
The previous six book reviews are now archived at Brightdreamer Books, with cross-links to related titles.
Enjoy!
Enjoy!
Monday, May 30, 2011
On Basilisk Station (David Weber)
On Basilisk Station
(The Honor Harrington series, Book 1)
David Weber
Baen
Fiction, Sci-Fi
** (Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Honor Harrington's young career with the Royal Manticorian Navy positively glows, built on a strong academy showing and a fine turn as captain. Given a new ship - the aging HMS Fearless - retrofitted with experimental armaments, she becomes a reluctant part of a top admiral's pet project... but, despite her best efforts, the weaponry proves ineffective in real-space exercises. The crew, humiliated, turns on their new captain, who becomes the admiral's scapegoat. When the Fearless is reassigned to Basilisk Station, their degradation is complete.
Basilisk, considered of trivial importance to Manticore, is the traditional dumping ground of Naval screw-ups. The nearest planet is a worthless ball of moss peopled by primitive natives, smugglers outnumber legitimate traders, and politics have left the outpost virtually stripped of firepower to enforce laws... assuming any of the incompetents sent to patrol the place bothered trying. But Harrington refuses to turn her back on her duty, or her resentful crew. Her insistence on doing her job properly - in the face of impossible logistics, skeptical locals, and deliberate sabotage by her peers - rattles more than a few gilded cages back home... and unearths an enemy plot that might bring the mighty Manticorian forces to their knees.
REVIEW: I don't often read "big ships in space" books. Long, involved stretches of technobabble give me brain-aches. Convoluted military politics, cronyism, and backstabbing bore me. But I've been trying to expand my reading horizons beyond my safety-net of fantasy books. Perhaps I've misjudged the "big ships" genre of sci-fi all these years. After all, I managed to read and enjoy Elizabeth Moon's Trading in Danger without significant brain-ache. Maybe I ought to give those big-ship stories another chance.
Unfortunately, I chose the wrong book to start with.
Honor Harrington's world reads like a jumble of stereotypes, melding peculiarly old-school Earth terms with "modern" (by the story-universe's standards) references that feel forced. Harrington herself comes into the story with nothing to prove. She starts out as the stereotypical Perfect Captain - prodigal career, excellent at handling even difficult crewmembers, top-notch tactician willing to do anything to get the job done right, complete with an animal sidekick and conveniently poor mathematics skills (save when calculating complicated maneuvers on the fly in "top-notch tactician" mode) to make her "flawed and human" - and remains so throughout the book. Every scene not spent in her head features other people reflecting on her. Supporters sing her praises from across the stars, recounting her many great deeds, while her enemies shake their proverbial fists as she foils their evil plans with her brilliance. Surrounding Harrington is a blurry halo of names and ranks and political allegiences, few of whom distinguish themselves in any meaningful fashion. But, then, even the crewmembers of her own ship often fail to distinguish themselves in any meaningful fashion, and those who do fall into the nicely-worn ruts of genre convention (the Scotty-like engineer who can do anything with anything under impossible deadlines, the insecure junior officer who just needs a little confidence and the chance to shine, the initially jealous second-in-command who becomes one of the captain's staunchest allies, etc.) Between Harrington doing brilliant things and other people commenting on Harrington doing brilliant things are numerous info dumps, several of which involve people telling each other things about their own technology and convoluted Manticorian politics that they doubtless already know (or really ought to know, though Harrington - whose job would appear to be inherently political, given the rampant nepotism and back-scratching in the Royal Manticorian Navy - is given a plot-convenient aversion to politics to explain some of the info dumps.) The main thrust of the story becomes obvious before the halfway mark, though the characters take significantly longer to clue in, no doubt because they must filter absolutely every thought through the long chain of politics. It all wraps up in a cataclysmic battle that stretches out far too long, mostly to pick off incidental characters in manners I gather I was supposed to find tragic. At one point, the author slams on the brakes for a five-page history of interstellar propulsion and the problems of hyperspace travel... all of which, in a very long-winded and meandering manner, contributes exactly nothing to the tension of the scene that was interrupted. (Theoretically, it was part of Harrington's ruminations on the conflict at hand, but for some reason I found it difficult to believe that she actually would stop to think about such things at such detailed depth at a moment that required far more attention to the here-and-now.) At the end, I put this book down with a sigh of relief that it was finally over at long last... not to mention a distinct aversion to trying any more "big ships in space" books in the near future.
