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Which is not all that fast, but it’s been kind of a hectic month, see?
Fiddlehead by Cherie Priest
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is the fifth and final volume in the Clockwork Century cycle, Priest’s alt-history steampunk Civil War saga (with zombies!), and it basically serves both as a standalone story and a vehicle to tie up all the loose ends from the previous books. Here, former CSA spy turned Pinkerton agent Maria Boyd is assigned to help former POTUS Abe Lincoln protect Gideon Bardsley, who has invented a computer that has calculated that the Civil War (which has been going on for over 17 years) ends well for neither side due to an ever greater threat – and someone is trying to kill him to keep this information secret. Meanwhile, arms heiress Katherine Haymes is trying to convince President Ulysses S Grant that she has developed a superweapon that can end the war once and for all – or will it?
I should mention I haven't read the whole series – I loved the first one, Boneshaker, but I felt let down by the follow-up Dreadnought, so I wasn’t in a hurry to read the rest. Fiddlehead is somewhat better, but Priest has a tendency to gum up dialog and action sequences with exposition and/or internal ponderings, and the dialog itself can get too clever (particularly a cat-and-mouse scene between Grant and Haymes as he tries to figure out what her game is). And as antagonists go, Haymes is just too one-dimensional for my taste. The actual storyline is entertaining adventure stuff, but the pacing is really uneven. For fans of the series it’s a decent ending, but for me, I don’t think I’ll try reading the episodes I’ve missed.
Journey Into Fear by Eric Ambler
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve read Eric Ambler twice before, and was entertained both times. This one follows the same basic template – average middle-class mild-mannered Englishman suddenly finds himself up to his neck in spy-thriller shenanigans and completely out of his depth as he struggles to comprehend his situation and what to do about it. In this case, armaments manufacturing engineer Mr Graham – in Istanbul circa 1940 to help consult the Turkish military on naval guns – is shocked to discover someone is trying to kill him. The Turkish secret police – who need him alive to compete his work – try to get him back to England safely via a steamer ship, but Graham soon discovers that he is anything but safe as some of his fellow passengers may not be who they seem to be.
It’s classic Ambler – Graham swerves between incredulous indignation at the very idea that anyone would want to kill him (where his biggest fear is looking foolish for believing such nonsense) to paranoia (as he tries to figure out who he can trust) and desperation (as his well thought out, logical plans keep falling apart because he really has no idea what he’s doing). In other words, he’s no James Bond or John McClane – he’s a normal person placed in a terrifying position. The twists aren’t necessarily surprising, but they’re entertaining as hell. Of the Ambler novels I’ve read so far, this is the best of the bunch.
Faerie Apocalypse by Jason Franks
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’ll be honest – I’ve never been a fan of the faerie genre as a whole, although there are a few exceptions (Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint come to mind). And I might not have tried this, except that (1) Franks’ first novel Bloody Waters was so good, and (2) this ain’t yr average fairy story. In fact, as the title implies, the whole point of the book is to set up the usual tropes of faerie fiction – the quests, the royalty, the magi, the tricksters, the endless walking, and mortal humans finding themselves in this magical alt-reality – and take an Uzi to them. Literally, in at least one case. It’s not a parody so much as an excuse to break every genre rule there is just to see what happens.
The story follows four different mortals (most of them unnamed) who enter the Lands Of The Realm for various reasons, and wreak havoc upon it, intentionally or otherwise. I won’t say any more because part of the appeal here is seeing where Franks goes with this – and it’s not where you might think. The chief criticism I have is the lack of a sympathetic main character – not a hero, which would defeat the purpose of the story, but someone who could at least offset the senselessly destructive nature of everyone else. The faerie playwright Nentril Revallo is the most likeable character here for my money, and while he plays a key role in the story, he’s still a minor character. Overall it’s rather bleak and nihilistic for my taste … and yet it has to be for the story to work, and I do appreciate what Franks is ultimately shooting for here. So if yr interested in seeing someone take a chainsaw to the whole faerie-fiction paradigm, this may be just the thing.
