Books Archives - Page 41 of 72

Yzabel / April 10, 2015

Review: Book of the Dead

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Massive sinkholes are opening across the country – each larger and deeper than the previous one. First the family pets go missing, and anyone living near one of the pits, is reporting strange phenomena – the vibrations, sulphurous odours and strange sounds rising up from the stygian depths. Then come the reports of horrifying ‘things’ rising from the darkness.

When the people start disappearing the government is forced to act. A team is sent in to explore one of the holes – and all hell breaks loose – the Old Ones are rising up again.

From the war zones of the Syrian Desert, to the fabled Library of Alexandria, and then to Hades itself, join Professor Matt Kearns, as he searches for the fabled Al Azif, known as the Book of the Dead. He must unravel an age-old prophecy, and stop Beings from a time even before the primordial ooze, which seek once again to claim the planet as their own. Time is running out, for Matt, and all life on Earth.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

Enjoyable as a fast-paced read, with appropriate enough doses of action and gory descriptions—and I would definitely expect such descriptions to make their way into a story inspired from the writings of H. P. Lovecraft. It’s never easy to picture what’s supposed to be “unspeakable horrors”, and here I thought the enemies, the creatures, were scary, both because of where they came from and of the way they got rid of humans.

Although not everything was absolutely 100% on mark (I’m thinking of some names, unless my copy had a few typos, that is), it fit into the “mythos” well enough for the purpose of this novel. I liked that the author pointed out at the end what his inspirations were, as well as the reference to the Bloop, which is definitely one mind-blowing thing as far as I’m concerned.

This also seems to be the second novel featuring Matt Kearns as a main character, and… it wasn’t a problem. The author made it so that whatever needed to be known about him was known gradually, and I don’t think one needs to have read the first book to enjoy this one.

The plot may be seen as stereotypical, in an Indiana Jones-like/mythologically-based thriller way, but most of the time, it didn’t bother me. Unfortunately, what I definitely didn’t like were the cliché, one-dimensional characters. I found myself rolling my eyes more than once, and it’s too bad, since there were interesting profiles in there, including the badass Mossad agent who could clearly hold her own without a blink. I may have grown to like those characters if there had been more meat to them, so to speak, yet there comes a point where you can just see everything coming: who’s going to sleep with who, who’s thinking with his dick, how the women instantly disliked each other, who’s going to die due to making a stupid decision, etc. I’d have rated the novel higher if not for those clichés.

Not a bad story, and an interesting take on how Lovecraftian horrors may be tackled in the 21st century; but the stereotypes can definitely become a problem here.

Yzabel / April 9, 2015

Review: The Falling Woman

The Falling Woman by Pat Murphy

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Elizabeth Waters, an archaeologist who abandoned her husband and daughter years ago to pursue her career, can see the shadows of the past. It’s a gift she keeps secret from her colleagues and students, one that often leads her to incredible archaeological discoveries – and the terrible suspicion that she might be going mad.

Then on a dig in the Yucatan, the shadow of a Mayan priestess speaks to her. Suddenly Elizabeth’s daughter Diane arrives, hoping to reconnect with her mother. As Elizabeth, her daughter and the priestess fall into the mysterious world of Mayan magic, it is clear one of them will be asked to make the ultimate sacrifice…

Review:

Quite a strange read. Interesting concepts and description of Mayan culture (I won’t comment about whether it’s exact or not, as I don’t know enough about it as of yet), seen through both the prisms of archaeology and of visions of “shadows of the past”. Interesting mother/daughter relationship, too, since Elizabeth and Diane have been estranged from years, and neither does know how to take the right steps to mend the gap.

In general, I liked how human relationships were portrayed in this novel. There is not totally right or totally wrong, and even the people who behave as assholes aren’t shown as a surprise: other characters aren’t stupid, they kind of expect the outcome they may (and will) get, and while it’s somewhat bleak, at least the author dosn’t come up with excuses (the characters’ “excuses” are feeble and shown as such).

Interesting as well was the depiction of how society reacts to “strong women”. Zuhuy-kak was a strong-willed priestess, and her enemies deemed her as mad. Elizabeth wanted to have a life of her own, something that clashed with her husband’s expectations of her, and so she was deemed as unstable. Perhaps that theme felt stronger in the 1980s-early 1990s, when the book was first published, but I think it still hits home today—society has changed… but not so much.