(The Honor Harrington series, Book 1)
David Weber
Baen
Fiction, Sci-Fi
** (Bad)
DESCRIPTION: Honor Harrington's young career with the Royal Manticorian Navy positively glows, built on a strong academy showing and a fine turn as captain. Given a new ship - the aging HMS Fearless - retrofitted with experimental armaments, she becomes a reluctant part of a top admiral's pet project... but, despite her best efforts, the weaponry proves ineffective in real-space exercises. The crew, humiliated, turns on their new captain, who becomes the admiral's scapegoat. When the Fearless is reassigned to Basilisk Station, their degradation is complete.
Basilisk, considered of trivial importance to Manticore, is the traditional dumping ground of Naval screw-ups. The nearest planet is a worthless ball of moss peopled by primitive natives, smugglers outnumber legitimate traders, and politics have left the outpost virtually stripped of firepower to enforce laws... assuming any of the incompetents sent to patrol the place bothered trying. But Harrington refuses to turn her back on her duty, or her resentful crew. Her insistence on doing her job properly - in the face of impossible logistics, skeptical locals, and deliberate sabotage by her peers - rattles more than a few gilded cages back home... and unearths an enemy plot that might bring the mighty Manticorian forces to their knees.
REVIEW: I don't often read "big ships in space" books. Long, involved stretches of technobabble give me brain-aches. Convoluted military politics, cronyism, and backstabbing bore me. But I've been trying to expand my reading horizons beyond my safety-net of fantasy books. Perhaps I've misjudged the "big ships" genre of sci-fi all these years. After all, I managed to read and enjoy Elizabeth Moon's Trading in Danger without significant brain-ache. Maybe I ought to give those big-ship stories another chance.
Unfortunately, I chose the wrong book to start with.
Honor Harrington's world reads like a jumble of stereotypes, melding peculiarly old-school Earth terms with "modern" (by the story-universe's standards) references that feel forced. Harrington herself comes into the story with nothing to prove. She starts out as the stereotypical Perfect Captain - prodigal career, excellent at handling even difficult crewmembers, top-notch tactician willing to do anything to get the job done right, complete with an animal sidekick and conveniently poor mathematics skills (save when calculating complicated maneuvers on the fly in "top-notch tactician" mode) to make her "flawed and human" - and remains so throughout the book. Every scene not spent in her head features other people reflecting on her. Supporters sing her praises from across the stars, recounting her many great deeds, while her enemies shake their proverbial fists as she foils their evil plans with her brilliance. Surrounding Harrington is a blurry halo of names and ranks and political allegiences, few of whom distinguish themselves in any meaningful fashion. But, then, even the crewmembers of her own ship often fail to distinguish themselves in any meaningful fashion, and those who do fall into the nicely-worn ruts of genre convention (the Scotty-like engineer who can do anything with anything under impossible deadlines, the insecure junior officer who just needs a little confidence and the chance to shine, the initially jealous second-in-command who becomes one of the captain's staunchest allies, etc.) Between Harrington doing brilliant things and other people commenting on Harrington doing brilliant things are numerous info dumps, several of which involve people telling each other things about their own technology and convoluted Manticorian politics that they doubtless already know (or really ought to know, though Harrington - whose job would appear to be inherently political, given the rampant nepotism and back-scratching in the Royal Manticorian Navy - is given a plot-convenient aversion to politics to explain some of the info dumps.) The main thrust of the story becomes obvious before the halfway mark, though the characters take significantly longer to clue in, no doubt because they must filter absolutely every thought through the long chain of politics. It all wraps up in a cataclysmic battle that stretches out far too long, mostly to pick off incidental characters in manners I gather I was supposed to find tragic. At one point, the author slams on the brakes for a five-page history of interstellar propulsion and the problems of hyperspace travel... all of which, in a very long-winded and meandering manner, contributes exactly nothing to the tension of the scene that was interrupted. (Theoretically, it was part of Harrington's ruminations on the conflict at hand, but for some reason I found it difficult to believe that she actually would stop to think about such things at such detailed depth at a moment that required far more attention to the here-and-now.) At the end, I put this book down with a sigh of relief that it was finally over at long last... not to mention a distinct aversion to trying any more "big ships in space" books in the near future.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Ptolemy's Gate (Jonathan Stroud)
Ptolemy's Gate
(The Bartimaeus trilogy, Book 3)
Jonathan Stroud
Disney Hyperion
Fiction, YA Fantasy
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: John Mandrake's formidable mastery of magic, his well-chosen political allies, and a healthy, ruthless self-interest have carried him far from his old life as Nathaniel, the unappreciated apprentice to a weak master. A powerful young force in Britain's magician-ruled government, helping orchestrate the political propaganda to sell the increasingly-weary commoners on the country's flagging international wars, beset at every turn by jealous rivals, Mandrake has money, influence, fame, prospects... everything that poor little boy he used to be could ever have wanted out of life. If not for the pesky tinglings of an atrophied conscience, he might even convince himself he's happy.
