Quintessence by David Walton

Coverlust? Coverlust.

First, the horribly truncated summary: An alchemist and a mortician place their trust in a beetle and take a boat full of Protestants to the end of the world.

 For once, I’m not being glib!

This book was provided to me via Netgalley in return for an honest review. I would like to thank Tor/Forge for giving me this opportunity and taking me seriously.

Now, as a fan of fantasy, Tor is a recognizable staple in our household. I hold them in very high acclaim and reverence. With that in mind, I am fully confident that the advance copy I received will be free of formatting errors by the time it goes on sale.

Why mention formatting errors at all? Those errors made the dialogue a chore to get through. Those errors, coupled with a mild start and a sluggish middle, made the book difficult. I was considering putting Quintessence into my unfinished pile and submitting my review thusly.

But, as I am a masochist, I trudged through. The final thirty percent of the book made it worthwhile.

However, that first seventy percent…

We start our story aboard the Western Star, where Lord Chelsey is returning to (Tudor) England with the last thirteen men from his crew. They’ve all been dying off during the return trip and the venture is nearly a failure. The only redemption he has are the barrels full of riches he has brought back. However, the barrels of gold and diamonds have turned into useless pebbles and the miracle water has turned into seawater.

Tough luck.

He’s deemed mad when the boat docks and dies shortly thereafter. The Western Star is condemned and sold off to the only man that knows its value: Christopher Sinclair, the court magician and part-time alchemist.

Before Sinclair can fully investigate the cargo of the ship, he realizes that someone is stealing away the sailor’s bodies. It’s none other than King Edward VI’s personal physician, Stephen Parris. Parris has taken a keen interest in the lack of decomposition and has decided to further his understanding by means of dissection.

Now, cutting up bodies might be all the rage in Venice, but they still frown upon the practice in Renaissance England. Parris has to hide his “ungodly” activities in order to remain respectable at court. His wife, understandably, doesn’t like walking in on rooms filled with human gore, so they’re marriage is held by a very thin thread.

(Funny note: most male characters are referred to by their last names (there are exceptions, especially where you have a father and son on the same boat). All female characters are referred to by their first names. Not sure if intentional style choice based on era or unintentional sexism.)

Well, in order to get funds for a return trip to Chelsey’s island, Sinclair sells Parris out to the sickly king and all the doctor’s money now belongs to the sea voyage. Parris’ wife is a survivalist, so she secures her fate and leaves her husband in the cold. She tries to secure her daughter’s fate as well, but their daughter “decides” (via otherworldly force) to go with her father to the edge of the world.

Oh, and the boat is full of refugee Protestants when they set sail. Why? Tudor England.

I am cutting many of the cool bits out (magic beetle) because explaining everything would exceed my character limit.

Wait a minute! We’re starting in one of my favorite historical periods, our protagonists are a magician/alchemist and a doctor (and the doctor’s daughter), and they’re sailing to the ends of the earth with a boat full of refugees in hopes of finding out the magic behind Chelsey’s voyage? What the hell is my problem? What was so wrong that I nearly put this book down in shame?

Well, I had no emotional connection to any of these characters until the end of the book. Even then, there was really only one character I connected with, and that was the doctor’s daughter, Catherine. The rest, while doing interesting things, were not interesting in and of themselves. Some, like Parris’ wife, came off as extremely annoying.

Also, there was a lot of setup required to pull off the conclusion. I’m used to setup (obviously, as a fantasy reader), but this setup was centered in characters doing scientific experiments during the journey. Instead of action, the characters repeatedly asked questions through interior monologue that, I think, the readers could have asked themselves without author prompting.

Add to that a very stilted dialogue where names were not placed with quotes and you’ve got a very tiring mess during your middle acts. Thankfully, we reestablish a clear antagonist by the end and I was actually pleased with the outcome.

 I just wish I had a better middle to go with it. 3.5 stars.

The Warded Man by Peter V. Brett

First, the horribly truncated summary: The only other time when putting a tattoo on your face is a good life decision.

I don’t consider the above a spoiler because the title spoiled it for you. Now, in the Commonwealth countries, I’m led to believe that this book is called The Painted Man. Not certain if this change was publisher-based or legal-based, but I wonder which title came first.

I am surprised in the lack of tattoos in Fantasy literature. There should be more, but I’ve either failed to remember them or not come across them yet.