On the other hand, I felt let down by the high stakes the blurb led me to expect: more danger, more drastic choices… that never really took place, or not in a dramatic enough fashion as to really make me feel that Elizabeth and/or Diane was threatened. I would’ve liked to see something closer to a resolution when it came to the mother-daughter relationship, too. The novel’s too open-ended, leaving room for more, when part of that “more” should’ve been included in it.

Yzabel / April 4, 2015

Review: Mary Hades

Mary Hades by Sarah Dalton

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Not many seventeen year old girls have a best friend who’s a ghost, but then Mary Hades isn’t your average teenager.

Scarred physically and mentally from a fire, her parents decide a holiday to an idyllic village in North Yorkshire will help her recover. Nestled in the middle of five moors, Mary expects to have a boring week stuck in a caravan with her parents. Little does she know, evil lurks in the campsite…

Seth Lockwood—a local fairground worker with a dark secret—might be the key to uncovering the murky history that has blighted Nettleby. But Mary is drawn to him in a way that has her questioning her judgement.

Helped by her dead best friend and a quirky gay Goth couple, Mary must stop the unusual deaths occurring in Nettleby. But can she prevent her heart from being broken?

The first in a series of dark YA novels, Mary Hades follows on from the bestselling Kindle Single ‘My Daylight Monsters’. A spine-tingling tale with romance, readers will be shocked and entertained in equal measure.

With some scenes of horror and some strong language, this book is best suited for readers aged fifteen and up.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

Mary Hades mostly delivers on vivid descriptions when it comes to the murderous ghost, the time spent running away at night on the moors, and other scenes that are of the traditional and expected kind in such a story. I liked reading those parts, and the writing style in general, while not being exceptional, was pleasant. The novel introduced interesting ideas, too, especially the ones revolving around lacey and what she may or may not become as a ghost: she’s been dead for a short time, yet the question remains whether the gruesome circumstances of said death could cause her to turn bad, just as the enemy turned bad. This is definitely something deserving to be explored.

However, the rest of the story seemed to plod along, despite being short enough. The romance, for one, felt forced and not really useful, leaving me thinking “Yes, and?…” in the end, and nothing more. Was there really need for a romance here? I don’t think so. They could’ve been friends, and it would just have been the same. Call me a picky reader, and unfair to the author, but I’ve read way too many YA books by now to still be awed by romance the doesn’t have an actual role to play.

I also couldn’t help but question the presence of other characters. Mary, Lacey, Seth, Igor: OK. The other ones, though, felt superfluous, didn’t really help, didn’t bring much to the plot either. I guess their main interest was to be “the gay couple next door”, but then, might as well give them something relevant to do, not just hand around as wannabe ghost hunters. It smelt suspiciously of “let’s add gay people to show that we like them”, almost in a trendish way. (Maybe I’m totally mistaken as to the intent: it’s just the way I perceived it.)

I remain torn when it comes to the part about Dr Gethen. I know the novel stemmed from a novella, and it’s clear the author wanted her readers to be able to enjoy Mary Hades without necessarily having had to read the previous story. This is commendable, and the few reminders peppered here and there helped me piece those events together, enough that I was able to easily get what happened to Mary and Lacey and drove them where they are now. On the other hand, it wasn’t enough—or, rather, it was a shortcut to something Mary had to come to terms with, only I got the coming-to-terms part without the emotional and literary investment in it. I guess one had better read the novella before, all in all, if only to feel more invested.

Finally, while the murderous ghost was frightening enough in the beginning, I thought her demise went too quickly, too easily. She should’ve been more of a challenge, deserved more screen time, perhaps a death or two that the characters would have felt more deeply? (The little boy, and the guy working at the fair, are killed too early, without the reader having had a chance to get interested in them, so they’re more MacGuffins than characters… if this makes sense).

Conclusion: easy to read, with potential, but not living up to it, and not very memorable. This made it barely “OK” for me.

Yzabel / April 2, 2015

Review: The Well

The Well by Catherine Chanter

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

‘One summer was all it took before our dream started to curl at the edges and stain like picked primroses. One night is enough to swallow a lifetime of lives.’

