Imperial Purple

Dan Simmons
Drood
Quercus 2009

Drood is somewhere in the region of Dan Simmons’ 25th novel and it shows. The writing is excellent and gripping; the characters deep and entertaining and handling of the supernatural elements very well done. I enjoyed it nearly all the way through.

The narrator is the author Wilkie Collins (The Moonstone, The Woman in White, etc) and it concerns mainly his relationship with his friend and fellow author Charles Dickens (whose last book - The Mystery of Edwin Drood - was never finished). Dickens was involved in a train crash at a place called Staplehurst in which he was lucky not to be killed. He tells Collins about a mysterious character named Drood who was also at the scene. From Dickens’ description we aren’t sure whether this is a real person, a supernatural being or simply the result of stress and possible concussion from the accident.

We learn of Dickens’ great interest in mesmerism and his attempts at practical manipulation using it. We learn that Collins suffered badly from some sort of neuralgic complaint which required him to take increasing doses of laudanum (tincture of opium) to control the pain.

Thus we are set up for uncertainty. Collins, because of his heavy drug use, is an uncertain narrator and it becomes increasingly and convincingly difficult for him to distinguish his opium dreams from reality. Similarly, we aren’t sure if Dickens really saw Drood or whether he was a result of the accident or indeed, was just the product of Dickens’ imagination.

Add to this an ex-police inspector who believes that Drood is a real figure, an Egyptian who lives literally in London’s underground. There are a number of sequence of underground opium dens and sewers which are ambiguously dreamlike. At one point Collins believes that he was captured by Drood and a ‘brain beetle’ inserted into his brain in an attempt to control him.

Throughout the book you remain in doubt about what is real and what isn’t and it makes for a gripping tale. The only problem I had was that Simmons seems to have had no idea either.

The book just sort of ends without a proper explanation. Dickens confesses (or at least Collins has a memory of him confessing) that it was all a practical joke based on Dickens first mesmerising Collins and then setting up an underground adventure where a mysterious boat trip turns out to have been two of his gardeners poling an old boat around the sewers. Like Collins’ character, I found this inherently unlikely.

But the alternative is that Drood is real. In which case there needs to be a proper conclusion where we find out what it is all about. This doesn’t happen and we are left with Collins making some brief notes nineteen years later that Drood and his minions have been following him around all this time. They don’t seem to do anything however so we have to assume this is all an opium-based illusion. This is weak and the functional equivalent of ‘and the boy woke up and found it was all a dream’.

So we are left with two possible explanations for the mysterious Drood, neither of which is particularly inspiring. After an entertaining 750 pages the reader deserves more than this. So, despite the excellence of the writing, I can only give it three and a half stars. Read and enjoy but expect to be disappointed at the end.

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.

Naomi Novik
Empire of Ivory
Harper Voyager 2007

Earlier this year, I reviewed Black Powder War - the book before this one in the Temeraire series. I had reservations about it and gave it three stars. This one is better although not perfect.

Temeraire and Laurence have returned to England with the precious fire-breathing dragon. Unfortunately, while they were away a dragon plague has struck and the great creatures and dying in droves. With Napoleon camped across the channel with a hundred dragons, desperate for a chance to invade, the situation is serious.

They are dispatched to Africa where, by slightly tenuous logic, they believe a cure might be found. A few sick dragons are sent with them as test cases. It is Britain’s last hope - a cure must be found before Napoleon realises how thin the aerial defenses are.

But Africa is not called the Dark Continent for nothing. With slave traders, hostile natives and wild dragons the hunt for the cure is anything but simple and things go very, very wrong for the British adventurers.

The book ends with Laurence having to make the most difficult moral choices of his career where duty and humanity are in direct conflict. The book ends with the consequences of his choices left hanging - we must await the next installment.

There were a couple of practical difficulties I had problems with. I had difficulty believing that an almost complete absence of aerial defense could be kept secret from Napoleon for the better part of a year. He would surely have had spies working like industrious train-spotters, plotting the movements of the British squadrons. I also wasn’t convinced that the African savannah eco-system could sustain as many voracious dragons as it apparently did.

These are mostly quibbles I guess. The other problem Novik has is that there are only so many ways that you can describe an aerial combat and in this, the fourth book, she is running out of them. I tend to flick through these combats pretty rapidly because I know what they are going to say.

As I said, this book is superior to its predecessor. It confronts some difficult moral choices and reminds us that abhorrence of the slave trade was by no means universal in the early 19th century. Indeed more than fifty years after this book a bloody civil war was fought over the matter in the United States of America.

I am looking forward to the next one which promises a difficult time for Laurence, Temeraire and the people and dragons of Britain. It has become pretty clear that Britain treats its dragons worse than just about any other nation. It is a state of affairs which cannot endure and I am keen to see what the resolution will be.

Maya Slater
Mr Darcy’s Diary
Phoenix 2007

It is a truth universally acknowledged that all right-thinking readers believe Pride and Prejudice is a wonderful book. It has spawned biographies, sequels, detective stories, fan fic and slash fic. There is probably even a vampire novel out there somewhere (what big fangs you have, Mr Darcy) although I have never been able to find it . Slater continues this fine tradition by producing the previously lost diary kept by Fitzwilliam Darcy during the period covered in the novel.

Slater has taken on a tough job here as all the action must necessarily occur off-stage. It must cover the long period of estrangement between Darcy and Elizabeth (and Bingley and Jane of course) and still maintain interest. There are places where it meanders a bit but on the whole she succeeds admirably.

Particularly well handled is the period following Darcy’s famous and spectacularly inept first proposal of marriage. Over the course of about a week we see Darcy go from incandescent rage and outraged pride, to niggling doubts about his own rightness, to grudging humility and finally to an acceptance that he behaved like a total prat and may well have ruined all chance of future happiness.

Yet we also see the other side of Darcy, the one that makes him beloved of all his dependents. He insists upon his injured and aging valet travelling his coach while Darcy rides alongside. He is generous with his tenants and good to his friends. His friendship with Byron is an inspired touch and shows how Darcy is able to accept the good in people, even such an erratic and depraved genius as his lordship.

The only real plot quibble I had was the device of the letter from Lydia to one of the regimental officers which Darcy believes came from Jane. From this he gets an unfavourable picture of Jane and so removes Bingley from the scene. It is unnecessary. It is quite clear that Darcy’s concern for pride and position is an adequate motivation and it should have been left at that.

Otherwise a good three and a half star read. A must for all fans of Jane Austen. If you are reading this and haven’t (god forbid) read Pride and Prejudice go away and do it now and then read Slater’s book.

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.