Connie Willis, "Domesday Book"

This work is on a classic SF theme, time travel.  A theme that has been done and redone so many times, but how does Connie Willis make it work?  The answer is that it is all in the character development and the storytelling.  There is also a tension that runs through the book that keeps you wondering and makes the ending meaningful.  It all hangs together very nicely.

The story is about a history PhD student at Oxford university in the near future.  In this future they have access to time travel when it does not affect the present, so it is only useful for students of history.  That does not make it safe however, as Kivrin discovers when she goes back to 1320 to study a mediaeval village.  Unknown to anyone Kivrin was sick with a new flu bug, think H1N1 with steroids, and the Oxford of the present ends up in quarantine as she falls sick in the past, to be succored by some visiting nobility.

What I really liked about this story, without giving away any details, is the way that the characters are torn with indecision, uncertainty and realism.  In particular I like the way that the decisions of the Kivrin's supervisor change and evolve.  The description of the past, especially the more harrowing parts which you will know when you get to them are particularly well written and I think it is likely that the writer has probably taken advantage of her own time machine to make this book realistic.

It is a bit different, it is already slightly dated, but it is a clear voice. I will definitely read more Connie Willis when I get the chance.

Peter V. Brett "The Warded Man"

I just finished reading this and enjoyed it immensely.  Peter V. Brett has written something which is simple, yet totally riveting. I could not put this book down and read avidly from start to finish.  This book is one of action, from the front cover to the back.  There is not a lot of emphasis on the description of the scenes or on feelings.  The action though unfolds in such a way as to give insight into the main characters and into the land in which the tale unfolds.  The author does not try to do too much and succeeds quite well at what he does attempt, an unfortunately rare trait.

In brief we have a humanity threatened by demons, or what they call demons.  The history is simple.  Long ago man fought against demons until it developed magic.  The magic worked against demons.  When the demons were on the edge of being totally defeated they vanished.  Man then forgot its magic, which after all was only to do with demons, developed science and spread to cover the world.  Unfortunately the demons were not finished.  When the demons rose again, without magic man kind was near crushed until they remembered some few wards to use as protections.  That is the situation now, people huddle in fear behind arcane barricades at night while the demons delight in torment.

The hero, or one of the main heroes, fights his fears of the demons and through the course of the book discovers ways to fight back.

The only problem with the book is one a good editor would have spotted.  There was a perfect ending point to this first book in a series, but he continues and creates another.  He probably felt it necessary to bring the main characters together though, so he can be forgiven.  He could maybe have met them before discovering the spear?  Who knows.

I will read more Brett and would recommend this book to any fantasy readers who like a good heroic adventure romp.  Not surprisingly the author is a fan of D&D.

Alice Borchardt, "The Dragon Queen"

 

I found this novel in a second hand book store.  No recommendation from a friend, no previous knowledge, complete shot in the dark.  Arthurian tales have always been a weakness of mine.  There is so much there in a simple framework to work with for a writer, and so many different tales have been told based on it.  At first glance this work struck me as being a new angle on the story, exploring the legend from Guinevere's point of view, and hopefully with a strong female character.  I was pretty excited to read it actually.

Alice Borchardt has good prose, some excellent descriptions of places and some good characters. Unfortunately I think that Alice Borchardt tried to do to much and a lot of it either does not have enough back story or is over the top, which has the effect of not really tying the individual pieces together.  For example, when she introduces Guinvere's potential father, who turns out to be a fairy who gives her magical armor embedded in her skin it was done abruptly, with no background on the fair folk, no background on who her father might have been.  It did not do this to evoke mystery, it just happens like that. 

Other things happen too abruptly.  A prime example would be when she meets Arthur.  Their meeting is far too devoid of content for the level of commitment that results from it.  It just does not really follow.  I thin that the real problem to me as a reader with this story is that it is far too obvious that the events that take place, and the decisions that are made, are the work of the author.  At no point does it become real.  At no point does it evoke a lost past, or another world that I fall into.  Which is one of my goals in reading fantasy.  Being a lover of fantasy literature is not being a lover necessarily of the cleverest writing or the wittiest dialogue, it is rather the desire for losing yourself, briefly, into something other.

