The Restoration Game - Ken MacLeod

Looks like cyberpunk, 

right? Nope!

I'm not sure The Restoration Game is science fiction.  Sure, it's technically based on a speculative what-if, but does that make something a science fiction novel?  Science fiction, I believe, is all about a discussion on humanity's relationship to technology.  I feel a lot more comfortable thinking of it as a Dickian (Philip K.) novel that grapples with issues of human perception more than one looking at our relationship to technology.  Or maybe it's just a thriller.

Other than a prologue and an epilogue, the events in Ken MacLeod's most recent novel take place in 2008, leading up to the South Ossetia War (or at least a fictional simulacrum there of).  The narrative is recounted by Lucy Stone, an Edinburgh expat from the former Soviet controlled Krassnia.  In that troubled region of the former Soviet Union, revolution is brewing.  Its organizers need a safe place to meet, and where better than the virtual spaces of an online game?  Lucy, who works for a start-up games company, has a project that almost seems made for the job: its original inspiration came from Krassnian folklore.  As Lucy digs up details about her birthplace, she finds her interest has not gone unnoticed.

The main narrative is endemic to spy fiction.  Lucy's mother, and great grandmother both have some connection to the CIA and their machinations have compromised their progeny.  Mystery's abound.  Who is Lucy's father?  What are the motivations for the revolution?  Who stands to gain?  This thriller mentality works well as MacLeod revists the how and the why of the fall of the Soviet Union.  Through Lucy the reader is exposed to documents detailing KGB investigations, and commentary on Stalin's purges.  Ultimately these commentaries become a demonstration of the prevailing power of capitalism and the inherent expression of it in the human spirit.

Early on, Restoration Game seems to be more about how the story gets told than the story itself.  MacLeod layers Lucy's narration, starting near the end and backtracking.  She reveals things about her life in her own time, often referencing things like 'The Worst Day of My Life' without describing the day until several chapters later.  While this technique can be occasionally frustrating, MacLeod is mostly successful in using it to maintain a constant tension.

Additionally, the main plot is bracketed by an prologue and epilogue that set up and conclude the twist that makes the novel "speculative" and not simply an alternate look at Russian foreign policy.  Much like the M. Night Shyamalan's The Sixth Sense, once the twist becomes clear, the entire narrative changes - was I reading what I thought I was reading?  Unfortunately, this is also one of the novel's weaker points as the 'twist' is fairly obvious from the prologue... wait maybe it is an M. Night Shyamalan movie!  The problem isn't so much that MacLeod does a poor job of concealing it, rather it's a twist I've seen used a hundred times.  I recognized it early on and kept hoping there would be more to it.  Alas.

Telling a story in this manner takes an extremely capable writer. The jumps through time, and back again, into source documents, and then back into Lucy's head, are all done with a deft hand, highlighting MacLeod's command of his story and the language. But, I would be remiss if I didn't say that my opinion of Restoration Game would be loftier with the extraneous bits cut out, which, in this case, means all the science fiction stuff. Most of it comes off as tangential to the larger plot of Lucy and her family's history, making me wonder if the idea for the science came after the idea for the fiction.

Despite a frustratingly transparent and common twist, Ken MacLeod has written a wonderful story about Lucy Stone against the Russians.  While it blends history and current events in compelling fashion, the science fiction framing doesn't wash.  It's a thriller, that would stand out in the spy fiction market, dressed up as science fiction.  All of that makes The Restoration Game a novel worth reading, although not necessarily one that demands to be read.

Miserere: An Autumn Tale - Teresa Frohock

Religion is a touchy subject matter, isn't it? Focusing on subjects of faith and belief can easily become unhinged. Preaching or flippancy are equally likely and this is especially true when the a novel is told from only one sect's point of view (in this case, Christian). I've been caught unawares by 'Christian fiction' masquerading as fantasy a time or two and I pretty well irks me every time, although erotica masquerading as Urban Fantasy is worse. It's not that I'm trying to avoid all things Christian, I'm just saying I want to know what I'm getting into beforehand. Thus I approached Miserere, Teresa Frohock's debut novel, with some trepidation.

