Book Review | Spellbreaker by Blake Charlton

Leandra Weal has a bad habit of getting herself into dangerous situations.

While hunting neodemons in her role as Warden of Ixos, Leandra obtains a prophetic spell that provides a glimpse one day into her future. She discovers that she is doomed to murder someone she loves, soon, but not who. That's a pretty big problem for a woman who has a shark god for a lover, a hostile empress for an aunt, a rogue misspelling wizard for a father, and a mother who—especially when arguing with her daughter—can be a real dragon.

Leandra's quest to unravel the mystery of the murder-she-will-commit becomes more urgent when her chronic disease flares up and the Ixonian Archipelago is plagued by natural disasters, demon worshiping cults and fierce political infighting. Everywhere she turns, Leandra finds herself amid intrigue and conflict. It seems her bad habit for getting into dangerous situations is turning into a full blown addiction.

As chaos spreads across Ixos, Leandra and her troubled family must race to uncover the shocking truth about a prophesied demonic invasion, human language, and their own identities... if they don't kill each other first.

***

Although it was a small novel, both in size and in scope, Spellwright made a sizeable splash in the speculative fiction scene when it was released six years or so ago. First-time author Blake Charlton brought his own experiences as "a proud dyslexic" to bear brilliantly by exploring the place of a young man who misspells everything in a world in which magic is literally written.

Spellbound was bigger than Spellwright in the same several senses. It expanded the overarching narrative from the magical academy where Nicodemus Weal came of age and learned of something called the Disjunction to take in a distant city and a second central character. Again like the author, a medical school student by day and a writer by night at the time, Francesca DeVega was a physician poised to use her powers to heal the needy, but when she too became aware of the coming catastrophe, she had to put her pursuits on the back-burner to help Nico defeat the demons—demons that meant to destroy the lifeblood of the living: language.

But the demons were not defeated by our heroes... only delayed. And now, in Spellbreaker—not the longest volume of Charlton's inventive trilogy but unequivocally the most ambitious—the Disjunction is at last at hand.

Book Review | The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness

What if you aren't the Chosen One? The one who's supposed to fight the zombies, or the soul-eating ghosts, or whatever this new thing is, with the blue lights and the death?

What if you're like Mikey, who just wants to graduate and go to prom and maybe finally work up the courage to ask Henna out before someone goes and blows up the high school—again. 

And what if there are problems bigger than this week's end of the world, and sometimes you just have to find the extraordinary in your ordinary life? Even if your best friend might just be the God of mountain lions...

***

In the suggestive sentence attached to the first chapter of The Rest of Us Just Live Here, "the Messenger of the Immortals arrives in a surprising shape, looking for a permanent Vessel; and after being chased by her through the woods, indie kid Finn meets his final fate." (p.9)

The world is ending again, evidently. But never mind the Messenger—the impending apocalypse its presence heralds is not the point of Patrick Ness' latest revelation. There are indeed dark times ahead for the friends of indie kid Finn—this Immortals nonsense will lead to any number of melodramatic deaths—but the household heroes of The Rest of Us Just Live Here are safely outside of said circle.

That's not to say their days lack drama, or tragedy, but like you and me, reader, rather than the saviours at the centre of so many Chosen One stories, just living keeps them plenty busy.

We yearn the same, wish the same. We're just as screwed-up and brave and false and loyal and wrong and right as anyone else. And even if there's no one in my family or my circle of friends who's going to be the Chosen One or the Beacon of Peace or whatever the hell it's going to be next time around, I reckon there are a lot more people like me than there are indie kids with unusual names and capital-D Destinies. (p.35)

"Your humble narrator" (p.55) Mikey Mitchell has hit the nail on the head, here, and the notion that normal is not the same as insignificant informs every last aspect of the new novel from the mind behind A Monster Calls.

Book Review | Smiler's Fair by Rebecca Levene

Smiler's Fair: the great moving carnival where any pleasure can be had, if you're willing to pay the price. They say all paths cross at Smiler's Fair. They say it'll change your life. And five people are about to discover how true that is.

Nethmi, the orphaned daughter of a murdered nobleman, who in desperation commits an act that will haunt her forever. Dae Hyo, the skilled warrior, who discovers that a lifetime of bravery cannot make up for a single mistake. Marvan, the master swordsman, who takes more pleasure from killing than he should. Eric, who follows his heart only to find that love exacts a terrible price. And Krish, the humble goatherd, with a destiny he hardly understands and can never accept.

In a land where unimaginable horror lurks in the shadows, where the very sun and moon are at war, these five people will discover who they are—and who they're willing to become.

***

There's something for everyone at Smiler's Fair. Be you young or old, small or tall, green around the gills or hardened by the horrors of war, the travelling carnival will welcome you with open arms before attending to your every pleasure.

Say you want to drink yourself into oblivion or dabble in drugs from distant lands—head on over to the mobile market. Perhaps your deepest desire is to look Lady Luck in the eye at the high stakes tables, or earn enough money wheeling and dealing to make your way in the wider world—well, what's stopping you? Maybe what you've always wanted is to satisfy some carnal fantasy with a well-kept sellcock. Smiler's Fair doesn't care... not so long as the coin keeps coming.