Any memorable fantasy tattoos out there? Post them to comments. (I now have this book and the Kushiel books)

Oh, the book. The world is a place where people fear the setting sun (*cough* Thenightisdarkandfullofterrors *cough*). Demons come out of the earth at night and feast on human flesh. The only thing keeping people safe is wards they’ve rediscovered from a long-dead past. People paint wards on posts and walls to keep their homes safe in the night. However, sometimes the wards become scuffed and marred (or are drawn imperfectly or out of alignment with the other wards) and the demons are able to move past them.

It’s a problem that strangles travel and trade. People live in fear within prisons of their own making. Only the bravest travel at night, using portable wards to keep the demons at bay.

The book has three separate protagonists: Arlen, Leesha, and Rojer, each talented in their own way. Arlen is gifted with drawing wards (if you weren’t spoiled before, you need only see his chapter headers), Leesha with herbalism/biology, and Rojer with music. Can anyone say adventuring party?

Unlike most adventuring parties (you all meet in a tavern), the protagonists don’t meet up until 74% into the book. Why so precise? Kindle. You have a lot of book to go through before you come to the action. It makes for great backstory and the characters seem real, but waiting for them to grow up is tedious. Worth it (really worth it), but tedious. You also get a few surprises in the mix as the characters deal with basic human nature, which is also refreshing.

In fact, the payoff is so awesome that I’m debating giving this book 5-stars. I think I will. I can’t lower the score on this book for slow backstory and give Kushiel’s Dart and A Game of Thrones 5-stars. I’m looking forward to checking out the next two books in this (unfinished) series.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher

First, the horribly truncated summary: Modern-day wizard figures out that a scorpion does not belong in the desk drawer at work.

Seriously, do scorpions even belong in Chicago? I’ve heard that they like it out here in the Mojave Desert, but we are a far cry from Chicago. Needless to say, they do not belong in a work office. Scorpion = wasp + spider + crab. Their poison requires immediate medical attention. One does not mistake them for pencils or a hairbrush.

Oh, it wasn’t alive when he put it in there, you say? You can never trust a dead scorpion. Those things will live past doomsday, feasting on the ever-breeding roaches that call the desert home.

I’m getting away from myself. Harry Dresden is our protagonist who works as a wizard in modern-day Chicago. It’s the epitome of paranormal + crime noir, which is a pretty good combination to have (better than teen romance + paranormal, which is now the thing). In true Noir fashion, he gets two cases that have nothing to do with each other on the same day. The first case is a missing person case, the second is a double homicide where the hearts of the victims leapt out of their chest mid-coitus.

According to the CSI shows I’ve seen, death and sex are often less than fifteen minutes apart, so this is probably common for them. Their hearts shooting like a rocket from the chest cavity, not as much.

Which does Dresden investigate first? Missing person case. Why? Paying customer. Can’t say I blame him, since he lives with a cat on the edge of freelance destitution.

This is a fun, albeit predictable, read. I really do like the idea of a modern-day wizard working with the police to solve the weirder crimes of Chicago. It took me a while to get to this review because of the problems I had with it (besides predictability). First, the writing style was utterly unnerving. It’s akin to cracking a joke to the audience right before each commercial break. I’ve read that Butcher gets better with his style as the series goes on, so I might try for future books. Just not right away.

Also, when one duplicates noir in the modern era, one requires a deft hand. The idea that technology goes haywire whenever Dresden is nearby is a clever means of limitation, but it feels like Butcher is clinging to noir stereotypes for his characters. I saw the misogyny label thrown around by some and, while I won’t fully agree, I can see where it comes from.

Lastly, Dresden’s backstory is alluded to, but never finished. Many things are treated that way, like the Wizard’s White Counsel, the Underworld, and several elements that would have given the book much more depth than the joking one-liners. Perhaps it goes away as the writing improves and the characters have more history to build upon, but I won’t continue this series on that hope.

Three stars. Quick, fun, predictable plot with some surprises (fairies like pizza, who knew?).

Firelight by Kristen Callihan

First, the horribly truncated summary: Cupid has a past that’s covered by his Zorro mask and Psyche can immolate herself at will.

Let me start you all with this assurance: I do not read romances often. Their covers are all the same: the overly-elaborate dress of a damsel with most of her face out of frame and/or the torso of a man that I have yet to find. Said woman is usually holding a fan, flowers, or something loosely tied to the title.

Now that I think about it, a romance book with a woman holding a stun-gun on the cover would prod my curiosity.

(Outlander is the exception to this rule. Outlander seems to be the exception to many rules.)

Why do I bring up covers? Isn’t it the content of the book that counts?