Daniel Suarez, "Daemon"

Daemon hovers on the edge of being science fiction, as it is so contemporary.  This is a problem to the narrative in my opinion because it makes it harder to suspend your disbelief.
First the good parts.  Daemon is a bit of a page turner.  I had not a speck trouble getting through it at all and enjoyed the read.  Suarez writes very well, and the techno geekery of the novel appealed to me.  What is wrong with the book is more difficult to explain, as I think it really comes down to what is wrong with the book in a technical sense, rather than in literary sense.  This is precisely why it being contemporary and not more SF in feel is what stops it from working for me.
Basically he posits the ability to leave programs waiting on machines to carry out instructions when they get triggered.  All to the good.  That is the daemon and it gets its name from processes that run continuously in the background on computers monitoring for events before doing something.  In the case of the Daemon of Suarez's book it is murder, at least initially.  This part is fun, and in fact plausible.  The problem with the idea is that it keeps going on and acting and disobeys one of the laws of the universe.  Which is that if you engineer something to do something, even something simple, it probably will not work.  In reality, you have to test things, tinker with things, change things to get them to work.  It requires intelligence.  Suarez has a computer program without intelligence doing things without being tested.  It just simply defies belief.

In that way this book is a thriller, even though at first glance it looks more like near future sci fi.  Thrillers always it seems have to take a step beyond plausible into the realms of the ridiculous.  And unlike SF they cannot posit something new to explain it and allow the reader to suspend their disbelief.  I would reccomend it to people who love thrillers though!

(Suggested reading by my friend Dale, who I have not seen in years, thanks Dale.)

Maya Kaathyrn Bohnhoff, "The Meri"

The Meri was first off a fun read.  I read it very quickly and found it enjoyable and though provoking.  It follows the path of a young lady who has had her family killed and been raised in a patriarchal religious community by an elderly priest.  Her simple femaleness causes her problems and she ends up going on the same prescribed voyage of religious discovery her mentor followed.  Now there a few themes in the novel that I had issues with, so do not read too much if you want to read the novel......
First, she is setup as wanting revenge for her dead family.  But she never really tries to get revenge and is basically portrayed as too good to follow that route.  I think it would have been more interesting if she were to have a taste of revenge and find it unsavory and then take the saintly path.  In a similar way to real courage is only really shown by those who have a lot to be afraid of.
Another thing that was not quite right is that in the world Maya creates, they have palpable evidence of a God, and good, and what is required of them, there is almost no need for faith, or the character to stand up to atrocities supported by a paper religion.  Which would be a fine thing to have in the real world.  But it seems to have no effect on the world or society she portrays, which is basically like our own as regards faith and respect for the church.  If you took a devout agnostic and put them in such a world,  daily miracles would possibly lead to a conversion, after all evidence is evidence, and agnosticism would likely fall before the overwhelming deluge of religious reality.  Maya's world however seemed to be much like our own, where everything is so much more murky.
Overall though I enjoyed the book, though it was maybe a little to saccharine for my taste, but the theme is such a hard one to succeed at.  I will read some more work by her before I decide to giver her a recommendation, but I will definitely give her a shot.  Another writer who did something similar, and to my mind succeeded better was Elizabeth Moon with the "Deeds of Paksenarrion" trilogy.  That was more routed in traditional fantasy however, unlike Mayas work, which is maybe a little too close to the real world?