When Ruth Ardingly and her family first drive up from London in their grime-encrusted car and view The Well, they are enchanted by a jewel of a place, a farm that appears to offer everything the family are searching for. An opportunity for Ruth. An escape for Mark. A home for their grandson Lucien.

But The Well’s unique glory comes at a terrible price. The locals suspect foul play in its verdant fields and drooping fruit trees, and Ruth becomes increasingly isolated as she struggles to explain why her land flourishes whilst her neighbours’ produce withers and dies. Fearful of envious locals and suspicious of those who seem to be offering help, Ruth is less and less sure who she can trust.

As The Well envelops them, Ruth’s paradise becomes a prison, Mark’s dream a recurring nightmare, and Lucien’s playground a grave.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

Another one for which I can’t decide on a rating. Because I did like it, but I wasn’t awed, and I was torn between moments of beautiful writing, and moments when said writing seemed to be here just to delay the outcome. The feeling was definitely weird.

I liked the tense, oppressive atmosphere of The Well: a place that looked like some kind of Promised Land in the middle of the Waste Land, yet also a tainted paradise, one that could only bring the sterility of death. I liked the contrast between the emphasis placed on a “land for women”, which could hint at more promises of life, but in the end, it was all a lie, and only ended with said life being stifled and denied the right to exist. As a container for such themes, this novel was good. Maybe not the most subtle piece of work in that regard, but good nonetheless.

I was less thrilled by the way it kept hesitating between what it wanted to be: a murder mystery, or a supernatural story? I wished for more information about the drought and about the mysterious quality of The Well. Was why that place so “blessed”? What made it exceptional? The blurb led me to expect some preternatural explanation, something that would have justified the way the Ardinglys were rejected almost like witches of old—by this, I mean an explanation more complex than jealousy and people wanting what they couldn’t have. It begged for a revelation that I never got, focusing instead on the mystery/murder aspect. I would have had less trouble with that if it had taken a definite stance regarding Ruth’s story of an isolated woman who doubts herself and seeks for a frightening truth: that story didn’t need the backdrop of a drought and miraculous land to be told. The Rose of Jericho, Ruth’s love life coming apart at the seams, Lucien’s story… Those could stand on their own.

The mystery highlighted all the doubts and shortcomings of human psyche. The charges against Mark in the beginning, how they contributed to add a “what if…” side to his character, poisoning other people’s minds against him, including that of his own wife. The Sisters, led by Amelia, the cult that got hold of Ruth’s mind. Angie, not the perfect mother, yet the loving one all the same, who had her faults but still tried to get better, only to have to face a “what if” of her own when it came to her son.

However, I found it too easy to guess who had committed the crime, and the way Ruth descended into her delusions seemed just a tad bit far-fetched. Maybe her isolation, getting estranged from her husband, could be a valid explanation; or maybe not. She didn’t strike me at first as someone who would fall so easily into the clutches of a cult. Still, this is part of the novel’s ambiguity: who can tell what kind of person is a “ready-made victim”? Nobody can. Sometimes you just can’t suspect at all, you never see it coming.

What was somewhat annoying, as said above, was how the novel beat around the bush. On the one hand, there were really beautiful, poetic moments, vivid descriptions that made The Well come alive, with its good sides and with its faults. On the other hand, I clearly had the feeling at times that the author was delaying, only to lead to revelations that weren’t so striking all in all. In my opinion, the book could have benefitted from more editing and shortening here.

I’d rate this a 3 to 3.5 stars (depending on the scale used). Overall, I liked it, though I’m not sure I’d read it again.

Yzabel / March 29, 2015

Review: Walking the Labyrinth

Walking the Labyrinth by Lisa Goldstein

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Private investigator John Stow’s questions about Molly Travers’ family pique her interest when relatives that she supposed dead and buried begin to appear, alive and working real magic.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

2.5 stars, between “OK” and “I liked it.” I very much enjoyed the magical/illusion aspects in this book: the concept of the Labyrinth, questioning people and their motives, “taking a new turn” when you learn something new, and how just about anything could be turned into a lesson—often not the most obvious one. The Order, done partly through the journal of one of its earliest members, had one of those late Victorian flavours that I tend to like. Secret societies, people trying to get a glimpse of mysteries through communing with spirits… And power, the “Gift” passed from parents to children in the Allalie family, something that could be used for good (for instance, whether it was on purpose or not, Dodd did stop drinking after that night in the prologue), but also for less than shiny endeavours.

