The Light Ages by Ian R. MacLeod
Ace, 2003
Category: Fantasy

The Light Ages is an alternate-world fantasy, the story of an England where science and technology have stagnated thanks to the development of an extraordinary magical power source called aether. Despite this, the time period roughly corresponds to the early Industrial Age if it had happened near the end of Queen Victoria’s reign (or vice versa) and the milieu of the story, the general worldview of it, centers on the clash between the working class and the elite ruling classes, complete with the advent of socialism and unionization. The main character is Robbie Borrows, a boy from one of the most productive factory towns in England, and follows him from childhood to adulthood (told as an extended flashback/frame story by Robbie as an older man) as he grows to realize that a civilization dependent on such a scarce resource, which maintains such artificial barriers between classes, will eventually collapse—and finds a way to make it happen.

Ian MacLeod is a good writer, as far as that goes; I think his style overwhelms the story at times. Keep in mind that I read this immediately following Doctor Thorne, a novel written during the time period

MacLeod harks back to, so it’s not like I’m not very aware of the stylistic manners of the day. MacLeod isn’t exactly aping that style, but he’s not exactly striking out into new territory either. Still, apart from the complete disregard for the difference between subject and object first-person-singular pronouns, stylistically it’s very enjoyable, particularly since this is only his second novel and I believe he’s much better known as a short story writer.

The real problem is that as well-written as this book is, it doesn’t do anything new for either fantasy or historical fiction. MacLeod’s magical aether is an interesting take on the magical-resource idea, but he gives so much more time to writing about social upheaval and class warfare that he might as well have black-boxed the whole aether thing. He also doesn’t take advantage of his alternate-reality to cast new light on real historical problems; most of the story could just as well have been set in 1870s London. Contact with aether turns humans into changelings, some of them bizarrely warped and others with tremendous magical power, but this more fascinating possibility is used more as background than plot. The story would be little more than progressive/socialist rah-rah-rah (because almost all the good guys are on the side of the poor) if MacLeod wasn’t so good about showing how neither side of the argument is really perfect. For one thing, the Big Bad that Robbie spends most of the book tracking down is revealed to have been well-meaning and good. For another, the poor downtrodden noble workers show themselves to be just as prone to violence and selfish stupidity as their economic superiors; when the crowd gathers to insist on reform, and a government representative comes out to parley, it’s an anonymous part of the rabble that throws the first stone, without provocation. The social situation MacLeod writes about, like its real-world analogue, is untenable and cannot long be maintained, which is why so often the radicals espousing change are shown as the good guys. MacLeod doesn’t allow his sympathy for their cause to blind him to the reality that even people with good intentions can do the most horrible things.

The Light Ages was enjoyable, but I can think of other books, both steampunk and alternate reality, that do more for their respective genres…come to think of it, if you read Martha Wells’s novels The Element of Fire, The Death of the Necromancer, and the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy (starting with The Wizard Hunters) you’ll get the very best of both.

Doctor Thorne by Anthony Trollope
Third in the Chronicles of Barchester series
Originally published 1858
Category: Classics

You know what’s a downright crime? That Anthony Trollope isn’t a part of the typical English lit degree canon anymore (if he ever was, which honestly I don’t know and don’t feel like looking up). Forget the argument over whether canon is important or not; the point is that making the English degree even remotely universal and relevant from one university to another means having a list of books that you can point to and say “knowing about these texts makes you qualified to ask ‘Would you like fries with that?’” And Anthony Trollope just isn’t on that list. You’ll have to read books by at least two Bronte sisters, you’ll certainly have to read a handful of Dickens, but no general education literature class will put Trollope on the syllabus. Like I said, this is a crime, because Trollope is one of the most genuinely readable authors of the latter half of the 19th century, and for my money a whole lot more interesting than Dickens, who was paid by the word and had a thing for hard allegory. (I may be biased because I was assigned to read Dickens before I was mentally mature enough to appreciate his books. We’ll see what happens when the Rand-O-Matic churns out Hard Times later this year.)  In his own time, Trollope was even more prolific a writer than Dickens *and* had a full-time career with the postal service. He also invented the pillar box (for Americans, the equivalent of the blue public drop boxes we put mail in) and made a pile of money from his writing. Not bad for a guy who was, in his youth, a total slacker.

