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.

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.

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Rider Haggard
First published by Cassell & Company, 1885
Category: Classic

I didn’t put it together that I’d picked two books with heroes from The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (the graphic novel, not the movie, of course) until I was about halfway through King Solomon’s Mines and reflecting how accurately Alan Moore had depicted Allan Quatermain. Moore is responsible for me picturing Quatermain as Sean Connery despite the fact that he looks nothing like the man; Moore’s said he had Connery in mind for the character long before the movie was cast. For those of you more familiar with the 1985 version starring Richard Chamberlain, that image is even farther from the truth. Never mind Patrick Swayze in the 2004 production. The legendary hunter and adventurer Allan Quatermain is self-described as little, dark, and slender, and either “timid” or “a coward” depending on how positive he’s feeling about himself. It’s the wealthy Sir Henry Curtis who’s the attractive, muscular, courageous warrior-hero. Quite a reversal, considering that Quatermain is the narrator and the main character. King Solomon’s Mines is the earliest African adventure novel and the progenitor of the Lost World subgenre, and still extremely entertaining despite (or, depending on the reader, because of) its sometimes archaic and Anglocentric attitudes.

The novel begins with Allan Quatermain explaining how he came to set down the details of this strange adventure (which somewhat kills the tension of later events, since you know he has to survive). He’s approached by Sir Henry Curtis and his friend Captain Good to help them make an expedition into the most hostile regions of Africa to try to find Curtis’s estranged brother. This brother was last heard of on his way to discover the legendary diamond mines of King Solomon, which coincidentally Quatermain has a sort of map to. In outfitting the expedition, Quatermain hires an unusual ‘Zulu’ named Umbopo who shows a remarkable lack of respect for his bosses’ white skins, and who is in general much less servile and much more a ‘gentleman’ than the other natives. After traveling for months, losing a number of red-shirted native bearers and nearly dying themselves, the four men find their way to a magnificent land ruled by a cruel usurper named Twala and his hideously ancient bag-of-bones witch doctress advisor Gagool. They make friends with Twala’s half-uncle Infaloos, who tells them how Twala had his brother, the true king, murdered, and drove his brother’s wife and infant son out into the desert. Surprise, surprise, guess who turns out to be the lost son and heir? A short, bloody war doesn’t distract from the main mission, and the trio of adventurers is finally successful in finding both the diamond mines and the lost brother (though by the time I got to the end, I’d almost forgotten about him—that’s how action-packed the book is).

The introduction to my copy says that Haggard wrote this novel on a bet with his brother, who believed he couldn’t write a book as popular and successful as Treasure Island, the big adventure novel of his day. Haggard wrote it in six weeks and then almost didn’t find a publisher, but when it finally sold, it took off like no one expected. The publisher actually had trouble keeping it in print. Haggard’s writing is in stark contrast to his contemporaries, whether literary (Thomas Hardy) or popular (R.L. Stevenson), with a first-person narrator, a lack of flowery language, and some truly bloody scenes. It’s obvious that Haggard knew Africa well and loved the continent, and that Quatermain’s semi-modern attitudes toward the natives reflect his own. Naturally, there’s the sort of reflexive white man’s superiority at times, particularly in portraying the relationship between Quatermain’s companion Captain Good and the beautiful African girl Foulata as impossible because of their skin colors. On the other hand, Quatermain refuses to use the word ‘nigger’ to describe the natives, has tremendous respect for their companion Umbopo and the other warriors of the lost tribe, and even admits his inferiority to these tall, powerful warriors when it comes to battle. I got the sense that Quatermain was about as open-minded as a white man could be in those days, particularly in literature.

The one thing that really threw me was how enthusiastic all three men were about massacring a bunch of elephants for their tusks. I get the thrill of hunting a dangerous animal, I get that the idea of conservation was mostly unheard of back then, but I was still repulsed when I realized that Quatermain’s suggestion that they hunt elephants meant shooting as many of the bulls as they could find, even pursuing the herd after they’d killed the first two. This is definitely not an attitude that’s survived into the modern day.

It really is a thrilling and often bloody adventure. There’s an early scene where one of the servants throws himself in front of a wounded bull elephant to save his master’s life and gets torn in half, very graphically. As with other classics, King Solomon’s Mines may not be as overly gory as contemporary novels, but it’s fun to imagine how grossed-out readers of the late Victorian era would have been by it. I won’t rush out to get any more of Haggard’s novels, but I certainly enjoyed this one.

On the Edge by Ilona Andrews
Ace, 2009
Category: Fantasy
UNFINISHED

This is the second time I’ve started and failed to finish reading this book.  The first time, I was in the wrong mood. This time, I realized that the reason I was in the wrong mood was because the book had generated it. It’s not a bad book (not great either, but not bad) but a complete mismatch for me as a reader, so I’m officially giving up. I was going to explain in more detail why it’s such a mismatch, but since I think my reaction wouldn’t be helpful to those who are a good match for it, that would just have been mean.  I don’t mind ranting about something that is genuinely flawed, but if it’s just not my thing? Not fair.

The Edge of the title is a place between two realities that coexist in our world. The Broken is what Edgers call the "real" world–magic doesn’t exist here, and people without magic can’t even perceive the boundary between it and the Edge.  The Weird is a place of true magic, akin to Faerie. The Edge is something inbetween, where the inhabitants have some magic, but not enough to let them live in the Weird and too much for the Broken. Edgers who spend too much time in either find themselves unable to return to the Edge.

Rose Drayton scrapes out a meager existence in the Edge, trying to raise her two young brothers after her parents abandoned them. Declan is a smokin’-hot blueblood from the Weird who is searching for something and incidentally has decided he’s going to claim Rose as his own. Despite initial clashes (really? I personally love it when a stranger tells me I’m going to beg him to bed me someday) they end up working together to fight an evil from the Weird that if left unchallenged will destroy Rose, her family, and ultimately everyone she cares about.

Ilona Andrews (actually a husband and wife team, but I’ll stick with the fiction) has a good track record for coming up with interesting fantasy ideas about the intersection between mundanity and magic. She is not so good with exposition. Granted, exposition is the giant bugaboo of speculative fiction, because you can’t depend on the reader’s having a familiarity with the subject, but Andrews doesn’t quite know how to handle it beyond just getting it out of the way. In On the Edge, there’s a very awkward early scene of exposition through dialogue between people who already know the facts and are really having the conversation for the sake of the reader. Fledgling writers: Don’t do this. It draws more attention to your exposition, not less. Andrews’ books get better once the exposition is established and she can just move on with the story.  My recommendation to readers who are put off by the awkwardness is to just go with it. You may ultimately not like her books, but it should be because of the story.

Like I said, not a bad book, but not my thing.  If you’re interested in urban fantasy, it’s probably worth a try.