I decided to read this one after enjoying Yellow Blue Tibia. Set in the far future, it is a narrative by a mass murderer.
Our narrator, Ae, is a psychopathic killer. In the future society he lives in, this makes him very nearly unique. He is imprisoned, and his psychiatrist has suggested, since he is unable or unwilling to open up and talk to a human being, that he try writing a narrative to some inanimate object. He chooses a stone. The entries are all addressed to the stone, and he gradually explains what he has done and why. The book is not entirely a listing of atrocities, and there is sufficient suspense to keep one reading. Ae tells us, quite early on, that his greatest crime was committed at someone else's behest. He spends the rest of the novel trying to figure out who it was that engaged him to commit an atrocity, and how to accomplish the deed.
Ae is, understandably, not a reliable narrator. He is not mentally stable, and there is reason to question both his perceptions of what is happening and the conclusions he draws about his employers. The story is also a personal journey for him, as he is changed by his experiences. It is a very unconventional story, with a very unconventional narrator. Ae commits terrible crimes, but most of the time he doesn't seem malicious or evil. On the other hand, occasionally it's quite obvious he's not sane.
I found Stone to be a very absorbing read, and a very unusual story. I gulped it down over the weekend in one sitting, and I liked it very much. Roberts is definitely a writer whose work warrants further exploration. Very enjoyable.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Reading, the week of March 21
I read three books in the last week that weren't interesting enough to merit full reviews, so I am going to lump them together in one entry.
Unnatural Inquirer by Simon R. Green
This is the eighth in Green's ongoing series about John Taylor, P.I. and badass in the Nightside, an alternate version of London where magic works, it's always three in the morning, and everyone and everything is dangerous. Taylor has been hired by tabloid newspaper The Unnatural Inquirer to hunt down a man who purportedly has made a recording of a vision of Hell, or perhaps Heaven. He made a deal to sell it to the Inquirer, and then disappeared. The newspaper wants the recording, and they dangle enough money in front of Taylor that he agrees to look for it. He is teamed with Bettie, demon girl reporter, and they start visiting some of the powerful people in the Nightside to see if any of them decided to acquire the recording for themselves. It reads like a travelogue of the Nightside, and in the meantime Bettie develops a crush on Taylor and tries to convince him that he should leave Suzie Shooter in favor of her. It ends with Taylor being too much of a badass for her.
Sigh. I don't know why I even read these. They're shallow, repeptitive, and kind of immature. The whole point of the stories seems to be proving again and again that Taylor is a total badass. Nightingale's Lament was really good, and I think I keep reading more in the hope that there will be another good one, but they're heading in the wrong direction. At least they're short.
Alien Eyes by Lynn S. Hightower
In 2002 I read a SFnal police procedural by this author called Alien Blues. It featured a human detective and his alien partner. I don't really remember any more about it, except that it was mildly entertaining but not great. I like SF, and I like police procedurals, so it's the sort of book I'm likely to like. I recently went to Uncle Hugo's science fiction bookstore in Minneapolis, saw that there were more books in the series, and bought them. I now regret that.
Alien Eyes features Detective David Silver, along with his obnoxious friend Mel, and their associate String, who is an Elaki, an alien sort of resembling a walking giant sting ray, except with scales. They are called to a potential hostage situation, in which an Elaki mother has holed herself up with a gun and the police fear for the safety of her children. Silver goes in alone to try to talk her down, and discovers that she killed the children because she feared that the Izicho, the Elaki secret police, would break into their house and do unspeakable things to them. She killed them to protect them from a worse death.
They then begin investigating an Elaki revolutionary movement to see if their claims about the Izicho are true. Silver gets to know a revolutionary leader who is now a professor at the local university. They also get drawn into investigating who is killing young Izicho officers as soon as they arrive in the city. Silver's wife, who is a badass animal rights activist, is involved in the investigation, and they discover a whole ugly underbelly of Elaki-on-Elaki crimce that human authorities had been unaware of. Silver goes off to confront the bad guy all alone *twice*, and the whole thing is just awful.
This novel is bad. It's bad science fiction, it's a bad police procedural. It's so bad it retroactively ruins what vague pleasure I remember from the first book. It's just bad. Bad, bad, bad. And I've got two more of them. I wonder if I'll ever work up the nerve to try them?
Lifeblood by P.N. Elrod
Lifeblood is the sequel to Bloodlist. It features the further adventures of Jack Fleming, vampire and part-time P.I. in 1930s Chicago. Jack is happy with his girlfriend, and decides to stop his search for Maureen, the lady vampire who turned him and then disappeared from his life five years previously. He spent five years running a notice in the personals section of the newspaper, but now he cancels the ad. This unexpectedly brings a would-be vampire hunter looking for him, and also Maureen's sister. Jack spends the novel being chased and beaten up, much like in Bloodlist. Jack is a supernatural creature with amazing abilities, but in these books he also gets the crap beaten out of him quite regularly.
