Wednesday 21 February 2018

Five More Books: Fantasy Crime edition

Jade City by Fonda Lee

Jade City is described most commonly as a wuxia version of the Godfather for good reason. It packs all the scope and heft of Coppola's classic and echoes the twisted family loyalties of the Corleones. It is also filled with the breathtaking action and high mythic feel associated with wuxia. And, really, who doesn't want to read something that hits both of those points?

Unfortunately, Jade City doesn't quite do its concept justice. The sheer size of the story feels too big for the page count as arcs build up then sizzle out with characters suddenly going with the flow of events. As a result, I felt rather neutral on the characters and their struggles, neither hoping nor fearing for them. Hopefully over the course of the series, I end up thinking the opposite.

Because, despite the rather large flaw I find in Jade City, I do want to read the rest and find out how the story ends. Lee writes well, particularly when doing action scenes, and presents a beautifully vivid world, intriguing me where the characters and story do not. And the characters do have potential - they just need more words to realise it - and the story has been set up for a potentially breathtaking sequel. I'd recommend it for those reasons alone, as I believe Lee will deliver, but any fans of, well, wuxia and the Godfather would do well to check in.

The Straight Razor Cure by Daniel Polansky

When I started searching for fantasy noir, this was the book most recommended to me. It doesn't take more than a few pages to realise why. The Straight Razor Cure is saturated with sardonic style and is definitely the closest thing I've found to Chandler giving fantasy a go. Polansky has more than a noir voice though; he has the knack for making the dark and seedy feel non-gratuitous.

His narrator, the Warden, is swiftly thrown into a murder investigation that threatens the whole city as well as his very personal well-being. The storyline progresses nicely with an entertaining cast of secondary characters - that is, until it hits the murky middle. For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, it became a struggle to push through, uninteresting and a bit confusing. It is perhaps not a coincidence that the middle is about where I began to tire of the voice too; there can be too much of a good thing.

Nevertheless, I liked it enough to struggle through to the end, thanks to some wonderful set-pieces. Tell the truth, I can't even really remember whether I liked the ending, although I do remember heavily disliking certain elements. I did start reading the next one though (until I needed to give it to the library) so it can't have been that bad. And I will, murky middle or no, echo the people I asked; this is the book to start with for Noir fantasy.

Night Watch by Sir Terry Pratchett

Yes, yes, I'm reviewing the last (or more or less last) first. That's because its the best, a masterpiece in its own right elevated by the series worth of character development that went into Sam Vimes and the streets he treads. Books like these are why readers cling grimly to series even when the author seems to have murdered their creative muse for the life insurance and buggered off to the Bahamas.

Crime books sometimes undersell their characters, when arguably they need to be sold harder than any other genre. They must be vulnerable enough - human enough - for empathy, yet tough enough to belong to the mean streets that very few of us willingly choose. Pratchett nails both parts of the equation. He does an equally fine job with the supporting cast, who are invested with a lot of humanity in a very short period of time, and greatly add to the book's tension as a result.

Not that this is a tense book. I struggle to think how I'd characterise the book's story actually. But what tension exists is mostly cut with background gallows humour, until right at the end itself. Those looking for a tight mystery are in the wrong place (although many of the earlier Guards books do have them) as are those looking for something bleak. For everyone else, this series - and eventually this book - would be where I'd recommend starting with fantasy crime.

The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids by Michael McClung

There's a big gap between Polansky and Pratchett when it comes to tone; those looking for something in the middle might try McClung. His eponymous thief, Amra Thetys, has something of the Warden's grimness and moral laxity, while also having something of Vimes' world-weary humanity and humour.

This results in a book with fantastic voice and plenty of charm, albeit spoiled by a few anachronistic phrases. The mystery itself is well plotted and revealed, although the most memorable moments tend to come from the action scenes than the big reveals. Big fights are something McClung does very well though, so it's somewhat understandable.

Unfortunately, he relies a lot on powerful magicians who do somewhat unravel the plot. That, plus the odd slips of mood and a few tedious repetitions, were enough to seriously dent my enjoyment levels of this book. Which is a shame because at his best, McClung shows he gets everything that goes into a fantasy crime book and just how to do it. Here's hoping the rest of the series is a bit more refined.

Servant of the Underworld by Aliette de Bodard

Servant of the Underworld features one of my favourite concepts ever; an Aztec priest who fights crime. Well. Solves a murder. I'm still annoyed I wasn't able to buy a new paperback copy and show De Bodard my support the old fashioned way. I'm even more annoyed that despite all the vivid myth and detail surrounding the Aztecs and their neighbours, there is so little fantasy literature honouring them. I've heard some criticise De Bodard's depiction of the Aztecs here; I am no expert, but I found nothing to fault here.

Sadly I can't say the same of the plot, which was more intent on digging through the tangled worries of the priest's home and political life than the crime itself. To an extent, I understand; De Bodard gave her protagonist an interesting background that I wanted explored. But the result did justice to neither as far as I'm concerned. 

Which isn't to say this is a bad book. I finished it after all. The characters and central premise of the murder are great. Its certainly worth exploring if you stumble across it. It may even be worth chasing down, if, like me, you love mythology and crime and all that good stuff. You may find it less uneven than me and think its downright excellent. I hope many do, but for me, it remains a case of squandered potential.

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