The writing itself was fairly good, and managed to evoke vivid imagery of the magic shows in the 1920s and 1930s (or at least, what I’d expect magic shows to be like). The antics, relationships, tensions and weirdness of Molly’s family were easy to grasp, and definitely interesting.

What prevented me from enjoying this story more were the characters first and foremost. While the premise was intriguing and fascinating, I couldn’t connect with any of them. The Allalies were too shrouded in mystery and half-lies to feel like actual people, and Molly often struck me as bumbling around without any idea of what she was doing: not in terms of investigating (after all, she wasn’t a private eye or a cop, so it made sense she wouldn’ have such reflexes etched in her), but as a person. Maybe it’s just me, but from the beginning, her behaviour when Peter was concerned just made me feel like smacking her to put some sense into her. This made it harder to reconcile with how she evolved towards the end, going from clueless to maybe too resourceful.

There were also a few instances of characters popping out of nowhere, more as plot devices than as people: the man in England, the people from the Order… Their roles didn’t feel really defined, and they would’ve deserved more spotlight in order to look like they had a place of their own in the story. Same goes for clues that appeared without enough groundwork having been laid beforehand. This ended for me as a strange mix of predictability (the Allalie’s family name was so obvious) and “wait, what, where did that come from?” reactions. The story tended to plod, and there were moments I found myself reading in the hopes I’d get more out of it, rather than because I was genuinely involved in it fully. The journey mattered more than the ending, but I wished said journey had streamed more seamlessly, without the constant feeling of being driven by plot devices.

Overall: worth borrowing, but maybe not buying.

Yzabel / March 25, 2015

Review: The Girl At Midnight

The Girl at Midnight by Melissa Grey

My rating: [rating=1]

Blurb:

Beneath the streets of New York City live the Avicen, an ancient race of people with feathers for hair and magic running through their veins. Age-old enchantments keep them hidden from humans. All but one. Echo is a runaway pickpocket who survives by selling stolen treasures on the black market, and the Avicen are the only family she’s ever known.

Echo is clever and daring, and at times she can be brash, but above all else she’s fiercely loyal. So when a centuries-old war crests on the borders of her home, she decides it’s time to act.

Legend has it that there is a way to end the conflict once and for all: find the Firebird, a mythical entity believed to possess power the likes of which the world has never seen. It will be no easy task, though if life as a thief has taught Echo anything, it’s how to hunt down what she wants . . . and how to take it.

But some jobs aren’t as straightforward as they seem. And this one might just set the world on fire.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I really wanted to like this book, all the more since I had loved Daughter of Smoke and Bone, but there’s a fine line between “if you liked this, you’ll like that as well” and “it’s so similar you get to wonder where one ends and the other begins”. Not very original. Same comment regarding the comparison with the Shadowhunters series (which isn’t so original to start with, but that’s another story). As a result, I kept being distracted by the plot turns and character dynamics that were either too close to the one series or too close to the other; in the end, The Girl at Midnight didn’t manage to stand on its own for me.

Very obviously, we have Echo/Karou, Caius/Akiva, Ala/Brimstone. Ruby is reminiscent of Madrigal’s “friend” in DoSaB. (There’s more, but details would lead to spoilers). The relationship between Caius and Dorian is pretty similar to the one between Jace and Alec, including the way it develops when Jasper/Magnus waltzes in. So many common points made it difficult to see the characters for who they could have been, and they remained closer to copies, instead of appearing like people with personalities of their own. Granted, the teasing between Jasper and Dorian was funny, but I couldn’t shake off my impression of “hey, I’ve already seen that…”, along with the feeling that relationships in general evolved too quickly in this book.