View all my reviews
Fractured fairy tales,
This is dF
Fiddlehead by Cherie PriestMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is the fifth and final volume in the Clockwork Century cycle, Priest’s alt-history steampunk Civil War saga (with zombies!), and it basically serves both as a standalone story and a vehicle to tie up all the loose ends from the previous books. Here, former CSA spy turned Pinkerton agent Maria Boyd is assigned to help former POTUS Abe Lincoln protect Gideon Bardsley, who has invented a computer that has calculated that the Civil War (which has been going on for over 17 years) ends well for neither side due to an ever greater threat – and someone is trying to kill him to keep this information secret. Meanwhile, arms heiress Katherine Haymes is trying to convince President Ulysses S Grant that she has developed a superweapon that can end the war once and for all – or will it?
I should mention I haven't read the whole series – I loved the first one, Boneshaker, but I felt let down by the follow-up Dreadnought, so I wasn’t in a hurry to read the rest. Fiddlehead is somewhat better, but Priest has a tendency to gum up dialog and action sequences with exposition and/or internal ponderings, and the dialog itself can get too clever (particularly a cat-and-mouse scene between Grant and Haymes as he tries to figure out what her game is). And as antagonists go, Haymes is just too one-dimensional for my taste. The actual storyline is entertaining adventure stuff, but the pacing is really uneven. For fans of the series it’s a decent ending, but for me, I don’t think I’ll try reading the episodes I’ve missed.
Journey Into Fear by Eric AmblerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
I’ve read Eric Ambler twice before, and was entertained both times. This one follows the same basic template – average middle-class mild-mannered Englishman suddenly finds himself up to his neck in spy-thriller shenanigans and completely out of his depth as he struggles to comprehend his situation and what to do about it. In this case, armaments manufacturing engineer Mr Graham – in Istanbul circa 1940 to help consult the Turkish military on naval guns – is shocked to discover someone is trying to kill him. The Turkish secret police – who need him alive to compete his work – try to get him back to England safely via a steamer ship, but Graham soon discovers that he is anything but safe as some of his fellow passengers may not be who they seem to be.
It’s classic Ambler – Graham swerves between incredulous indignation at the very idea that anyone would want to kill him (where his biggest fear is looking foolish for believing such nonsense) to paranoia (as he tries to figure out who he can trust) and desperation (as his well thought out, logical plans keep falling apart because he really has no idea what he’s doing). In other words, he’s no James Bond or John McClane – he’s a normal person placed in a terrifying position. The twists aren’t necessarily surprising, but they’re entertaining as hell. Of the Ambler novels I’ve read so far, this is the best of the bunch.
Faerie Apocalypse by Jason FranksMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I’ll be honest – I’ve never been a fan of the faerie genre as a whole, although there are a few exceptions (Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint come to mind). And I might not have tried this, except that (1) Franks’ first novel Bloody Waters was so good, and (2) this ain’t yr average fairy story. In fact, as the title implies, the whole point of the book is to set up the usual tropes of faerie fiction – the quests, the royalty, the magi, the tricksters, the endless walking, and mortal humans finding themselves in this magical alt-reality – and take an Uzi to them. Literally, in at least one case. It’s not a parody so much as an excuse to break every genre rule there is just to see what happens.
The story follows four different mortals (most of them unnamed) who enter the Lands Of The Realm for various reasons, and wreak havoc upon it, intentionally or otherwise. I won’t say any more because part of the appeal here is seeing where Franks goes with this – and it’s not where you might think. The chief criticism I have is the lack of a sympathetic main character – not a hero, which would defeat the purpose of the story, but someone who could at least offset the senselessly destructive nature of everyone else. The faerie playwright Nentril Revallo is the most likeable character here for my money, and while he plays a key role in the story, he’s still a minor character. Overall it’s rather bleak and nihilistic for my taste … and yet it has to be for the story to work, and I do appreciate what Franks is ultimately shooting for here. So if yr interested in seeing someone take a chainsaw to the whole faerie-fiction paradigm, this may be just the thing.
View all my reviews
Fractured fairy tales,
This is dF