I bring up covers because I am certain I bought this book out of cover lust. Because it was part of the Amazon monthly sale, the cover was emailed to me almost daily, along with the news of the kindle daily deals. Women on fire tend to get attention. At the end of January, I relented and bought the book before the sale ended. And it was worth it.

But first, the opening quote: “The knowledge that Archer would soon end the life of another cut at his soul with every step he took. The miscreant in question was a liar and a thief at best. That the whole of the man’s meager fortune now rested at the bottom of the Atlantic did little to rouse Archer’s sympathy. On the contrary, it only ignited his fury. A red haze clouded Archer’s vision when he thought about what had been lost. Salvation had almost been his. Now it was gone because Hector Ellis’s pirates had raided Archer’s ship, stealing that which might cure him and hiding it away in the bloody doomed clipper ship.”

Opening your romance book with the anticipation of murder is good.

A little context with our nightmusic: the initial murder is foiled by Hector Ellis’ daughter, Miranda, our “Psyche”. Archer, who covers most of his face with a mask, returns as an English lord three years later and offers Ellis a deal: Ease his continuing destitution in return for his daughter’s hand in marriage. Father agrees and sends Miranda off.

I should mention here that Miranda is one of the causes of her father’s problems. She set his warehouse on fire. Not “oops dropped the lantern” fire. She can pull fire out of her body. How? Don’t know. Why? Why not? She does feel guilt over the accident, but living with her father was punishment enough and she is done paying for her mistake.

When we get the tour of the house, I begin to remove the fishhook from my cheek. He’s rich, she’s overwhelmed, he doesn’t like her touching his right side, servants know more than she does, we’ve seen it before. I had serious “Beauty and the Beast” vibes.

Cut to another house with an old man and his newspaper. The old man looks up, sees a masked figure, calls out Archer’s name, and has his throat slit.

The rest of the book, which slowly folds in a few paranormal elements, is deciphering the murders (yes, plural) while Archer and Miranda figure out how close to get before pain is involved.

If more romance books were like this, I’d read the category more often. The reason I included the quote was a note to the author’s style. I’m not certain if it’s because of the books I recently read (The first Dresden Files book had prose problems and the books before that were either indie or YA) or if this author is that good, but her writing style amazed me. I didn’t put this book down for the better part of five hours, I was that hooked. I had to owe someone a cookie because of this book.

I also have to say that I fully believed I solved the whole story at about 60% of the way in. I was wrong.

This issue I have is this: the book is, at its heart, a romance. I do not know if I can recommend this to any of my guy friends and live it down. Hence why I asked on facebook about guys that liked The Princess Bride, which is also a cleverly-guised romance with a masked hero. This book has fencing and murder, but is it enough?

So, my final thoughts: Download the sample chapter and see for yourself. Personally, a Goodreads 4.5/5. I do not give my 5’s lightly.

(Side question: Have you ever coverlusted? What book was it? Did it end up being good? Put your answer in the comments below.)

Aislin of Arianrhod

Another re-post, this time of a recent independent book I reviewed. As always, I will review independent books, but I will be honest.

First, the horribly truncated summary: Claire Frasier escapes her country’s invasion and constant impending doom.

(Hello again, Jamie and Claire! I gave up on you after the directionless narrative that was The Fiery Cross. I did miss you though.)

Full disclosure: I received this book from Goodreads First Reads program! Awesome program! Highly recommended!

I was thrilled to receive this book. When I saw the message from Goodreads that I won and the cover wasn’t a horrible use of Photoshop (Kudos to the designer), I thought it would be an awesome read.

I wish I could say it was.

Bottom line? The story would have been vastly improved with more drafts and time spent on world building.

I should start at the beginning. The story centers on Aislin, who is the unmarried sister to the (long dead) King of Arianrhod* and Regent until her nephew Bryce comes of age. She has been a stellar regent for eleven years, managing the day to day affairs of the kingdom. However, she also has had to fend off the advances of Jariath, Prince of Morrigan, who wants both her and Arianrhod for himself. After the last refusal of marriage, Jariath invades her country. Aislin and members of her family narrowly escape and decide to seek help from King Stanis** of Wyndham, who is related by marriage and training Bryce in matters of rule. In order to get there quickest, Aislin must go through the fabled (and dangerous) Blackthorne Forest.

The bulk of the story is Blackthorne Forest, but to avoid spoilers, I’ll stop there.