The djinni Bartimaeus has seen better days. Once a force to be reckoned with in the ancient world, now - thanks to extended servitude in the material world, which weakens a spirit's essence - he can barely hold himself together... literally. But, (generally) uncomplaining and (more-or-less) loyal as ever, he suffers his chains in (near) silence, helping Mandrake patrol London's increasingly dangerous streets in search of foreign agitators and home-grown rebels, some of whom are developing immunity to magical attacks. He's seen it all before, of course, the rise and fall of empires: the names and the languages change, but the slavery of spirits like himself remains the same. Only one boy, in all his five thousand years, ever thought that the cycle of bondage could be broken, that spirit and mage might someday work together... but Ptolemy paid a terrible price for his faith, and most of his groundbreaking research was lost to the ages. A terrible pity, but even a five-thousand-year-old djinni knows better than to think human nature can ever change.
Kitty Jones has officially been dead for three years. After a moment of mercy (or foolishness) prompted her to spare John Mandrake's life, she's been hard at work learning everything she can about magicians and spirits, even going so far as to become an assistant to a particularly eccentric mage far outside the squabblings of the powerful Parliament. Her unusual encounter with the djinni Bartimaeus forced her to re-evaluate her assumptions about "demons." Coupled with her lingering dismay over the ineffective Resistance and other equally toothless commoner efforts to throw off their chains, Kitty realizes that someone has to act if the endless, futile cycle of slavery and oppression is ever going to be broken... but what can one commoner girl hope to do when even Ptolemy, a powerful magician and a prince in his day, was ignored?
REVIEW: Some trilogies are simply three stories stitched together by recurring characters. Others - usually the best - are a single story that takes three volumes to tell properly, a continuous arc from start to finish. The Bartimaeus trilogy is one of those. In this third installment, Stroud wraps up all the hints and threads tossed out in the preceding books. The shadows of darkness in the halls of Parliament that young Nathaniel scarcely noticed grow to dominate the life of John Mandrake, the hinted tale of Bartimaeus's peculiar bond with his former master Ptolemy comes full-circle, the injustice of an empire built on slavery in any form builds to an explosion with cataclysmic consequences. The story overall is darker and somewhat more complex than the previous two books, because the lives of Mandrake, Kitty, and Bartimaeus have grown much darker and more complex; all three have important lessons to learn, facts to face, and sacrifices to make if they want to see their respective worlds saved. I've read that some readers didn't like the turns it took, but I loved it for that same reason. Throughout, the sparkling wit and wry commentary of the titular djinni remains unabated, even when faced with near-certain death and destruction. This is a magnificent conclusion to a great trilogy, one of the few books that's tempted me to raise the bar above five stars.
(The Bartimaeus trilogy, Book 3)
Jonathan Stroud
Disney Hyperion
Fiction, YA Fantasy
***** (Great)
DESCRIPTION: John Mandrake's formidable mastery of magic, his well-chosen political allies, and a healthy, ruthless self-interest have carried him far from his old life as Nathaniel, the unappreciated apprentice to a weak master. A powerful young force in Britain's magician-ruled government, helping orchestrate the political propaganda to sell the increasingly-weary commoners on the country's flagging international wars, beset at every turn by jealous rivals, Mandrake has money, influence, fame, prospects... everything that poor little boy he used to be could ever have wanted out of life. If not for the pesky tinglings of an atrophied conscience, he might even convince himself he's happy.