I shouldn't have worried.  Miserere while grounded in Christian myths isn't really about religion.  Frohock is just more overt in her use of forms and traditions than the average fantasy novel.  Go pick up any epic fantasy and there are sure to be dozens of ideas pulled from the Bible.  The very notion of the prophesied savior is about as close to a Jesus Christ parallel as it gets.  Instead of covering up her use of religious myths by changing the names and places Frohock just goes with it, grounding her story and world in a familiar form that is instantly recognizable even to antireligionists (which is actually a real term, who knew?).

In a city ruled by Hell's vicars, exiled exorcist Lucian Negru has been crippled and imprisoned by his sister, Catarina.  Sixteen years ago, he deserted his lover in Hell to save Catarina's soul.  Instead of salvation, she wants Lucian to help her fulfill a dark covenant with the Fallen Angels by opening the Gates of Hell into Woerld, Heaven's first line of defense in the war for Earth's souls.  Knowing the evil in what she asks, Lucian flees, lamed but not broken, to the last place he thought he would ever go back to - the Citidal, home of God's chosen warriors.  Rachael, the lover he spurned, will judge him, holding his life in her hands.

War between Heaven and Hell, angels and demons, with mortals caught in between makes Miserere something like a sequel to John Milton's Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained written with modern understanding of character and plot.  While the novel itself is a fairly tight story of redemption for Lucian and salvation for Rachael, there is a larger arc at play that hints at some final conflict between the Fallen and God's Kingdom.  Very traditional in narrative voice and structure, Frohock utilizes several points of view from the limited third person.  It's briskly paced and never lets up the tension.  The bad guys turn stomachs and the good guys are all that holy warriors should be albeit with a surfeit of chinks in their armor.

All of that sounds pretty run-of-the-mill of the mill now that I actually write it and that's wrong because Miserere is anything but run-of-the-mill.  A tight plot, an interesting world, and something much like the Dan Brown knack for the religious 'what if', makes Miserere an absolute pleasure to read.  From the moment Frohock revealed her world as one grounded in our own, she captured me, driving forward with a desire to fit all the pieces together.  How does Woerld work? What purpose does it serve? How do people get there?  She doesn't answer all the questions, thankfully leaving many unanswered even as the novel came to an end.

I say thankfully because any exposition would have only served to drag down the carefully cultivated pace.  Miserere is a first installment and I appreciate Frohock's patience - show me now, tell me later.  This is a mantra becoming more and more prevalent in fantasy especially among this year's crop of debut authors, perhaps most notably those coming out of Night Shades New Voices Program.  I've read 8 of them (out of 15) so far and all seem to have made a commitment to telling a story first, a fact I think 'big fat fantasy' forgot somewhere in the early 90's.  At times it can make me page flip to figure out whether or not I missed some explanation, but when choosing between pace and story or didactics and world building I'm going to choose the former every time (as long as the latter is sufficient).

All that amounts to Miserere being a very, very good novel, but I feel compelled to hold back from calling it a great one.  And the reason is quite simple - Frohock never asks why.  As her characters undergo trials and tribulations not one, even the most tortured, asks: why is God putting me through this?  Why should I serve a God who would steal me from my home, kill my brother, and pit me against the hordes of Hell?  My one true love betrayed me and sent me to Hell, why shouldn't I turn my back on all that's holy?  None of these kinds of questions are asked, or answered, and I think the novel is worse off for it.

Still, I absolutely devoured it.  Finished in two nights of reading, Miserere is a tremendously successful fantasy novel.  Frohock's characters are interesting and fleshed out, with decades of history behind them.  She puts them in a setting that is as strange as it is familiar striking a beautiful balance between the fantastic and the mundane.  I don't hesitate to call it one of the best debuts I've read this year (although that list is getting long) and I highly recommend it regardless of genre predilections.

The next installment, Dolorosa: A Winter's Dream, is supposedly due out next year and will pick up right where Miserere left off.  However, it appears the author is currently working on The Garden, an unrelated novel set in 1348 on the Iberian Peninsula.  In either case, I'm eagerly looking forward to Teresa Frohock's future work.

The Greyfriar - Clay and Susan Griffith

As I was nodding off last night to the thundering pops of at home fireworks outside my window (northeast D.C. thinks the 4th of July lasts for a week), I couldn't get Disney's Beauty and the Beast out of my head. Beautiful Belle is trapped in the Beast's castle and held against her will. During her imprisonment Belle comes to see the Beast for what he is and not what he looks like. He's smart, gentle, and compassionate. Outside the castle, Belle's suitor - Gaston - plots to "rescue" her. In truth, Gaston is a blowhard who only wants to free Belle to pump up his own ego.