I didn't like this one nearly as well as Bloodlist. I think my main problem with the book was that Jack is kind of an idiot. He doesn't just make a stupid mistake or two, he regularly does stupid things or is outwitted. It's hard to trust a point of view character who can't be trusted not to be an idiot. Fortunately his human friend Escott is brighter than Jack, and arrives in time to save his bacon again. Lifeblood was a quick and undemanding read, but also just awfully mediocre.
Unnatural Inquirer by Simon R. Green
This is the eighth in Green's ongoing series about John Taylor, P.I. and badass in the Nightside, an alternate version of London where magic works, it's always three in the morning, and everyone and everything is dangerous. Taylor has been hired by tabloid newspaper The Unnatural Inquirer to hunt down a man who purportedly has made a recording of a vision of Hell, or perhaps Heaven. He made a deal to sell it to the Inquirer, and then disappeared. The newspaper wants the recording, and they dangle enough money in front of Taylor that he agrees to look for it. He is teamed with Bettie, demon girl reporter, and they start visiting some of the powerful people in the Nightside to see if any of them decided to acquire the recording for themselves. It reads like a travelogue of the Nightside, and in the meantime Bettie develops a crush on Taylor and tries to convince him that he should leave Suzie Shooter in favor of her. It ends with Taylor being too much of a badass for her.
Sigh. I don't know why I even read these. They're shallow, repeptitive, and kind of immature. The whole point of the stories seems to be proving again and again that Taylor is a total badass. Nightingale's Lament was really good, and I think I keep reading more in the hope that there will be another good one, but they're heading in the wrong direction. At least they're short.
Alien Eyes by Lynn S. Hightower
In 2002 I read a SFnal police procedural by this author called Alien Blues. It featured a human detective and his alien partner. I don't really remember any more about it, except that it was mildly entertaining but not great. I like SF, and I like police procedurals, so it's the sort of book I'm likely to like. I recently went to Uncle Hugo's science fiction bookstore in Minneapolis, saw that there were more books in the series, and bought them. I now regret that.
Alien Eyes features Detective David Silver, along with his obnoxious friend Mel, and their associate String, who is an Elaki, an alien sort of resembling a walking giant sting ray, except with scales. They are called to a potential hostage situation, in which an Elaki mother has holed herself up with a gun and the police fear for the safety of her children. Silver goes in alone to try to talk her down, and discovers that she killed the children because she feared that the Izicho, the Elaki secret police, would break into their house and do unspeakable things to them. She killed them to protect them from a worse death.
They then begin investigating an Elaki revolutionary movement to see if their claims about the Izicho are true. Silver gets to know a revolutionary leader who is now a professor at the local university. They also get drawn into investigating who is killing young Izicho officers as soon as they arrive in the city. Silver's wife, who is a badass animal rights activist, is involved in the investigation, and they discover a whole ugly underbelly of Elaki-on-Elaki crimce that human authorities had been unaware of. Silver goes off to confront the bad guy all alone *twice*, and the whole thing is just awful.
This novel is bad. It's bad science fiction, it's a bad police procedural. It's so bad it retroactively ruins what vague pleasure I remember from the first book. It's just bad. Bad, bad, bad. And I've got two more of them. I wonder if I'll ever work up the nerve to try them?
Lifeblood by P.N. Elrod
Lifeblood is the sequel to Bloodlist. It features the further adventures of Jack Fleming, vampire and part-time P.I. in 1930s Chicago. Jack is happy with his girlfriend, and decides to stop his search for Maureen, the lady vampire who turned him and then disappeared from his life five years previously. He spent five years running a notice in the personals section of the newspaper, but now he cancels the ad. This unexpectedly brings a would-be vampire hunter looking for him, and also Maureen's sister. Jack spends the novel being chased and beaten up, much like in Bloodlist. Jack is a supernatural creature with amazing abilities, but in these books he also gets the crap beaten out of him quite regularly.
I didn't like this one nearly as well as Bloodlist. I think my main problem with the book was that Jack is kind of an idiot. He doesn't just make a stupid mistake or two, he regularly does stupid things or is outwitted. It's hard to trust a point of view character who can't be trusted not to be an idiot. Fortunately his human friend Escott is brighter than Jack, and arrives in time to save his bacon again. Lifeblood was a quick and undemanding read, but also just awfully mediocre.
Monday, March 22, 2010
The Haunted Monastery by Robert van Gulik
I bought this one recently on a trip to Uncle Edgar's mystery book store in Minneapolis. I have reviewed other works in the series here: The Chinese Gold Murders and Judge Dee at Work. These are mysteries set in historical China, featuring Judge Dee, who is a crime-solving magistrate.
In The Haunted Monastery, Judge Dee and his three wives are traveling home from a visit to the capital. Their cart axle breaks, and they are stranded on a mountain in a bad storm, so they seek shelter at a nearly Taoist monastery. As they are shown to their room, Judge Dee glances out a window and sees, across the courtyard, what appears to be a soldier in historical armor wrestling with a naked woman who is missing her left arm. He just catches a glimpse of it, but decides to investigate. It's the same setup as Agatha Christie's 4:50 from Paddington, and I have to wonder if van Gulik borrowed it knowingly. The Haunted Monastery came out 4 years after the Christie, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had read it.