Susanna Clarke "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell"

Following a theme of alternative history sci fi (S. M. Stirling), we have here an example of alternative history fantasy writing.  The fabulous case of Jonathan Strange, Mr Norrell, and more mysteriously John Updike, the King of the North.  In this lengthy novel Clarke weaves a rich tapestry of a haunting England, were there was once such a thing as magic, with the North ruled for 300 years by a wizard king.  It is set in the time of the Iron Duke and Napoleon and it paints a picture of England at a time when magic once more comes back into common use.
The style of the book is interesting, like a cross between reading Jane Austen and Edgar Allen Poe with an incredible amount of footnotes, sometimes there are multiple pages of one one footnote and you grow confused as to where the thread is.  The footnotes actually draw you in though, they make the historic backdrop to the story seem quite real due to their detail and wit.
At no point does Clarke attempt to explain magic, or give a reason for there being fey creatures that interfere with human existence, it is an assumption of the narrative that is so seamless that the reader loses all skepticism for the occult and just instead marvels at what is accomplished by its modern practitioners.  The story has many notable characters, not just the title characters, but perhaps the most interesting is the hidden character of the Raven King, whose existence and history is the warp and weft of the story, the real backbone.  He remains at the end wrapped in as much, if not more, mystery than in which he starts the tale.

Susanna Clarke is clearly a talented writer, and I will definitely get hold of more books that flow from her pen.  I hope though that she branches out in terms of her themes and styles, because as much as I enjoyed the novel, I was not left eagerly anticipating its sequel.  I was rather well satisfied with the literary meal and had no room for dessert.  I will though recommend this book as a great read.

"Rainbows End" Vernor Vinge

Back to hard Science Fiction.  Or on the surface anyway.  I enjoyed this book immensely because it was multi layered and enthralling.  On the surface it is an exploration of what ifs.  What if Alzheimer's could be cured. What if you could be made young again.  What if what mattered was the ability collate rather than create.  It creates a near future which is complex and different to where a lot of people see us going, and then weaves through two different story threads.  One thread is the story of fighting terrorism in the future, the other is a story of personal redemption and second chances.  The two are blended together very well indeed.

This book posits ideas without even stating them obviously.  Neuroplasticity is a given, without ever being mentioned and plays a central though hidden role in the narrative.  The importance of love and community is one of the biggest lessons you could draw from this novel, but nowhere is said.  The messages, the ideas, the statements of Vinge are subtle; they are simply woven into the thread.

I will definitely read more by this writer, who falls on the hard sf side of the genre.  If you like hard sf and technobabble, give it a whirl.

So something different.  I have already reviewed a book that was co-authored by George R R Martin, which I liked a lot.  He is definitely worth reading for the stuff he writes, but how about the stuff he edits.

Wild cards was recommended to me by a friend, he only managed to get  a copy through a library in Elliot Lake, which is half way to beyond.  I had it for just a few days and absorbed it through my skin.  The basic idea is that a large group of writers came up with a very concrete idea which comes down to an alternative history post world war II and they all wrote stories in that history.  One of the things that makes this great is that if you read it not knowing that each story is a different writer, you could easily believe they are all written by the same person.

The premise for the alternate universe is simple, but complex.  At the end of world war II a flying saucer (yes a flying saucer) lands and a guy gets out who wants to be taken to the leader.  Unfortunately, he does not really get to see the leader...  and so the other flying saucer he wanted to find (that was loaded with a weapon) does not get found by the good guys.  The bad guys who do find the other flying saucer, with its pilots dead, end up dropping the weapon over New York.  This is bad new for New York.

The weapon is awful and wonderful, the stuff of dreams and nightmares.  A virus that kills most people who catch it and the ones who are left are either blessed with strange powers and/or physical changes, or cursed with bizarre abilities and or deformities.  Aliens have essentially turned the earth into a large lab experiment, and super heros, and villains, are a reality.  The ones who are gifted become known as Aces, the ones with deformities etc are Jokers.  The people with powers are not really super heroes like the kind we are used to though, they are more real, flawed, and still live at the whims of the people in the world around them.

Out of the writers I had only read anything by two of them, the immortal Zelazny and Martin himself who wrote one of the stories.  I enjoyed every one of the stories and am keeping my eyes open for more.  The thread is so strong that if you do not like short stories and prefer the novel you would probably like this.  I did.  Thanks Rich.

