Imperial Purple

Marie Brennan
Midnight Never Come
Orbit 2008

As with many works of fantasy, I find myself in two minds about Midnight Never Come. I like the conceit – that beneath Elizabethan London is another court, that of the Fae. It too is ruled by a queen, this one going by the slightly odd name of Invidiana – which sounds like some sort of meld of Invidious and Titania. This may be intentional for it sums up the character rather well.

Invidiana rules the Onyx Hall with a fist of capricious iron. In this she mirrors the mortal Queen Elizabeth who is less capricious but definitely steely. The central characters are also mortal and Fae – the mortal being a young courtier named Michael Deven, the fae a woman named Lune. Deven has just come into favour at the Elizabethan court via the patronage of Sir Francis Walsingham, the Queen’s Principal Secretary and spymaster. Lune has just fallen out of favour with Queen Invidiana.

I was a little disappointed with Walsingham. He was a fascinating figure and is on the invitation list for my hypothetical dinner with anyone in history. In this portrayal he is a rather subdued character – admittedly he is ill and dies about a third of the way through the book but he should of been stronger.

I had a similar problem with Dr John Dee – another great character of the Elizabethan age: magician, philospher, scientist and sometimes credulous converser with angels. The Dee in this book is a kindly old man who acts mainly as a plot device and I would have liked to see more bite to his character.

Having said all this, it is still a good read. It held my interest and its history is good (the language wanders into modernity in rare instances but these can be forgiven). The plot, which centers around a pact between Elizabeth and Invidiana is reasonably tight. It suffers a bit from the fact that the Faerie court is a royal court much like any other with its intrigues, backstabbing and general betrayals and I would have liked more sense of otherness. However, it is true to the Elizabethan vision of the Faerie court so one cannot be too critical. This tension between modern and period sensibilities is an eternal problem for historical novelists.

I found the introduction of the emissaries of heaven and hell in the final chapters a little gratuitous but again, to be fair, we are warned by the title of the book. It is from Marlowe’s Dr Faustus and Faustus is contemplating his final hour before the eternal damnation to which his pact with the devil condemns him.

Stand still, you ever moving spheres of heaven,
That time may cease, and midnight never come.

There is more than one hint about the book here which I will leave readers to discover for themselves.

Despite my reservations, I would recommend giving this book a go. I enjoyed it enough to have a look at Brennan’s other books, upon which I will report in due course. A three star good read.