Trollope was also the first English novelist to write books that were serially related to each other. If you hate the proliferation of 12-volume-mega-novel-series, you can blame Anthony Trollope.  His two most popular series were the Palliser novels, which had a political bent, and the Barchester novels, which are closer to being novels of manners. I’ve enjoyed the first two books in the latter series, The Warden and Barchester Towers. Trollope is good with characterization and description, he understands the issues of the day, and he explains the workings of the Church of England in the mid-19th century well enough for a reader of the early 21st century to keep up with him. It’s not hard to get involved in the lives of his characters.

As good as they were, Doctor Thorne is even better. This is primarily because it’s the first book with a strong female protagonist. In the first two books, Trollope creates a number of strong women, but the protagonists are more retiring and sweet. Mary Thorne, niece of the title character, is intelligent, well-spoken, self-assured and progressive in her opinions about class and individual worth. Her uncle has a similar personality, and despite his being only a country doctor (and one who *gasp* mixes his own doses like a common apothecary!) he’s the close confidant of the local squire Franklin Gresham and far more popular among all the classes than his more arrogant medical peers. At the start of the novel, Mary has shared tutors with the Gresham daughters and feels no artificial inferiority to them or anyone else, including their snooty noble relatives the DeCourcys. In fact, her friendship for Frank Gresham the younger, only son and heir to Greshamville, has started to turn into something warmer. But Mary, despite all her certainties about her personal worth, has to keep Frank at a distance. She knows she is the daughter of Doctor Thorne’s dead brother, but she doesn’t know who her mother was or what her relations are. In that uncertainty, she can’t bring herself to fall in love with Frank—and Frank certainly shouldn’t fall in love with the penniless Mary, because it’s his duty to marry money and restore the family fortunes.

In writing this novel, Trollope reveals that he’s the true heir to Jane Austen in characterization, plot, and style. Trollope’s wit is a little broader, and he uses the technique of addressing the reader directly and commenting on his own words, which I think is fun. But he’s also got the social advantage of writing fifty years after Austen. You see, Mary is a bastard. And everyone knows it, or suspects it. But in the end, she isn’t ostracized by society, and her potential isn’t limited the way, for example, Harriet Smith’s is in Emma. For all the talk another fifty years on about how shocking Thomas Hardy was with Jude the Obscure, I really wonder what the Victorians thought about cheering for a penniless, “nameless” (that’s the polite way of saying “bastard”) heroine?

I’m a fan of Anthony Trollope now. And it’s exciting to know that there are so many more of his novels left for me to discover.

Goddess of Yesterday by Caroline B. Cooney
Delacorte, 2002
Category: Fantasy

Goddess of Yesterday is a mythological fantasy, one of my favorite kinds of books. I love retellings of Greek or Norse myths, or books based on aspects of ancient mythologies. In this case, it’s the Trojan War. 6-year-old Anaxandra is taken from her small island home as a hostage against her father’s good behavior by Nicander, a slightly more powerful ruler of a slightly larger island. Years later, Nicander’s island is sacked and Anaxandra is the sole survivor. When much more powerful king Menelaus arrives to investigate the destruction, Anaxandra passes herself off as Nicander’s daughter Callisto; she guesses correctly that Menelaus will treat a princess whose dowry includes an island better than he would a hostage girl from a rock in the sea. Unfortunately, Menelaus’s wife isn’t nearly so convinced—and since she is Helen, daughter of Zeus and the most beautiful woman in the world, her antagonism could mean Anaxandra’s death. But then Paris of Troy pays Menelaus a visit, the results of which are legendary. A strange combination of events puts Anaxandra on a ship for Troy, once again pretending to be someone she’s not, and she has to do everything in her power to stay away from Helen and to survive the beginning of the Trojan War.