Michael Swanwick "The Dragons of Babel"

I have been trying, every so often, to pick up an award winner I have not read.  If they win awards they must be good? Right?  Well Michael Swanwick has picked up several over the years so I thought I would give him a chance.

The lead character goes by the name of Will, which I liked immediately.  The story is basically an adventure yarn that has us follow a young lad who grows into a man while having many adventures.  The twist, if there is one, is that the world in which he is growing up is the realm if Faerie, and he is has human blood and hence no true name.  The realm of Faerie seems to be more dominated by technology than magic and so the whole book is a bit different in the fantasy genre.

The book failed to draw me in and grip me, though it was rich in imagination and detail, they were neither enough to give it the pseudo reality that anyone who reads escapist fiction craves.  The plot seems random, but near the end of the book it starts to make sense, but not enough sense.  I think that as a novel it is perhaps a little bit too bizarre in the picture it paints and the characters it portrays.  I struggled to make sense of the underlying logic, that was its underpinnings, and so was left bereft of comfortable answers to the questions that the novel posed to me.  That being said, this could easily be somebody else's favorite book.  I suspect I simply did not get it, and I will probably give a Swanwick novel another kick of the can, as long as it turns up in a second hand book store.  Unfortunately I would not recommend him to others as of today.

Mistborn, Brandon Sanderson

This novel I found to be a page turner from start to finish.  Brandon Sanderson has created a tense world on the edge of violence where basic human values run at a low ebb.  In his world something unexplained has happened that has caused volcanism on a massive scale.  Many plants, animals and people struggle to survive his harsh world.  The world is ruled by one man, possessed of god like powers, who is utterly without mercy, corrupted totally by the power he wields.

The story that unfolds is the story of an individual, a girl called Vin, who is rescued fro the street by some thieves because of her ability to consume the energy of metals and perform acts of magic.  What follows is a transformation.  There is the transformation of Vin, as she discovers more about herself and what people are really capable of.  There is the transformation of her view of the world and the transformation of the members of the thieving crew, who become her first friends.

From the point of view of fantasy literature I thought this book was utterly brilliant.  The author has created a magic and a world that is very new and intriguing.  It is a powerful vessel that allows him to create heroes and villains that grip the reader.  The plotting in the book is wonderful and answers enough questions to satisfy the curiosity, but leaves enough threads hanging to leave you hungry for more of the same.  Thank you Mr Sanderson.

Kristen Britain "Green Rider"

This was an interesting novel to review, as there were elements I liked and disliked about the story.  In many ways it is a good book to think about if you were thinking of getting a career going as a fantasy novelist because while it is in many ways good, it has a few flaws that would act as sign posts for things to avoid in a book.

The novel concerns itself with the adventures a young lady, who when expelled from school, attempts to make her own way home.  Or at least she starts out for home.  On the way she comes upon a dieing messenger of the King and agrees to carry his message for him. And by doing so becomes a green rider, an elite servant of the King invested with magic by a brooch talisman. The first act of the book then follows her upon her journey to the capitol, during which she suffers several indignities and has many adventures before ultimately delivering the message.  What follows after is an attempted magical coup by the kings embittered brother that she ultimately foils through the use of more magic, this is the second act.

The problem is that the story, while often well written and filled with some genuine gems, is not fleshed out.  I think the whole journey to the capitol, just the first act, would probably have made a better opening novel into a series, finishing with questions left unanswered and situations unresolved, and starting with more background as an introduction.  Instead Britain has tried to do too much.  She tries to resolve and explain everything.  Some things should have been left more mysterious and questions should linger in the readers mind when the novel is about intrigue and treason.

For example, at the beginning the "Grey Man" forces a break in a magical wall that protects the kingdom.  Too much information is given, too many facts.  We are given pretty much all the information about the wall and its makers in a short narrative.  There is no mystery.  It would have been infinitely more satisfying if we were introduced to the grey man as he caused a crack to appear in the wall using his ghost magic, then as the tale unfolded we would find out more about what the wall meant, as the wall and its protections are a central thread in the story.

