Friday 29 September 2017

Five More Books

Since people seemed to like reading a lot of short reviews, I'm giving the format another spin. This time the theme is modern fairy tales and Urban Fantasy - an unfair pairing, as the two have some distinct differences in terms of how well the protagonist can understand and face up directly to the legendary beings they face. I sometimes think fairy tales belong more in Horror than in Fantasy while UF is about coldcocking Horror and stealing its stuff. But hey, they're here together today. That's TGIF logic right there.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

I doubt there’s too many out there still unaware of this book. A story of two young magicians, manipulating a circus of the incredible as part of a competition neither truly understands, it’s won a lot of awards and praise since being published in 2011. But maybe there’s a few on the fence, or who have forgotten the book and need their memory jogged, and will enjoy it if they take the plunge.

It is certainly incredibly enjoyable in places. The Night Circus rings with the simple power of the fairy tale and is told with an aesthete’s eye. The result are some genuinely wondrous and moving scenes, with the interactions of the two magicians with their mentors frequently hitting home. The natural comparison is with Gaiman and, with the exception of the fact that I prefer Gaiman’s ideas, Morgenstern stands well to the comparison. Its a shame she hasn’t published again.

Unfortunately  The Night Circus doesn’t always deliver on its promise; probably a result of shoving in twenty odd years and gods know how many plot arcs into a single book. Readers who want to see tight plotting may find this ruining their enjoyment of the book and so too might readers who want to get really deep in characters’ minds. But - despite loving both of those things - I liked the Night Circus a great deal. Its reputation is thoroughly deserved.

Waters And The Wild by Jo Zebedee

Good fairy tales provoke a sense of the unbelievable. Great fairy tales do so while being heavily rooted in human experience and emotions and if there’s one thing Zebedee brings to every book, it is a close look at the way people react to weighty events. In this case, the person is Amy, and the event is the fairies desire to steal her away back to their realm. Maybe.

The real stars of the show though are Amy’s family, each of them bearing the scars of Amy’s troubled childhood. Going through trauma is hard, but at least there’s some measure of control when you’re the person doing it, and in some ways its a lot harder to watch someone go through it, wishing there was something truly effective you could do. Waters And The Wild is at its best when it captures that feeling.

Plenty of the book is dedicated to Amy though as she travels through the wild Antrim glens and her own sanity alike. It is the perfect counter-balance to the scenes of ruined domesticity, by turns uneasy and enthralling, tied together by a brooding sense of place. If this book doesn’t work for you as a story, its got some legs as a travel guide. But I’m pretty sure most people will.

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, Mike Carey, Glenn Fabry

Yup, that by list means this is a review of the comic rather than the book. I’ve yet to read the book but, in truth, I can’t really imagine doing so because the comic seems to be the perfect media format for this story. Neverwhere is the tale of Richard Mayhew, an ordinary unhappy businessman who one day discovers the bloodied body of Lady Door, a denizen of the fantastic London Below, and gets sucked into her quest for revenge.

Most of the story is set in London Below, a baroque-punk allegory of London, and Fabry’s portrayal of this realm is a solid half of why I love Neverwhere. His artwork does an awesome job of evoking that mix of unreality and human experience all in one. Props too, of course, to Gaiman for coming up with the initial idea. This is very much a typical Gaiman story - almost painfully ordinary reality taking a ninety degree turn straight into the heart of human mythos. 

Arguably this contains the typical flaws of a Gaiman story too - a passive protagonist and a certain amount of style over substance. These weren’t dealbreakers for me though; the characters are too charming and the style too vivid for that. And there is substance here too, in the way the characters process their losses. Neverwhere rarely seems to be the go to Gaiman recommendation, but right now, I feel maybe it should be.

The Black Alchemist by Andrew Collins

Okay, this is technically a true story rather than fiction, or at least its sold as one. And this does rather affect the writing of the book, which doesn’t have a slick plot and features clinical journalistic prose, but is able to take liberties with the oddities of character motivation. But it is a story, and it is urban fantasy. The two main protagonists drive around the countryside, drinking, smoking, and discovering evil occult secrets.

It also has something of the air of fairy tale in that neither truly comprehends what they are dealing with for much of the story. There’s something eerie about the picture of these two blokes, drinking their Guinness, trying to tune out the Hen Party at the bar, and wondering what the symbols on the spearhead means. There’s something very gripping too - this book is a better mystery than most stories intended to be one.

The book ends on something of a dull note for me - the ultimate sign that this is meant to be real life and not a fictional creation - but this doesn’t spoil a compelling ride. I often wish UF was more rooted in the real world than in Fantasy; this book is a fine antidote for that. If anyone reading this has some fictional recommendations that ape this sort of thing, by all means let me have them - I’d like to believe this subtler approach to fantasy could be every inch as successful as Dresden throwing fireballs.

Bedlam’s Bards series by Mercedes Lackey, Ellen Guon and Rosemary Edgehill

Everyone talks about remembering the first; well, Spirits White as Lightning was the first UF I read but I’m fairly this recommendation is more than nostalgic bias. I rarely see people talk about Lackey these days, which seems extraordinary for a writer who owned a ton of bookshop space when I was a kid. Maybe its because her adhesion to Good conquering Evil - if Noblebright means anything, it should mean Lackey - is out of fashion. Or maybe there’s not enough necking with vampires.

Either way, these books should be in fashion. Covering mainly the life of Eric Banyon, former child music prodigy who gets sucked into a war between the Sidhe and ends up becoming a magical Bard, these are good old fashioned romps where corporate money and old magic do dastardly things until the heroes step away from their soap operas and take one for the team. Lackey does this formula as well as anyone and unlike a lot of current names, does it without two extra spoonfuls of machismo. I love machismo, but I do also believe in a balanced diet.

Sadly, for a series recommendation, the first books are the most confused of the lot for my money - which might be another reason Badlam’s Bards goes unappreciated. It picks up a lot when Edgehill takes over from Guon as Lackey's co-author. But then there’s plenty out there where fans admit the first few books or so aren’t the best and its not like you can’t dip right into the middle of the series as I did - the books are semi-episodic to support that. Either way, worth a look for anyone short of a good UF.

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