Relationships: they were all over the place, and not too subtly. I wasn’t aware that Echo had a boyfriend until it smacked me in the face, leaving me wondering where that guy came from. (Not to mention that this poor boy seemed to be here just because one love interest wasn’t enough and another one was deemed necessary. Basically, he was treated like dirt.) Also, too many mushy descriptions, with our heroine too busy being driven by the love triangle to actually make me feel that she was really involved in the plot—although she does have a fairly important part, one that could have been really good to read about if things hadn’t gone too fast.

It’s not a long novel, but the pacing was definitely strange: lots of events happening in little time, relationships developing too fast, and yet the story was slow. The world-building wasn’t enough to my liking: we get all those nice thresholds, jumping through portals, magic powder, sometimes magical descriptions of places (bonus points for Strasbourg, this city is absolutely lovely—trust me, I lived there for more than 10 years)… but the two races at war, the war itself, didn’t feel like “solid”. I would’ve wanted to know so much more about those, how they came to be in such a conflict, the souring relationship between Tanith and Caius, how the Drakharin and Avicen lived… More information in that regard would have allowed me to see the world this story’s set in as more strongly grounded. (I guess this would have been less of a problem if I could have fallen back on the characters, only I couldn’t, due to the aforementioned similarities. Same goes for the writing: it hadn’t the flow of DoSaB’s, nor did it bring a really fascinating atmoshpere to Echo’s surroundings.)

Conclusion: there were good ideas in this novel, but most often they were too close to stronger, existing ones that it was very difficult to see The Girl at Midnight as a self-contained story.

Yzabel / March 23, 2015

Review: The Raven’s Head

The Raven’s Head by Karen Maitland

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Vincent is an apprentice librarian who stumbles upon a secret powerful enough to destroy his master. With the foolish arrogance of youth, he attempts blackmail but the attempt fails and Vincent finds himself on the run and in possession of an intricately carved silver raven’s head.

Any attempt to sell the head fails … until Vincent tries to palm it off on the intimidating Lord Sylvain – unbeknown to Vincent, a powerful Alchemist with an all-consuming quest. Once more Vincent’s life is in danger because Sylvain and his neighbours, the menacing White Canons, consider him a predestined sacrifice in their shocking experiment.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

The theme of this story was interesting enough, but unfortunately, I never felt it grab me, and found myself at times not really caring whether I was keeping on reading, or taking a break to read something else.

The descriptions and atmosphere were vivid enough. This isn’t glamourised historical fiction: when people pee in the street, they do, and when they’re in a ghastly environment, they are. The author’s writing made it fairly easy to picture the characters’ surroundings and their lives—the sinister manor, Gisa’s daily drudgery, the boys trembling in fear at night at the abbey, expecting to be seized never to return…

However, the characters themselves didn’t leave me with a lasting impression. I liked how they were portrayed with their imperfections (Vincent especially: he started with justifying his bad actions as if they were logical, and I must say I quite enjoy such characters, bordering on sociopathic in their way of seeing the world while being the heroes of their own story). But only a few hours after finishing this novel, I’m already not exactly sure anymore of what they did, nor of what the plot tried to achieve. It took some time to get there, and mostly the protagonists were too passive, with things happening around them, or to them, without prompting a strong enough reaction. Gisa’s passivity was all the more infuriating that she tried to help someone, but so slowly that her repeated thoughts of “wanting to save that person” felt fake (and a mere plot twist to lead to the decisions she made later).

In fact, the characters were here mostly to make the plot happen without giving vibes of being real people, with lives of their own. Their background stories looked interesting, but remained just that: in the background. All that was very weird, because the chapters were short, yet seemed to drag at the same time.

I also didn’t get—still don’t—the necessity for a switch between the first person and third person, complete with present tense. I have no idea why this kind of style keeps popping in novels more and more, and I wish I could see its point, because so far, it’s been more jarring than anything else. It didn’t achieve anything for me, didn’t give me a sense of immediacy, and only made me keep wondering “wait, why are we doing that again”? Which in turn kept breaking my reading stride.

Not an infuriating book, but one that I’ll proceed to quickly forget.