 It is entirely possible she listened to the publisher too much, as the approach she took lent her novel more of a fantasy pulp aspect, when if handled differently I think it could have been a rare work, and ultimately been more successful with the reader.

Ultimately I was disappointed with this novel because I liked it enough to wish it had done a better job and moved in a better direction.  This was a first novel by Kristen Britain, and so I will give read other books by her and see if she manages to convince me as to the truth of her creations.

Shards of Honor, Lois McMaster Bujold

I recently review Lois McMaster Bujold as a writer of fantasy, and have thoroughly enjoyed many of her fantasy works in the last few weeks, in particular "Paladin of Souls" which is a beautiful book. She actually made her name with a series called the Vorkosigan saga, and this is the first book in the series. I thought I would review it from the sci fi perspective. With this series Lois has won almost as many literary prizes as Heinlein, which is no small accomplishment.

The Vorkosigan saga is mainly the story of Miles Vorkosigan, but this book is the story of how his parents met, and the sequel Barrayer is the story of his birth. I think in many ways this saga is a good example of how a space opera should be written. What I mean is that the technology takes a background position relative to the importance of the characters and their actions. The plot is action driven and fast paced. It avoids going into too much detail, which actually helps in the suspension of disbelief. This works in the same way that the technology in Star Wars worked, what was interesting in Star Wars was not the laser blasters and massive ships, it was the interaction between Solo, Luke and Leia, with a bit of comic relief from the metallic sidekicks.

The lead character, Cordelia Naismith, is bright, capable and willing to act decisively, and does so throughout the story and it is the personal level of the readers interaction with her that works so well. When faced with a complex situation she acts, simplifies it, is direct and effective. As a heroine she is interesting and engaging and is shown to her best advantage by the effect she has upon the actions of the other major character, Aral Vorkosigan, who though jaded by the politics is able to find a path to honor of a kind.

Yet again, without giving away spoilers I would say that the series is well worth a read if you like a fun story, with serious overtones, that is a page turner. I will be reading the full series now I have started and have a largish space on the shelf in my library for the works of Bujold in both Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Hunters Run", George R. R. Martin, Gardner Dozois & Daniel Abraham

I actually read this book a while ago, but never reviewed it. I think I was intimidated by the fact that it has three authors, making a recommendation far more difficult to make. However, it is thoroughly deserving of comment so I just have to bite the bullet and go ahead.

This book took decades to write and passed through three pairs of hands who all apparently left their stamp on it, though it is hard to spot the individual styles as the story is perfectly seamless and very well crafted. Of the three writers I was only familiar with George R. R. Martin, who is the author of the excellent series "Song of Fire and Ice" which starts with "Clash of Thrones". His only fault as a writer could lie in making a story too big, too many characters and too many threads, but only time will tell as his main series is only half finished.

Hunters Run starts with violence, a man called Ramon kills another man in a bar fight and is forced to flee into the wilderness of a recently occupied planet. The story keeps with the single voice and follows it tightly and you start a journey with a man that you probably will not like too much. The plot develops and opens beautifully as layers of Ramon and the world are revealed to the reader. The scale of the novel opens up even while managing to stay focused on one man, and his struggle to survive. Almost anything else I could say about this excellent novel could ruin it.

The artistry of this work is what makes it a superior piece of craftsmanship. The novel is not long, but rich in detail and emotion. Ramon's journey is very fully realized and captures the minds eye completely.

I will definitely read anything by any of the three based upon this novel, and eagerly anticipate getting my hands on any of their other works.

Lois McMaster Bujold "The Spirit Ring"

My friend Kenny O'Leary recommended this writer, though a different book. I managed to get a copy of this novel first. Lois has been writing sci fi and fantasy for years and has a slew of awards, but for some reason I had never read anything by her before, so thanks for the tip Kenny.