After twenty minutes or so of pondering, I realized that I couldn't get Beauty and the Beast out of my head because I'd just read it. Only Beast was a vampire in a book called The Greyfriar by Clay and Susan Griffith. Of course the realization came at the same time my neighbor set off a screamer, so my epiphany was accompanied by me falling out of bed - not terribly impressive.

In 1870, vampires rose up to become the dominant life form on earth.  This event would come to be known as The Great Killing.  150 years later free humans only exist in enclaves near the equator where vampires refuse to live.  Adele, princess and heir to the largest of these enclaves, has been captured by Prince Cesare, the most notorious vampire alive.  Not everything is at it seems in the world of vampires, and Adele soon comes under the protection of Cesare's brother Prince Gareth.  Now, she's a piece for both sides in a chess match that's sure to lead to open war between vampires and humans.  The only thing between Adele and a gruesome death are Gareth and a mysterious entity named the Greyfriar.  Can they keep her alive long enough for her betrothed, Senator Clarke, to come and rescue her?

So the plot of a fantasy novel is retread?  Right, no one is surprised.  There are more examples of recycled material in fantasy novels than almost any other genre.  As long as there's enough to otherwise entertain a fantasy yarn can get away with some unimaginative storytelling.  By and large, I think Greyfriar accomplishes that.

I maintain that world building is the most important aspect of a novel in the speculative fiction genre.  So many blemishes can be covered up by a world that stimulates the imagination in a new and unique way.  The Griffith's blend a fully realized alternative reality earth complete with imperial borders, political infighting, and magical powers.  They also up the ante by providing something fresh to the vampire narrative by tossing out many of the stereotypical "vampirisms" to create a more realistic (lol?) interpretation.  It's my opinion that they pull of this off near flawlessly providing such a great backdrop that the underwhelming plot becomes an afterthought to the world's epic scope.

Your neck looks so tasty, Belle!

Outside the not-so-imaginative plotting, my complaints are two fold.  First, two real places featured heavily in the story - the Tower of London and Edinburgh Castle - just aren't well drawn.  I've been to both of these places and neither were described in a way that made them come alive.  I'm not sure what the point was of naming them as real places given their lack of ambiance.  Both of these places are as haunting and impactful as a place can be.  None of that really came through in the writing.  Second, there's just a too much Twilight going on between Adele and Gareth.  It's pretty well done and there's a great deal of action to keep things butch enough for male readers (yes, a generalization, sue me).  Still, in this post-Twilight world vampire/human infatuation is going to near impossible to pull off without some serious eye rolling.

To use a ridiculous metaphor, Greyfriar is to books like Big League Chew is to chewing gum. I mean it's no Bubblelicious, the unquestioned king of gums. Nor is it like a black licorice gum with nuanced flavors. It's not even one of those gums that's like regular gum until it's bitten into and there's that squirt of liquid whatever it is. Nope. It's Big League Chew - simple, fluffy, and a little overwhelming after an extended chew. It's not a gum that's meant to be chewed every day (unless exhausted jaw muscles are the end game), but there's nothing wrong with occasionally shoving a big wad of Big League Chew into your mouth and endangering your ability to breath.

So where do I come down on this book anyway?  To be honest, I'm not really sure.  This definitely isn't the kind of novel that I gravitate toward with the, how can our love survive the gulf between us malarkey.  Still, there's a pace of action, and a depth to the world that are impossible for me to ignore.  For anyone who enjoys romance, action, and some blood sucking - The Greyfriar is a great choice.  It hits all three of those things out of the park and provides enough that I will absolutely check out the sequel, The Rift Walker.  Looking for something with a dynamic plot or lustrous prose?  Eh, I might look elsewhere.

The Damned Busters - Matthews Hughes

So, this was an interesting and uneven novel.  I've written a lot of reviews, but this is by far the most difficult because I didn't like or dislike the novel.  I almost considered not writing a review at all because I was just so ambivalent.  Matthews Hughes' The Damned Busters is a wholly original novel from Angry Robot Books.  It is not however the novel I wanted to read.  Let me explain.

