Imperial Purple

Justine Larbalestier
How to Ditch your Fairy
Bloomsbury 2008

Well, the Advance-Copy-Of-Brilliant-Books fairy has struck again. In a manner most mysterious I have found and read a copy of Justine Larbalestier’s latest literary foray (due out in September) and I saw that it was good. In fact, it is her best novel to date.

It is set in a world where, like this one, our destinies are controlled by fairies. For many years when I was younger my life was made miserable by frequent visits from the Fuck-up Fairy resulting in disasters ranging from backing my parent’s car into a tree to drenching my girlfriend while trying to fix the toilet. Fortunately the FuF eventually moved on and my life improved.

Larbalestier’s heroine is cursed with the Parking Fairy. Many of us would, if not kill, then at least commit GBH to have a fairy that gives us perfect parking spots whenever we want them. But Charlie is still at school, can’t drive and is really tired of being bundled into cars for other people’s convenience. Why can’t she have the Shopping Fairy or the Fabulous Hair Fairy or something useful?

There’s only one thing to do. She has to ditch her fairy. But, as I know only too well from my time with the FuF, this is easier said than done.

I don’t want to say too much more because I’ll end up spoiling it for you. Suffice to say that Charlie’s increasingly desperate attempts to ditch her fairy are both touching and hilarious. And, as so often in life, things have to get much, much worse before they get better.

The only bad thing about this book is it’s not due out for another three months. Thank you Advance-Copy-Of-Brilliant-Books fairy. You’ve made my day.

Jennifer Rardin
Once Bitten, Twice Shy
Orbit 2007

I’m in two minds about this one. It’s another vampire book - I seem to be surrounded by them at the moment - and it’s quite well written with a well-paced story. On the other hand, it has many of the usual things that irritate me in vampire stories and I think the central character needs some extra work.

The central character, Jaz Parks, is a CIA assassin. Her partner is a super-powerful 300 year old vampire. The only downside to being dead and all-powerful is that he has to sleep during the day. Big deal. Countless shift workers can say the same thing and all they get is their pay packet and Vitamin D deficiency.

This is a bit of a personal thing but I’m very tired of vampires being essentially nocturnal supermen. There must be more to it than that. See, for example, Narelle Harris’ The Opposite of Life for a more thoughtful and interesting approach. Yet I am aware that countless vampire-novel fans disagree.

Anyway, the other thing I would like to have seen addressed is Jaz’s character. She is feisty, opinionated, loud and (as our American cousins describe it) ‘kick-ass’. I have no quarrel with this. She also kills without any remorse or consideration of the effects of her actions (other than the victim’s demise, of course). This is a characteristic of psychopaths. I have no quarrel with novels about psychopaths either but her motivations really need to be filled out.

I’m not a great fan of the these people are bad so just kill them and who cares school of diplomacy, however much support it may have at the moment. Either Jaz feels something and we should know what it is, or she should feel nothing and we should know why.

I think I’ll have to give up reviewing vampire novels. My personal tastes seem to deviate too far from those of the fan base so this review is hardly fair. Go ahead and read it - you’ll probably enjoy it a lot.

Jason Nahrung
The Darkness Within
Hachette 2007

This vampire novel has it all: vampires (well duh); young woman who does not yet know she is a powerful witch; young girl ditto, about to come into her powers; Cabal of evil magicians; villainous head of said Cabal who sucks blood from vampires (now there’s a twist); well meaning nerd who lives next to witch woman and is falling in love with her; insane mother who escapes from lunatic asylum; brother-in-law possessed by demon; and probably other things I’ve forgotten. The boy vampire is suave and devoted to the heroine; his sister vampire is evil and depraved and not nice to anyone.

So the elements are all there. The story isn’t a bad one either albeit not startlingly original. The problem I had was with the narrative itself.

The narrative slides rather oddly over the story in an almost frictionless manner. It has very little affect and makes it hard to get a grip on it. There is little sense that the characters are engaged with the world around them or even with their own internal lives. Also I was irritated with the heroine’s periodic lack of perception (should I believe this evil magician who is trying to kill me when he says not to trust the ‘good’ vampire?) although I will admit that this is a prerogative of heroines everywhere.