The spirit ring is a fun and easy read. I did not want to put it down too much as I really enjoyed it from start to finish. Its a classic approach to a fantasy novel, as she did not create a new world or anything, basically she went back to early renaissance Italy and added a little bit of magic, by Priests and Wizards to the mix. The characters that are introduced and developed are quite likable and you get to know them during the course of the book. The plot is straightforward and keeps it s momentum well and has a particularly fine ending.

I was however left with the feeling that she could have done more. Her prose is good and deceptively light. There are gems of philosophy and morality hidden away in odd locations that are valid outside of a magical schema, the kind of thing that makes fantasy matter. I think there could have been more of this and a little more weight put on the decisions made by the characters.

Regardless, it was a fine read, and I will add her to my list, while avidly seeking other books penned by her hand.

John Ringo, "The Last Centurion"

I have been on something of an apocalyptic kick, to the point were I have been worried about the amount of dried goods and water I have on hand in the house, so this book by John Ringo will hopefully be the last of them for a while, as I do not want to lose it, at least not completely. This book is a complicated one to talk about, or should I say uncomfortable. Not because of strong language or violence etc, which I can take in spades, but rather because it moves away from the standard sci fi writers territory.

It is set in the very near future, 2019 to be exact, and is strongly based on current events pre Obama, This means that it does not have that essence of separation that science fiction lends the exploration of ideas. Instead it has all the context of your Sunday newspaper.

That distance that most SF gets from an alien setting, or alternate reality etc gives the writer the freedom to explore ideas without being strongly colored by current opinion. John Ringo dropped all that and the narrator, telling his own story, is the Republicans Republican. He posits the confounding events of a plague of H5N1 that wipes out half the worlds population, the onset of global cooling due to the sun entering a calm phase of no sunspots and famine world wide due to the breakdown of most societies, including the US.

Now the lead character has the first half of the book as a rant on these issues, it then turns into the story of a military conflict in the Middle East, comes back to a diatribe on farming and finishes with civil war in the USA. He is not afraid to write without political correctness, and for all that Bandit Six uses strong and colorful language, he is willing to give people a shot before writing them off, regardless of color or whatever. It is powerful. The character is an interesting one for all his strong opinions, and the book admittedly drew me in.

However, I am not sure I could recommend him yet because I want to know if all his books are similarly colored first. If one book has a character with strong (and often justifiable views) that's one thing, but if he cannot get off his hobby horse and just write then he does not make it to my list of recommendations. So, John Ringo is in Limbo for me as of the moment.

(I will leave it to those of you who know me to come to an opinion on which issues I might hold common ground with the protoganist)

S M Stirling, "Dies the Fire"

It's been a while since I had a chance to review a book, and the important thing about "Dies the fire" is that I have since read two more novels by the same author, so you can tell I liked it. This book is the first in a series that follows various groups of people on the west coast when electronics and explosives inexplicably stop working and stay like that. Planes crash to the ground mid flight, refrigerators stop working and the internet disappears. There is a mass die off of people and the whole world population is essentially thrust into a new mediaeval age.

Many other writers have done an apocalyptic novel, and movies that follow the theme abound, both good and bad. Stirling's approach is a bit different though, he does not really focus on the cause and looks more at the outcomes. He uses this vehicle to postulate how he thinks new societies might form, and how they might be influenced by charismatic and capable leaders to reshape things. What he is really doing is using a science fiction vehicle to create a fantasy. In fact the novel is a gritty realistic sword fighting fantasy novel. There are heroes and villains and monsters(men and women driven insane and cannibalistic by the change). It is just contemporary.

I could not put this novel down, and as much as I do not necessarily agree with some of his speculations pretty much everything is plausible. The characters he builds are likable and interesting and he series of events that unfolds is thoroughly gripping. I would recommend this novel quite happily and am going to add him to my list, though I am hard pressed to pigeon hole him as sci-fi or fantasy.