Yzabel / March 15, 2015

Review: Harrison Squared

Harrison Squared by Daryl Gregory

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

Harrison Harrison—H2 to his mom—is a lonely teenager who’s been terrified of the water ever since he was a toddler in California, when a huge sea creature capsized their boat, and his father vanished. One of the “sensitives” who are attuned to the supernatural world, Harrison and his mother have just moved to the worst possible place for a boy like him: Dunnsmouth, a Lovecraftian town perched on rocks above the Atlantic, where strange things go on by night, monsters lurk under the waves, and creepy teachers run the local high school.

On Harrison’s first day at school, his mother, a marine biologist, disappears at sea. Harrison must attempt to solve the mystery of her accident, which puts him in conflict with a strange church, a knifewielding killer, and the Deep Ones, fish-human hybrids that live in the bay. It will take all his resources—and an unusual host of allies—to defeat the danger and find his mother.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

A good story (definitely a 3.5 stars more than a 3), but one that also confirms once again that, in my opinion, “Lovecraftian influences” don’t go too well with “written for YA audience”: they need to be too downplayed, and end up too remote from the usually bleak, no-hope tone the original stories used to have, combined to the feeling of Sublime (in Burke’s meaning of this word) elicited by the appearance of Old Ones and various eldritch creatures. In turn, the novel was interesting, but…

I didn’t experience the same fascination I had when reading We Are All Completely Fine (the novel where H2 appears as an adult, along with another victim of the Scrimshander). The ingredients were here, only it didn’t seem there was much of a sense of danger, in a setting that begged anyone, reader included, to run away without ever looking back. It would have been better if it had been upped to real horror, and not, I suspect, downplayed to fit a younger public. (Especially since teenagers can very well read and appreciate genuine Lovecraft stories—I started reading those when I was 15, and it never was a problem.)

On the other hand, this book introduces characters I liked reading about. Selena was funny, yet definitely here to support her nephew in spite of the way she first appeared as “childish”: not the air-head she seemed to be, but a grown-up and serious woman, simply with a punny take on life. The kids had more depth than I would have given them credit for at first—including Lub, who kept making me smile but whose own approach on life must somehow have made lonely, in regard to his peers. And there was not a hint of romance between Harrison and Lydia (although everybody insisted she was his girlfriend, both made fun of this and dismissed it immediately). It’s refreshing enough in a category where every boy and girl always seems to find his/her “soul mate” two days after the beginning of the story.

The setting itself, Dunnsmouth, also hit the spot as far as “gloomy” and “creepy” were concerned. The strange atmosphere at school, the weird subjects (non-Euclidean geometry? Making nets? Uh…), the kids who all look like each others, the teachers with strange behaviours, the mysterious library with its equally mysterious librarian… These were well-rendered. No matter what, both in terms of settings and characters, I still found the Scrimshander as fascinating as ever. An urban-legend villain without a definite face, half-hidden under the brim of his hat, popping out of nowhere, performing gruesome magic by engraving bones with portraits of his victims… I thought he was intriguing in WAACF, and he remained fascinating here.

Conclusion: a good novel, only one I wish had upped the stakes where the horror element was concerned.

Yzabel / March 10, 2015

Review: Masters of Blood and Bone

Masters of Blood and Bone by Craig Saunders

My rating: [rating=4]

Blurb:

Holland’s a man who’s good with death. Good at death.

When his daughter goes missing, he finds himself pitted in a deadly game against the Gods themselves. Powerful enemies surround him—a changeling, a mage, and a god who wants to destroy the world.

With silver bullets in his gun and death on his mind, Holland aims to set things right…or die trying.

For the captors of Holland’s daughter, death is not only on it’s way, it’s in their very possession as Holland’s daughter isn’t just a girl…in fact, she’s barely mortal at all…

She’s Ankou, Death’s daughter, and she’s not an easy mark.

The battleground has been set, the world’s at stake, and all Hell is about the break loose.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

This was a strange tale, full of darkness and eerily fascinating, bordering at times on grotesque regarding the way some characters were depicted. A tale of gods walking the Earth, of legendary characters come back to life, of cruel deeds from the past done for a vision that was already corrupted before it ended. A tale of craziness, of people bigger than life, of exaggeration and little things all thrown together, in which mages escape from books bound by cursed sorcery. It’s man at at its crudest, at its maddest, and also man at its greatest level, full of love and ready to shake the whole world to find the one person that matters.