I love Cooney’s writing in general, and Goddess of Yesterday is in my opinion one of her better works. Because it is written for a young adult audience, the threats to Anaxandra’s life and liberty are chilling without being overwritten for shock effect. Cooney takes the position that Helen of Troy was a cunning, selfish opportunist whose semi-divine beauty had a physical effect on everyone around her, a woman who connived with Paris to flee to Troy rather than being kidnapped against her will. Her Helen is downright scary. If you think that beauty isn’t a weapon, this book will convince you otherwise. Other characters are equally well realized, and their characterizations make sense within the context of Homer’s story: the affable but distant Menelaus, King Priam secure and arrogant in his impregnable fortress, Hector as sensible warrior and loving husband. Cooney lays out the background of her story in an excellent afterword that should give plenty of context to readers unfamiliar with the events leading to the Trojan War. Even so, this book will probably mean more to readers who know the old stories and want to see a fresh take on them from a different perspective.

That different perspective is that of the fictional Anaxandra (let’s not quibble about how non-fictional Homer’s characters were, okay?), a tough and intelligent girl whose character is far better suited to being a princess than the sweet but fragile Callisto she befriends and whose identity she usurps. The title of the book comes from Anaxandra’s childhood faith, in which her family prayed to a goddess whose name was never known or mentioned, but whose icon is Medusa—not as an evil serpent-headed witch, but as a figure of strength. There’s a wonderful scene early in the book where Anaxandra is trapped by the raiders who have destroyed Nicander’s kingdom. Forced to choose between treading water until she drowns from exhaustion or turning herself over to the raiders, Anaxandra takes hold of an octopus, puts it on her head, and fools the raiders into believing she is Medusa come to avenge the dead. It’s the kind of impulsive, intelligent, gutsy move that makes Anaxandra such a compelling character. She’s got enough personality for Cooney to set her in opposition to Helen herself, to challenge the demigoddess and win. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men by Molly Harper
Pocket Books, 2009
Category: Nagging
Who nagged: My husband

It’s not a big secret that my husband Greystoke is way more of a romantic than I am. He prefers romantic comedies to action movies (I’m the one who drags him to see the latest superhero movie) and is a big fan of Georgette Heyer. His interest in urban fantasy has in recent years led him to paranormal romance, both subgenres that meet for coffee at the intersection of Fantasy and Romance. A quick and dirty explanation of how the two relate is that urban fantasy and paranormal romance both have vampires, werewolves, faerie, and other supernatural stuff, and both emphasize romance/love/hot monkey sex, but urban fantasy focuses more on the milieu and the plots that arise from those subjects, and paranormal romance is more about the romance/love/hot monkey sex. (It’s more complicated than that, but this should explain why books that look like they have everything in common can be shelved in different parts of the store and, occasionally, kept in vats of ice water to prevent spontaneous combustion.)

This is not to say I only like Destroyer novels and movies which are one long string of explosions; I’ve always loved books that have a good strong romantic story. I just want them in combination with a strong fantasy (Turner’s Eugenides books) or alternate reality (Shades of Grey) or science fiction (Anathema). So Greystoke rarely recommends paranormal romances to me. It must have been about a year ago that he started praising these audiobooks he’d picked up (he also does most of his reading on his commute) by Molly Harper. “You’ll like these,” he said. “No, really.”

He’s generally right about what I will and won’t like of the books he enjoys, but I didn’t get around to Harper’s first book, Nice Girls Don’t Wear Fangs, until November of last year. And then I made myself put the sequel, Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men, on my 11×11 list just to guarantee that I’d read it. I think the awful cover art had something to do with it. I don’t know how much detail you can make out from the picture above, but the woman on the cover is wearing the worst press-on nails I’ve seen since 1988. Her fangs need orthodontia. And…bat jewelry? Really? It’s not that I’m judging the book’s content by its cover; I just didn’t want it staring at me from the nightstand.

Still, I enjoyed the first book, and the second is just as good—improved, even, by virtue of the author’s gaining confidence and skill.  In Nice Girls Don’t Wear Fangs, children’s librarian Jane Jameson is nearly killed in a hit-and-run accident and saved by hot vampire Gabriel Nightengale (the name is another clue that you are in paranormal romance territory), whose version of salvation means making her a permanent member of the after-dark set. Jane has to learn how to cope with her undead life, which includes dealing with relatives in denial, learning to cope with vampire culture, and building a relationship with Gabriel that includes hot monkey sex (i.e. “Happy Naked Fun Time,” one of my favorite phrases from the book). The sequel continues in this vein, although this time the plot revolves around Jane’s best friend Zeb, who is about to marry cute young werewolf JoLene and whose family woes are even worse than Jane’s. Zeb’s mother has always wanted him to marry Jane, despite their relationship having been entirely platonic their whole lives, and is doing whatever she can to keep him from trotting down the aisle with his furry bride…and “whatever she can” seems to include some kind of dark magic.