The carnival is a crossroad of sorts in the splintered society of Rebecca Levene's first fantasy, where all people are treated equally—albeit as marks, in the main. Regardless, the poor mingle with the rich, the soldiers with the civilians and so on. Appropriately, it's here that our heroes meet at the very beginning of the book. And what an unlikely lot they are! There's Dae Hyo, an alcoholic warrior without a tribe to fight for; Krishanjit, a humble goatherd destined to kill a King; a restless seventeen year old sex worker called Eric; and the master swordsman Marvan—a serial killer in his spare time.

And then there's Nethmi, the orphaned daughter of a shipborn lord whose uncaring uncle has essentially sold her to the highest bidder. In a matter of days she's to be sent to Winter's Hammer, a shipfort in the distant wilderness, where she'll be married to a Lord who doesn't like her, far less love her. But before she goes, in "petty act of rebellion," (p.14) she visits the fair with a friend:

The gates were wood and twice as tall as a man. Through them she could see a broad street surfaced with straw and lined with buildings three, four and even five storeys tall, leaning perilously above the crowds. Further in there were taller spires yet, brightly tiled and hung with pennants whose designs she didn't know: a fat, laughing man, dice and—she blushed and turned away—a naked breast. It was impossible to think that none of this had been here two days before. And the people. Tall, short, fat, thing, with skin and hair of every shade, a babble of languages and faces eager for the entertainments of the fair. It was hard to imagine herself a part of that crowd, swept along in its dangerous currents. (p.13)

In premise, the part Nethmi plays in Smiler's Fair is sure to sound familiar to epic fantasy fans—as will Krishanjit's superficially predictable path through the narrative: he's the chosen one, don't you know. But no. Not exactly.

Book Review | The Child Eater by Rachel Pollack

On Earth, the Wisdom family has always striven to be more normal than normal. But Simon Wisdom, the youngest child, is far from normal: he can see the souls of the dead. And now the ghosts of children are begging him to help them, as they face something worse than death. The only problem is, he doesn't know how.

In a far-away land of magic and legends, Matyas has dragged himself up from the gutter and inveigled his way into the Wizards' college. In time, he will become more powerful than all of them—but will his quest blind him to the needs of others? For Matyas can also hear the children crying.

But neither can save the children alone, for the child eater is preying on two worlds...

***

Representing Rachel Pollack's first original genre novel since Godmother Night in 1996—a World Fantasy Award winner in its day, and a classic now, by all accounts—the release of The Child Eater is bound to be a big deal in certain circles. How her returning readers respond to it remains to be seen; this was my first of her works, I'm afraid... but not likely my last.

Based on a pair of tales from The Tarot of Perfection, Pollack's last collection, The Child Eater tells two separate yet connected stories. Separate in that the boys we follow are worlds apart, and divided in time, too; connected, though neither knows it, by the parts they're fated to play in the downfall of the eponymous monster: an immortal man wicked in the ways you'd expect, not least because of the innocents he eats.

Matyas, when we meet him, is a slave to his parents, the proprietors of The Hungry Squirrel, a "dismal wood building on a dismal road that ran from the sea to the capital. Most of the inn's business came from travellers on their way from the port to the city, or the other way around. Sometimes, with the wealthier ones in their private carriages, Matyas saw the faces screw up in distaste, and then they would sigh, knowing they had no choice." (p.1) Likewise dissatisfied with his lot in life, he follows one such weary wanderer to a forest far from his home, where he sees something he can hardly believe: the man—a magician, he must be—shooting the shit with a head on a stick.

Book Review | The Boy with the Porcelain Blade by Den Patrick

Lucien de Fontein has grown up different. One of the mysterious and misshapen Orfano who appear around the Kingdom of Landfall, he is a talented fighter yet constantly lonely, tormented by his deformity, and well aware that he is a mere pawn in a political game.

Ruled by an insane King and the venomous Majordomo, his is a world where corruption is commonplace, but it's only when Lucien discovers the plight of the "insane" women kept in the so-called Sanatoria that he realises how deeply rooted the day-to-day decay is.

***

To paraphrase A. A. Milne, creator of Winnie the Pooh—and Tigger too!—the things that make us different are the very things that make us us.

But when you're different—and who isn't?—fitting in is a difficult thing. It's far harder, however, for the likes of Lucien de Fontein, a young man who has no ears, I fear, and must display his most significant difference every day, come what may.

There are others like Lucien. Other Orfano, which is to say "witchlings [...] whose deformities were an open secret among the subjects of Demesne in spite of the Orfano's attempts to appear normal." (p.10) Lucien has long hair to hide the gory holes on his head, but no matter how hard he tries to fit in with his fellows, they reject him repeatedly. Evidently, "the life of an Orfano was a lonely one," (p.17) if not without its privileges:

"Years of schooling. Almost daily education in blade and biology, Classics and chemistry, philosophy and physics, art, and very rarely, assassination. He had been given the best of everything in Demesne as set down by the King's edict, even when he'd not wanted it, which had been often. Now he would be bereft of everything; all thanks to Giancarlo." (p.43)

Giancarlo is Lucien's Superiore, an instructor of sorts who can't stand the sight of our Orfano... who has gone out of his way to break him at every stage. So far, Lucien has held fast in the face of Giancarlo's cruelty, but everything comes to a head during his final Testing: the emboldening moment when he is to trade his paltry porcelain blade for real steel, and indeed the scene with which Den Patrick's debut begins. But the bastard master pushes his intemperate apprentice too far, and Lucien's response—to attack Giancarlo rather than the innocent he is to kill—leads to his exile from Demesne.