The djinni Bartimaeus has seen better days. Once a force to be reckoned with in the ancient world, now - thanks to extended servitude in the material world, which weakens a spirit's essence - he can barely hold himself together... literally. But, (generally) uncomplaining and (more-or-less) loyal as ever, he suffers his chains in (near) silence, helping Mandrake patrol London's increasingly dangerous streets in search of foreign agitators and home-grown rebels, some of whom are developing immunity to magical attacks. He's seen it all before, of course, the rise and fall of empires: the names and the languages change, but the slavery of spirits like himself remains the same. Only one boy, in all his five thousand years, ever thought that the cycle of bondage could be broken, that spirit and mage might someday work together... but Ptolemy paid a terrible price for his faith, and most of his groundbreaking research was lost to the ages. A terrible pity, but even a five-thousand-year-old djinni knows better than to think human nature can ever change.
Kitty Jones has officially been dead for three years. After a moment of mercy (or foolishness) prompted her to spare John Mandrake's life, she's been hard at work learning everything she can about magicians and spirits, even going so far as to become an assistant to a particularly eccentric mage far outside the squabblings of the powerful Parliament. Her unusual encounter with the djinni Bartimaeus forced her to re-evaluate her assumptions about "demons." Coupled with her lingering dismay over the ineffective Resistance and other equally toothless commoner efforts to throw off their chains, Kitty realizes that someone has to act if the endless, futile cycle of slavery and oppression is ever going to be broken... but what can one commoner girl hope to do when even Ptolemy, a powerful magician and a prince in his day, was ignored?
REVIEW: Some trilogies are simply three stories stitched together by recurring characters. Others - usually the best - are a single story that takes three volumes to tell properly, a continuous arc from start to finish. The Bartimaeus trilogy is one of those. In this third installment, Stroud wraps up all the hints and threads tossed out in the preceding books. The shadows of darkness in the halls of Parliament that young Nathaniel scarcely noticed grow to dominate the life of John Mandrake, the hinted tale of Bartimaeus's peculiar bond with his former master Ptolemy comes full-circle, the injustice of an empire built on slavery in any form builds to an explosion with cataclysmic consequences. The story overall is darker and somewhat more complex than the previous two books, because the lives of Mandrake, Kitty, and Bartimaeus have grown much darker and more complex; all three have important lessons to learn, facts to face, and sacrifices to make if they want to see their respective worlds saved. I've read that some readers didn't like the turns it took, but I loved it for that same reason. Throughout, the sparkling wit and wry commentary of the titular djinni remains unabated, even when faced with near-certain death and destruction. This is a magnificent conclusion to a great trilogy, one of the few books that's tempted me to raise the bar above five stars.
Monday, May 23, 2011
The Enchanted Castle (E. Nesbit)
The Enchanted Castle
E. Nesbit
Wordsworth Editions
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: The three English siblings Gerald, James, and Katherine usually summer with their cousin Betty at the family home in the countryside, where they can play and explore as proper children, far from the strict society rules of city life and boarding schools. But when Betty comes down with measles, they find themselves staying at Katherine's boarding school for the summer. With all the other girls gone home, it won't be so bad a summer holiday... and perhaps they can still find adventures. Their explorations lead them to a hidden cave and the lush gardens of a great castle, which they immediately declare to be enchanted. A sleeping princess who isn't what she seems, a troublesome magic ring, and a series of ill-worded wishes soon give the threesome a holiday they'll never forget!
This Wordsworth Classics edition, complete and unabridged, includes the original illustrations by H. R. Millar.