Filled with fun cartoony characters, Hughes pits Chesney Arnstruther, an actuary of no particular distinction, who accidentally summons a demon, against the hordes of the underworld.  Oops.  Everyone gets dropped into a bit of a pickle when he refuses to sell his soul thus sending Hell into labor negotiations from... Hell.  Shenanigans ensue as the denizens of Hell go on strike.  As part of the bargain that puts Hell back to work, Chesney gets the use of his own personal demon who he uses to become a crime fighter.

For the first third of the book the shenanigans are a rousing success.   Satan, a few angels, a televangelist, and Chesney all find themselves locked in a room hassling over a contract for Satan's overworked minions.  It's so absurd it's brilliant.  There is loads of snappy dialog and hilarious situations that could only come from unionized labor.  Hughes does well in the space creating a series of encounters that are often laugh out loud funny.

The unfortunate part is the brilliance only lasts for the first third of the book.  Once Chesney strikes his deal with Hell the book descends into a pretty boring crime fighter yarn.  There are awkward stereotypical encounters with women.  He is taken advantage of by a few not-so benevolent powerful people.  Not only was the novel less interesting by this point - a lot of Hughes wit seems to fall away as well.  What was a light witty novel that read more like a situational comedy, de/evolved into a metaphysical discussion about the meaning of existence.

By the end of The Damned Busters I was completely caught off guard by what was a very esoteric conclusion that left me unsatisfied.  Like the second half of the book, this ending wasn't what I wanted to read.  I felt betrayed by the promise Hughes made in the opening chapters when he failed to deliver the same level of wit and charm throughout.

I would almost recommend Hughes' novel based solely on the opening.  The idea is incredibly clever and he writes it with rare aplomb.  I can't help but wonder if The Damned Busters would have been better suited as a novella that ended when Hell went back to work.  If that were the case I'd be giving it my highest recommendation.  As it stands, I'm not sure it's a great investment of time and money.

Dead Iron - Devon Monk

I am fascinated by the necessity those of us interested in genre fiction seem to
have for classification. Cyberpunk, hard sci-fi, space opera, high fantasy, epic fantasy, etc. Oh and the debates that ensue throughout the community when something is misclassified. In any case, there is no doubt what Dead Iron is - steampunk. Unfortunately, for author Devon Monk, it is steampunk reminiscent of Will Smith's Wild Wild West. While a far more successful execution of storytelling it shares a confusion with Smith's flop film about what it's trying to be. This shouldn't be read as a condemnation, rather a point of reference for discussing a book I ultimately I enjoyed.

Cedar Hunt is a man cursed by the Pawnee gods to hunt the Strange. He bears his curse, but is forever tormented by how it twists his humanity. Traveling west, he follows the Strange to a town named Hallelujah that lies in the inexorable path of expanding rail. When a child mysteriously goes missing, Hunt takes on finding him despite the town's mistrust of an outsider. Hunt's quest soon becomes much more as he sets himself against the Strange who would destroy not only Hallelujah but humankind in their entire.

Like any novel of genre fiction the nuance and ambiance the author sets are critical to success. Monk, trying to create fantasy, offers the Strange. The Strange comes from another plane where something akin to demons rule. It spills into the world and taints it. Personified by two characters, Mr. Shunt and Mr. Lefel, it is linked to the expansion of the railway as it paves a way to carry the Strange itself across the land. There is an obvious, if not overt, metaphor here about the expansion of technology and its impact on humanity.

Monk combines the Strange and technology powered by gear and steam with something called glim. Glim is essentially the Strange made tangible. Placed into a construct of metal and oil it brings technology to life or at least supercharges it. Every time glim made an appearance I was reminded of Tim "The Toolman" Taylor from ABC's 90's hit, Home Improvement - more horsepower! I found the gears and steam extremely satisfying, but imbuing them with the Strange felt unnecessary and made inventing somewhat tangental to "magic". It made what I felt like was an alternate reality steampunk novel feel like Final Fantasy. A few times I was sure Monk was moments away from summoning Bahamut.

As for the worldbuilding, Monk does a satisfactory job. Hallelujah is well imagined. It feels right - a frontier town like any other in an old western, replete with blacksmith, banker, storekeeper, town bully, wild eyed dreamer, and hard working black man looked down on by his peers. While it felt authentic, at least as I imagine a western town to be (since all my experience in such comes from Silverado and The Magnificent Seven), it didn't feel particularly original or unique.