Nice Girls Don’t Date Dead Men is light and fluffy, with a couple of graphic sex scenes that are all that keep me from recommending it to even teenagers. They aren’t gratuitous or inserted into the plot because the genre demands it, but they are very short and easy to skip over if you don’t care for that sort of thing. The spectacle of Jane coming to terms with the limitations and blessings of her new life is well realized, and there are even a few moments of genuine insight into what it’s like to be different, no matter what that difference is. The awful relatives are possibly a bit too awful and narrow-minded, and Jane’s relationship with Gabriel isn’t developed so much as presented to the reader as a given, but in a book like this, you’re not looking for realism so much as entertainment. It’s quite funny in places, and Harper’s prose is engaging. Looks like Greystoke picked another winner.

Howards End by E. M. Forster
First published 1910
Category: Modern Classics

This was probably the wrong book to read at the tail end of an exhausting week. I might have appreciated E. M. Forster’s prose better if I had been less weary. Then again, maybe not. Forster really is a brilliant writer, particularly in his portrayal of his characters, but he also has this habit of addressing the reader directly to explain some social issue or interpersonal relationship. Despite the many times I had to go back to re-read a passage my eyes had skimmed past, I didn’t feel like I was missing much from those sections. And then I’d get into a section of dialogue I couldn’t stop reading. Overall, I think Howards End is more successful as social commentary than as novel.

Howards End is a story about rich and poor, upper and lower classes, and the intersections between them as English society moves from the Victorian to the Edwardian era. The upper classes are represented by the Wilcox family: wealthy, successful, politically conservative, unashamedly not intellectual. The lower classes are represented by Leonard Bast, a dreamer and poet who wants to be well-read and genteel, but continually falls short for reasons even he doesn’t understand. The two classes are bridged by Margaret and Helen Schlegel, genteel women with some financial independence who represent the intellectual liberals of society. The Schlegels meet the Wilcoxes on holiday and hit it off; they meet Bast at a music recital when Helen accidentally takes his umbrella; Bast and Mr. Wilcox become connected when Mr. Wilcox advises the Schlegels to tell Bast to leave his job at a supposedly unstable company.

At its heart, the book is about the duty the haves bear toward the have-nots of society. Because of Mr. Wilcox’s advice, Bast quits for a less-well-paying job with the potential for advancement, only to be fired six months later when the new company downsizes—while meanwhile the first company never fails, and even becomes stronger. Helen Schlegel’s position is that Mr. Wilcox bears a financial and moral responsibility to Bast because the upper classes have a duty not to make the lot of the lower classes worse. Mr. Wilcox argues that Bast took his chances just the same as anyone and that treating the poor with more generosity than he would a peer is unthinkable. While I sympathize more with Mr. Wilcox’s position—Bast’s situation stems from far more than his loss of employment—his callousness toward Bast’s fate is something the Schlegels are in the right to challenge. The question “How can we help the poor?” is central to the novel, but neither the Schlegels nor the Wilcoxes truly understand that the first step in the process is to stop thinking of them as a class separate from their own. As an snapshot of England’s divisive class system, Howards End is exceptional and sad, though I question whether Forster intended it that way.

I enjoyed the book, but it’s definitely not pleasure reading for me. Something that surprises me as I make my way through the 121 book list is how much variety there is among books written in a particular time period. Students of English literature in particular get in the habit of tossing around labels like “Victorian literature” or “post-industrial fiction” as if the time period is a mold that turns each book into an identical block of fiction. Yet the differences of style and content between, say, Dracula, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and King Solomon’s Mines, written within a single ten-year period, is dramatic. Howards End was published only five years after The Scarlet Pimpernel, if you want an even starker difference. As good a writer as Forster is, Howards End shows how the concerns of a particular era may not stay relevant to later generations.