REVIEW: First published in 1907, this centenarian story shows just how far children's literature - and society in general - have come. The over-talkative narration dithers over, around, and behind the story as it follows three privileged English children more or less frittering away their summer holiday. There is no urgency, no enemy, no hardship, no wrong to be made right, no lesson for them to learn or consequences to face, as one would find in more modern stories. (Okay, I take that back. Once in a while, their adventures make them miss their tea. That's a fairly serious prospect for any child in any era.) Of course not. They're wealthy English children; they own the world, after all, and the world darned well owes them a pleasantly diverting (yet none too trying) magical adventure to fill an otherwise dreary summer away from home. In Nesbit's time, I suppose, simply being schoolchildren on holiday provided sufficient motive power to drive a plot. Anyone of lower classes, lesser education, or (Heavens forfend) less-than-alabaster skin color is brushed aside with casual backhanded insults and stereotyping. Nesbit's audience likely would have thought as little of the slights and slurs as she herself did - she clearly never considered the possibility that such individuals might read this book - but to modern eyes they glare. But it's unfair to blame her for being a product of her society... even if some of the language probably makes this book unfit for modern elementary school libraries. Looking past that, Nesbit concocts some truly imaginative moments, with a garden full of living statues and hidden wonders within the castle. The girls - Katherine and Mabel, the erstwhile "sleeping princess" - show a fair bit of pluck for their era, and manage to not be deadweight. I also liked the old-school illustrations by Millar; there's just something about a nicely-executed ink illustration that adds an extra touch of magic to any story. Considering how long ago this book was written, I might have been willing to give the story the benefit of the doubt with an Okay rating, but the ending sank that hope. (No spoilers here, but it somehow managed to make an already-pointless story even more pointless... an astounding feat which probably should be rewarded with a star all on its own, but won't be.) At the end of the day, The Enchanted Castle is an occasionally whimsical, mostly tedious window into the fictional expectations of a (thankfully) bygone era.
E. Nesbit
Wordsworth Editions
Fiction, YA Fantasy
**+ (Bad/Okay)
DESCRIPTION: The three English siblings Gerald, James, and Katherine usually summer with their cousin Betty at the family home in the countryside, where they can play and explore as proper children, far from the strict society rules of city life and boarding schools. But when Betty comes down with measles, they find themselves staying at Katherine's boarding school for the summer. With all the other girls gone home, it won't be so bad a summer holiday... and perhaps they can still find adventures. Their explorations lead them to a hidden cave and the lush gardens of a great castle, which they immediately declare to be enchanted. A sleeping princess who isn't what she seems, a troublesome magic ring, and a series of ill-worded wishes soon give the threesome a holiday they'll never forget!
This Wordsworth Classics edition, complete and unabridged, includes the original illustrations by H. R. Millar.
REVIEW: First published in 1907, this centenarian story shows just how far children's literature - and society in general - have come. The over-talkative narration dithers over, around, and behind the story as it follows three privileged English children more or less frittering away their summer holiday. There is no urgency, no enemy, no hardship, no wrong to be made right, no lesson for them to learn or consequences to face, as one would find in more modern stories. (Okay, I take that back. Once in a while, their adventures make them miss their tea. That's a fairly serious prospect for any child in any era.) Of course not. They're wealthy English children; they own the world, after all, and the world darned well owes them a pleasantly diverting (yet none too trying) magical adventure to fill an otherwise dreary summer away from home. In Nesbit's time, I suppose, simply being schoolchildren on holiday provided sufficient motive power to drive a plot. Anyone of lower classes, lesser education, or (Heavens forfend) less-than-alabaster skin color is brushed aside with casual backhanded insults and stereotyping. Nesbit's audience likely would have thought as little of the slights and slurs as she herself did - she clearly never considered the possibility that such individuals might read this book - but to modern eyes they glare. But it's unfair to blame her for being a product of her society... even if some of the language probably makes this book unfit for modern elementary school libraries. Looking past that, Nesbit concocts some truly imaginative moments, with a garden full of living statues and hidden wonders within the castle. The girls - Katherine and Mabel, the erstwhile "sleeping princess" - show a fair bit of pluck for their era, and manage to not be deadweight. I also liked the old-school illustrations by Millar; there's just something about a nicely-executed ink illustration that adds an extra touch of magic to any story. Considering how long ago this book was written, I might have been willing to give the story the benefit of the doubt with an Okay rating, but the ending sank that hope. (No spoilers here, but it somehow managed to make an already-pointless story even more pointless... an astounding feat which probably should be rewarded with a star all on its own, but won't be.) At the end of the day, The Enchanted Castle is an occasionally whimsical, mostly tedious window into the fictional expectations of a (thankfully) bygone era.
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