Beyond Hallelujah, the world is only hinted at. Airships, universities, unseen technology, and mysterious cabals lurk beyond the mountains in the east. In this I think Monk did a better job. Her world felt far more fleshed out and alive than the town itself. It is unfortunate that we never see this world in Dead Iron, but I am certain more will come in the promised sequels. That said, the novel itself is entirely self contained and should I never read a sequel I wont be worse off for having spent the time reading this one.

It should be noticed that I'm now easily seven paragraphs into his review and I haven't mentioned the plot outside of a brief introduction. Believe it or not, it's intentional. The plot in Dead Iron is good. It's fun, with adequate emotion and action. If it seems a bit abstract at times when Mr. Lefel waxes poetic about the Strange, it quickly finds it's way again. But to me, in a novel like this the plot is of secondary concern (assuming it's adequate, which it is). The success or failure of Monk's first installment in the Age of Steam series, and her subsequent sequels, will be entirely dependent on how readers connect with the world she's created.

For me, it was ok. I believe she would have better served if Dead Iron had been her second installment in the series. The remembrances of Hunt's time among the Pawnee and his days of learning in the east would have been far more compelling of an introduction to Monk's world. Furthermore she could have avoided the strong emphasis on the Strange and glim and instead explored more of the steampunk tradition before turning things on their head with the introduction of "magic". This combination is what seems to lead the book astray as it loses cohesion in trying to be a western, a steampunk novel, and more traditional fantasy all at the same time.

All that said, I enjoyed the book. The characters are warm and alive. I feel confident in recommending the book to fans of the sub genre. I feel even more confident in the fact that the next book in the series will be better than the first.

Doorways - George R.R. Martin

For those rabid fans of George R.R. Martin Doorways may be familiar.  It is in fact the same title he used in conjunction with a pilot he wrote for ABC in 1991.  It was a particularly eventful year for Martin.  Before writing Doorways, he began a short story about dire wolf puppies found in the summer snows.  This story became A Game of Thrones - the first book in the series of fantasy novels that made Martin the closest thing to a household name in fantasy since J.R.R. Tolkein.  However, before finishing A Game of Thrones, Martin had a series of Hollywood meetings to pitch a television series.

Doorways, was one of those pitches.  Although the pilot was picked up ABC, it never saw the light of day when ABC decided to launch Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman instead.  In 1995, speculation came from TV critics that Fox's Sliders was inspired by Doorways in which the main cast were fugitives fleeing through parallel worlds, while carrying a device that tells them where and when the next Doorway opens.  Sliders creator Tracy Torme denied the rumors.  Nevertheless, twenty years later, Martin along with artist Stefano Martino have collaborated to finally tell Martin's story.

The graphic novel includes four comics that were published late last year in the form of a mini-series by IDW Publishing.  IDW has become well known in specializing in licensed properties such as Transformers, GI Joe, and Dr. Who.  Doorways begins when a strange woman named Cat finds herself in an emergency room undergoing evaluation by Dr. Thomas Mason.  When government officials turn up to arrest Cat, she escapes and takes a sympathetic Dr. Mason with her.  Little does the good doctor know, she's being chased by a host of nasty characters from her own alternate world.  And so with the help of what looks like a Nintendo Power Glove, Cat and Dr. Mason run for their lives to another world.

Cat in the 1991 pilot on ABC,

Yikes!

Like any comic book, art is imperative to conveying the author's intent.  Martino, who never saw the pilot for Doorways, has created a great style that is reminiscent to me of the early days of Image Comics.  It's entirely possible that the early Image books are nostalgic in mind, but Martino's work calls up Jim Lee's Wild C.A.T.S.  The writing is more believable than many comics out there, not surprisingly given Martin's chops.  It's a fun story, if not an incredible one, and certainly worth a read.

As a side note, I'm reminded of just how much intellectual property Martin has in his collection.  All the short stories, A Song of Fire and Ice, Wildcards, his horror novels, and his science fiction novels make for a tremendous catalog.  I am certain that with success of the HBO adaptation of Martin's only work of fantasy that there may be more adaptations on the horizon.  I suspect Doorways has come to the end of its creative line, but I am hopeful we'll continue to see more of Martin's storytelling throughout the various forms of media.