He follows up the story in the sequel, which I also read in good order by telling us a little of what happens in England, where the population is reduced to 600,000 and King Charles III rules with an iron fist, and an icelandic bride at his side.

The Dog From Hell, Chris Bunch

It is often difficult to define what makes a good piece of writing, or a good writer. In a genre that is so story driven as SF or Fantasy that can be especially true. The tricks of writing that pull you in can be very subtle indeed. Bad writing though is a lot easier to spot. Chris Bunch could be a good writer, but I think he lacks the scholarship necessary for the scope of the book he attempted.

The Dog from hell is a space adventure, or an attempt at one. We are intended to cheer for a small group of adventurers called Star Risk, who are attempting to get revenge on Cerberus, a large security concern who successfully squelched them. What follows is clearly intended to be a high octane thriller/ space drama. It fails short of its mark.

I think this book fails because the author does not actually know very much about the kind of thing he is writing about. He does not know how the military works, how special ops work, what type of people are involved and how they think. He does not understand how technology plays a roll in this field of human behavior and what its purpose is. If he read more Tom Clancy maybe and then brought some of his understanding to an imagined situation with projected technology then it could have worked.

This makes the action unbelievable, which then proceeds to make the characters flat, which leads to a fairly uninteresting read that does not hold the attention at all. I left this book unfinished, maybe 90% read, and will get rid of it at the earliest opportunity. Not an all time great.

Sharon Shinn, The Shape-Changers Wife

I first read Sharon Shinn years ago, it was a beautiful hybrid of fantasy and science fiction called Archangel and I enjoyed it a lot. This novel, or maybe novella, is short, powerful and packs a punch. The story is at the same time simple and complex. A young wizard who apprentices with an older wizard, learns from him, then defeats him and his evil spells at the end. But it builds up a structured story and cast that asks important questions about morality, ethics, good and evil in a deeply compelling and engaging way. Perhaps the most obvious question is "If you have the power to change something, do you have the right?" which is a question that we ask daily when faced with the fruits of modern wizardry, and Sharon Shinn has an answer that rings as true for the scientist toiling in the lab, as the young wizard struggling with a troubled heart.

"I came to magic." He said at last. "With joy. I thought it was a splendid thing to take the well of power that I found within me and shape it to marvelous uses. I learned to call up wind and control fire, to draw flowers from barren soil and divert rain to the desert. I learned to exorcise madness from men's brains and to banish illness from their blood. I can create illusions, I can make a scrying crystal give me visions that are literal, that are true. And everything I learned made me happy- made others happy. And that is what I learned magic for.

"But magic, I have discovered, is like any other skill. It is not inherently good in itself. And some of it- yes some of it is inherently evil. There are wicked spells, savage spells, enchantments that are so black that even to know them withers the heart just a little, taints the soul. And yet to be a great magician, to be a sorcerer of any ability or reknown, those spells must be learned as well. For if a magician does not know them, they can be used against him- and what is magic after all, but a man's power to change the world while it is incapable of changing him?"

The difference between the magic of tales and the magic we wield daily, is that we do so in an ignorance not suffered by Aubrey. For no single man or woman is a magician in the modern world, and it is perhaps in our collective knowledge and lack of that many evils lie.

A great read and one I will pick up again in the future.

Karen Miller, The Innocent Mage

This was the first book I read by Karen Miller, and it is a great pleasure to pick up a work by a new writer and enjoy it as much as I enjoyed The Innocent Mage. The book in some ways is actually light on action and fantasy, what it does do is build, complex, vivid characters who matter and brings them to life within the framework of an intriguing backdrop. The book has a hero who is believable in Asher, and a threat which is nebulous, which makes it much more effective when it kicks in at the end and steps into the foreground. The world that is envisaged by Karen is not cookie cutter fantasy and is filled with potential for a couple more books. I give The Innocent Mage top marks and would now happily spend money on anything penned by her hand in the future.