I thoroughly enjoyed Holland as a character. A no-nonsense man, who knows when to kill but also when not to, who doesn’t particularly enjoy it but will not shirk away from this “duty” of his when needed. Physically, he was far removed from the typical protagonist—no rippling abs here—but he had a strong charisma of his own. I felt he was poised between his condition of someone who can see the dead, and someone who’s just trying to give his daughter a normal life, even though said daughter.

Ank, too, wasn’t what I had expected her to be, and that was for the best. The blurb was a little misleading, presenting the story using an angle that isn’t exactly the one I found while reading, and at first I believed she would be the helpless kidnapped kid, but… no. Due to her nature, she wasn’t as close to humanity as Holland, yet even though this made her harder to get attached to, it still was logical in her case. And let’s not forget The Book.

The novel also puts an interesting twist on several mythological characters (the God, the mage, what one does, what the other did). I admit that at times, I wasn’t sure why they acted the way they did; however, it was also made clear that they were mad, so this worked for me in the end. The place of the “final battle” was a tad bit cliché, but depicted in prose that made it look almost magical, if corrupted—the way the novel tackled other themes and people, mixing beauty and darkness.

On the less bright side, I may have wanted just a little more in terms of characters, as I could only really “feel” Ank and Holland; although the nature of the others made this understandable, I guess this is just one of those cases when I would’ve liked to get to know the enemy some more. And a few things in the writing tended to grate on my nerves, especially the sometimes heavy use of “…”. If you don’t mind those, good for you; I just get easily annoyed (visually) with that. That’s a somewhat minor point, though.

Yzabel / March 8, 2015

Review: The Boy with the Porcelain Blade

The Boy with the Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick

My rating: [rating=2]

Blurb:

Lucien de Fontein has grown up different. One of the mysterious and misshapen Orfano who appear around the Kingdom of Landfall, he is a talented fighter yet constantly lonely, tormented by his deformity, and well aware that he is a mere pawn in a political game. Ruled by an insane King and the venomous Majordomo, it is a world where corruption and decay are deeply rooted – but to a degree Lucien never dreams possible when he first discovers the plight of the ‘insane’ women kept in the haunting Sanatoria.

Told in a continuous narrative interspersed with flashbacks we see Lucien grow up under the care of his tutors. We watch him forced through rigorous Testings, and fall in love, set against his yearning to discover where he comes from, and how his fate is tied to that of every one of the deformed Orfano in the Kingdom, and of the eerie Sanatorio itself.

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

Between “it’s OK” and “I liked it”, so 2.5 stars I guess.

I liked the premise of a Renaissance-like world, the focus on a castle that was like a city of its own, and the inner House politics. There was much potential here for intrigue of that kind, and I would’ve liked to see more of it—but didn’t, because Lucien, while being at the heart of it, was also more of an observer or a follower most of the time. Follower of other people’s wishes, or of habit, or of the plot itself. I often felt that he was submitting to, and reacting to the action, rather than making actual decisions.

I also didn’t know what to make of the Orfani in general. The novel was too ambiguous about them, as if unable to decide what to make of them as well. They were both privileged and rejected, considered as witchlings, but why exactly, since they didn’t practice magic? It was a bit strange. Perhaps, if played a tad bit differently, it would have made more sense.

The characters didn’t leave much of an impression. I may have liked them if I had gotten to know them more, see them act more often within the confines of the intrigue web spun in Demesne. Stephania, for instance, seemed like a cardboard feature (her mother was worse), but I could sense a drive underneath, and I would’ve appreciated seeing it for longer than I did. Giancarlo was really detestable, and Golia as well, yet they were too one-sided. As for Lucien, the protagonist, he had his likeable sides; however, he was often too self-centered, and I could never fully determine if he was really gifted or kind of an idiot; if he failed because othre people made him, or if he did because he would’ve failed anyway. I think I actually preferred Dino, who displayed more cunning (in a good way) and resources.

On the other hand, I quite liked the world itself, with its feeling of being completely isolated, and its origins that may be quite different from that of a traditional fantasy setting (if I read between the lines properly, that is). The secrets shrouding the King, and his pet project, were morbidly fascinating. I would definitely have wanted to know more about this world.