The book feels a draft or so short of publication standard. The author can demonstrably do better (the ‘nerd’ character for instance is reasonably successful) and a lot could have been fixed up with a little rewriting and a greater sense of engagement. Fans of vampire novels may still enjoy it but I found it disappointing. Two and a half stars.

Narrelle M. Harris
The Opposite of Life
Pulp Fiction Press, 2007

Having complained in my previous post that all vampires seem to be a cross between Mr Darcy and Mr Spock it is perhaps to be expected that in the very next book I read I encounter Gary. Gary is a vampire. Gary wears a ghastly bright tropical shirt, has no social skills and spends his days pottering around his late parents’ house reading engineering textbooks.

Harris has come up with an excellent take on vampires. Eternal life is the promise but it is a cheat - sure you live for ever but you are caught in a time warp of the date you died. Your brain has difficulty learning new things and you slowly sink into a sort of lethargic boredom where only fresh blood makes you feel anything at all. Gary makes an effort - he was studying to be an engineer when he was ‘turned’ in the sixties - but he finds the going tough.

Mostly vampires keep to themselves and suck small amounts of blood from volunteers in one of Melbourne’s more exclusive underground night clubs. But now a vampire is apparently running amok and blood-drained victims are appearing everywhere. More specifically they keep ruining Lissa Wilson’s attempts at a social life - dead bodies keep turning up wherever she goes. As a librarian and geek girl who has just been dumped by a weasel of a boyfriend she needs all the social life she can get.

With considerable reluctance on both sides she teams up with Gary to try and find the killer and get life (and unlife) back to normal. Between coping with the undead and her mother Lissa does it pretty tough.

I liked this book. There is no romantic denouement but Gary and Lissa find a sort of friendship. It is a good vampire novel and a good detective cosy. There is clearly another book waiting where we will find out more about Gary and Lissa - how he copes with being undead and how she copes with him. Three and a half stars.

Lilith Saintcrow
Working for the Devil
Orbit. 2005

‘Lilith Saintcrow’ is such a great moniker. I love it. Working for the Devil is the first in a series of books (five at latest count) starring Dante Valentine, tough girl and necromancer. The ‘Awakening’ has happened and a few people such as Dante (Danny to her friends) have become psychic in one way or another. She summons up the spirits of the dead - usually to settle disputes over wills or criminal cases. It’s a living (sorry).

When the devil (old Lucifer in person) makes her an offer she can’t refuse she takes off in pursuit of a psychopathic demon who murdered (among others) her best friend. To aid in her quest she is assigned a tall, dark handsome demon who is one of the big D’s assassins.

This is my first quibble with the book. You could virtually substitute ‘vampire’ for ‘demon’ and we would have another vampire novel. Vampire novels are ok I guess but why do the vampires always end up as a cross between Mr Darcy and Mr Spock? To be fair, at least sex with a demon has historical antecedents. Sex with vampires has always struck me as being a bit yucky and who would want an ice-cold phallus anyway? I suppose you could dip it in hot water for ten minutes before you got underway. But I digress.

Accepting Darcy/Spock as a given we get into the chase proper and the build-up of the gang of intrepid adventurers. The most realistic of them is a seriously annoying ex-lover of Danny’s. He is far and away the most rounded character - the others are a bit formulaic.

I won’t go through the whole story in detail (I hate reviews that do that) but I’m probably not giving too much away when I say that the fiend eventually cops it and Lucifer turns out to have not been telling the complete truth. The Darcy/Spock character does end up in an unexpected state so full marks for that.

I had a little trouble grading this one. Certainly I had no difficulty in getting through it - it bubbled along. It was good fun in parts but I felt unsatisfied at the end. Still it is first in a series so maybe it gets better. More than ‘fans only’ but not fabulous. Three stars.

Pamela Freeman
Blood Ties
Orbit 2007 (Aust) 2008 (USA/UK)

Disclaimer: the author is a good friend of mine - this review may be biased.

Blood Ties is the first volume of a new three-volume fantasy novel - The Castings Trilogy. Freeman has a significant body of work as a writer for children and young adults (17 books at the latest count) but this is her first foray into the adult market.