Most of my problems were in the beginning, the pre-Forest setup. The first thing I saw when I cracked this book was a map. I love maps. The second thing I saw was the really large font size. It’s probably something that only teachers and other graders-of-papers notice, but it stuck out like a sore thumb to me.

We get to our setting: July 23, 1692, Kingdom of Arianrhod. When your family and friends come from Salem, that year resonates. It’s the reason most fantasy texts go with their own month/year system.

Finally, I get to the meat of the text, which starts with a conversation between Aislin and Devin, her “right-hand-man-in-all-things”. We have no context when this conversation starts, so we’re left filling in the details as we go. This is not the only time a scene starts without context, hence why I cannot let it go. Indeed, the entire book is carried by conversation and mental thoughts. Immersion and detail are lacking everywhere, which is a death sentence for a fantasy book.

We also deal with multiple points of view. These weren’t bad in the middle and end of the book, but in the beginning they change so rapidly (some only two pages) that getting rid of most (if not all) of them would serve the book well. Any time we had Brock, Jariath’s assistant, or Jariath as the point of view, the information relayed was repeated in Aislin’s point of view, making the former chapters (or chapter parts) unnecessary.

Also, I had a few nitpicky questions come up while I was reading. For example: How does Morrigan afford thousands of soldiers when their country is inland (no ports) and swampy (no agriculture)? What is Morrigan’s economy based on? Why doesn’t Arianrhod have a standing army? (“Years of peace” doesn’t cut it with this history major. I’d invade on principle.) Why is Bryce five on the back cover and sixteen in the book itself? Who exactly is Roderick? Thankfully, he’s eventually given a pre-narrative role and profession, but it’s too little too late.

Those details, coupled with the deus ex machina (MS Word really doesn’t like Latin, I just found out) escape from the invasion, really hinder the book’s beginning. When I reached Blackthorne Forest, I honestly believed that I arrived at the book the author really wanted to write: a fantasy romance. The detail problems eased and the story progressed with only minor interruption from Jariath and the invasion issue. Due to the setup, with Aislin coming in from outside Blackthorne, it did have many of the same elements as the Outlander series. I wouldn’t call it a bad thing, as those elements are probably in many romances, but I did take notice.

Most of the characters were decently done, save for two major issues. Jariath severely needed more development in order to be more threatening and less ridiculous. Emara (Aislin’s mother) has terrible dialogue that made me wonder if the author was hashing out her own issues rather than creating a good character.

There were also writing/grammar/spelling issues (Lead male’s name is misspelled once, fyi) and italic font was everywhere for unnecessary emphasis, but I was able to get past those. In fact, had the book ended a few chapters earlier, I would have given it 3 stars. Instead, the ending trailed too long and erased all possible future conflict with another deus ex machina, hence the 2 star rating. It was okay, but it could have been awesome.

*The Welsh connection was not lost on me, but I can bet it would be lost on other readers.

**Normally, I’d forgive names. This is one I would have changed. It constantly reminded me of Stannis Baratheon*** from the Song of Ice and Fire series. Now that the series is popular on HBO as “Game of Thrones” and Stannis is played with distinct characteristics by Stephen Dillane, it sticks out.

***King Stannis Baratheon, first of his name, Lord of Light and Azor Ahai reborn. If we’re going to address him, we may as well do it properly.

Will Grayson, Will Grayson

To start things off, I’ll re-post the latest review I did for Goodreads. Enjoy.

First, the horribly truncated summary: Two teenage boys with the same name come of age after meeting in a porn store.

Quite honestly, when I think about this book, the first thing that comes to mind is, “Awesome, but not as good as The Fault in Our Stars.” It is a terrible thing to think, because it hampers the ability to review the book honestly and by itself. Still, I doubt I’m the only person who was significantly more invested in The Fault in Our Stars.

It may be because both title characters are in the depths of teen angst without having a reason to be angst-y. Though, that might make for an accurate portrayal of teens: full of angst for no reason.

Oh, and one of the title characters is homosexual, as well as one of the main supporting characters.

No no no no don’t run away! It’s actually well done.

What do I mean by that? Well, instead of being defined by their sexuality, the characters (all of them, gay or straight) are fully developed personalities. Also, there really isn’t any hatred of gays like you would see in other books touching the same topic. When one boy comes out to his mother, she’s not entirely surprised by it and is accepting, which shocks the teen entirely. It’s mostly teens acting as ordinary teens.

And I didn’t latch on to any of them. I might have if I were 10 years younger.

Anyway, the ending was a surprise of the unconventional sort and the book is worth a read.