The novel is set in the Eleven Domains, a loose confederation of provinces ruled by warlords. A thousand years earlier the country was invaded across the mountains by a race of fair-haired warriors (the precursors of the current warlords) known only as “Acton’s People” after their eponymous warleader and hero. The indigenous population was displaced and forced into a peripatetic existence as “Travellers”. Like gypsies everywhere they are despised by the mainstream population.

The Travellers are the focus of the book. The main story arc follows the fortunes of three of their number.

Ash is a young man born to a family of travelling musicians. Unfortunately his voice is so appalling that it would disturb the dead (literally we later find out) so his family apprentices him to a “Safeguarder” - essentially thugs for hire.

Bramble is a young woman whose family has “settled” - the term for Travellers who forsake the road and try, usually with limited success, to fit in with the rest of society. Bramble is something of a throwback and she runs wild, never happy with her settled existence. When an encounter with a warlord’s man leaves her shaken and him dead she is obliged to take to the road anyway in order to protect her family.

Saker is a Stonecaster whose village was massacred by the warlords while he, as a traumatised young boy, hid in a tree. Years later he discovers how to raise the dead and brings Traveller ghosts back to take revenge on Acton’s people. Although his story is the shortest of the main strands, he is the pivot about which the whole book turns and he remains a powerful presence even when offstage.

The most unusual and original aspect of this book lies with a series of short stories interleaved with the main plot. These are the stories, all told in the first person, of the common people whose lives are influenced by the great events going on around them. Their stories are not of heroes and conquerors but of the simple things that affect their lives - love, rivalry, family and neighbours.

These stories bind the book together and give the sense of a complete world not just the two-dimensional tapestry upon which so many fantasy works play out. Although they periodically interrupt the overall story they do not detract from it. On the contrary, you return to the main narrative feeling enriched and even inspired by the small events interwoven with the great ones.

Overall an emphatic four star read. I hesitated over giving it four and a half but I think the second volume is going to be even better so I have to leave some space for it. Recommended.

Shaun Tan
The Arrival
Lothian 2006

I cannot find enough good things to say about this book but I’ll give it a try. Shaun Tan’s book is a masterpiece. It is the only book for a long time where, having finished it, I went straight back to the beginning and read it again.

There are no words in this book. The story is told through a series of pictures, each of which is a work of art in its own right.

It is the story of one man’s arrival in a foreign country. He has left the hardships of his own country and gone ahead to build a new life so that he can send for his wife and child. Although the artist says the book reflects his own parents’ arrival in Australia, he has cleverly made the main character a westerner. The new world has strange customs, language, culture, animals and flowers. Everything is alien.

And yet this world contains people too and the hero discovers kindness and compassion from those who have made the journey before him. He is adopted by a pet - a beautiful and alien creature who comes up to him like a stray cat and decides he needs a companion.

Words are just not adequate to describe this book without words. Buy, beg or steal a copy or, if all else fails, borrow one and refuse to give it back.

A genuine five star work of art.

Naomi Novik
Black Powder War
Harper Voyager 2006

Another novel in the Temeraire series which portray the Napoleonic Wars but with an air force of dragons. If you haven’t read Temeraire, the first of the series, you need to read it before attempting this one.

Becalmed in Macau, Laurence and Temeraire (the dragon) receive orders to return immediately to Europe and collect three valuable dragon eggs from the Ottoman Empire. They decide to make the difficult journey overland along the Silk Road accompanied by a guide of dubious loyalties.

If this hard road is not enough they must deal with treachery in the Sultan’s court when they do reach Istanbul. Having dealt with this they then get caught up in Napoleon’s invasion of Prussia. Getting back to England is a tough gig.

Like the others in this series I have read I enjoyed it but I had a few quibbles. It felt a bit of an in-between novel. Previously Temeraire had learned how well dragons were treated in China and, comparing this with their treatment in England, decided that Something Must be Done.

This is setting up what should be a fascinating social struggle when they get back to England and I am looking forward to it. This novel seems to be mostly about getting there rather than having any inherent story to tell.

The individual episodes work ok in and of themselves although I wasn’t very convinced about why they should stay and fight in Prussia when they had strict orders from the Admiralty to get the eggs back to England as soon as possible. This was particularly urgent as one of them was a fire-breather - a breed of which England was in dire need.

I’m giving it three stars. It was a good read and fills in a gap in the greater story but it still needed more purpose of its own.