The Judge and his wives have arrived on a special celebration day, and Dee is compelled to attend the entertainments and the feast. He is tired and has a cold, and isn't happy about it, nor is he happy about their strictly vegetarian diet. But he also knows that there have been three suspicious deaths of young women at the monastery over the last year or so, and he decides to look into it while he is there. The judge winds up spending the whole night running around the monastery having encounters with all the suspects and witnesses--seemingly no one was sleeping that night. By morning the case has been solved, and Dee and his wives continue their journey home.
These are fun mysteries, full of wild adventures and drawings of naked women. van Gulik did the illustrations himself, and after reading a few of them I am struck that nearly every time a naked woman appears in the story (which is fairly often), there is a drawing. There is also a cute drawing of a cat, which helps provide proof of a murder. These books don't hold up to modern standards of historical accuracy, but they were published in the 1950s and 1960s, when books were shorter and more plot-driven than we tend to expect now. This makes them very entertaining, as well as being a quick read. I've got another one waiting, and will probably pick it up pretty soon. Fun, light, entertaining.
In The Haunted Monastery, Judge Dee and his three wives are traveling home from a visit to the capital. Their cart axle breaks, and they are stranded on a mountain in a bad storm, so they seek shelter at a nearly Taoist monastery. As they are shown to their room, Judge Dee glances out a window and sees, across the courtyard, what appears to be a soldier in historical armor wrestling with a naked woman who is missing her left arm. He just catches a glimpse of it, but decides to investigate. It's the same setup as Agatha Christie's 4:50 from Paddington, and I have to wonder if van Gulik borrowed it knowingly. The Haunted Monastery came out 4 years after the Christie, so I wouldn't be surprised if he had read it.
The Judge and his wives have arrived on a special celebration day, and Dee is compelled to attend the entertainments and the feast. He is tired and has a cold, and isn't happy about it, nor is he happy about their strictly vegetarian diet. But he also knows that there have been three suspicious deaths of young women at the monastery over the last year or so, and he decides to look into it while he is there. The judge winds up spending the whole night running around the monastery having encounters with all the suspects and witnesses--seemingly no one was sleeping that night. By morning the case has been solved, and Dee and his wives continue their journey home.
These are fun mysteries, full of wild adventures and drawings of naked women. van Gulik did the illustrations himself, and after reading a few of them I am struck that nearly every time a naked woman appears in the story (which is fairly often), there is a drawing. There is also a cute drawing of a cat, which helps provide proof of a murder. These books don't hold up to modern standards of historical accuracy, but they were published in the 1950s and 1960s, when books were shorter and more plot-driven than we tend to expect now. This makes them very entertaining, as well as being a quick read. I've got another one waiting, and will probably pick it up pretty soon. Fun, light, entertaining.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Iorich by Steven Brust
Iorich is the latest entry in Brust's ongoing series about Vlad Taltos, former assassin and crime boss who is now on the run from his former associates. It is set in the Dragaeran Empire, where as a human Vlad is a racial minority. Vlad hears, by chance, that his friend Aliera e'Kieron has been arrested for practicing Elder Sorcery and may be executed for it, and he heads for Adrilankha to see if he can help her. As Adrilankha is where his enemies are, this is a very risky move, and he must be constantly vigilant if he is to survive.
Iorich is one of the problem-solving novels in the series, like Jhegaala, Yendi, Orca, and probably some others I'm forgetting. There are political reasons why Aliera has been arrested, and no one who knows the reasons will speak to him, so Vlad has to wander around trying to figure it out himself, and what to do about it. He calls in favors from his friends and makes a nuisance of himself, and in the end manages to spring Aliera and foil the crime syndicate again. I'm being deliberately vague on the details, because in a book like this the joy is in the mystery, and I'm not going to spoil it.
I've been reading this series for about 20 years now, and there have been long gaps between some of the books. (Phoenix 1990, Athyra 1993, Orca 1996, Dragon 1998, Issola 2001, Dzur 2006, Jhegaala 2008, Iorich 2010) Brust also isn't telling Vlad's story in chronological order--he jumps around a bit in Vlad's timeline. This makes it, frankly, hard to remember all the details of what happened in prior books. For instance, I no longer remember exactly why the crime syndicate hates Vlad so much, though I've read all 12 books in the series, some of them multiple times. Likewise, Dzur is set immediately after Issola ends, but there was a 5 year gap between the books, and I had to re-read Issola when Dzur came out because I didn't clearly remember what had happened in it. So it's hard for me to try to place Iorich in context with the series as a whole, because I only clearly remember the books I enjoyed enough to re-read, and I haven't liked them all. To calibrate my tastes, for those are familiar with the series: my favorites are Taltos, Jhereg, Dragon, and Jhegaala.
I enjoyed Iorich. I'm a mystery reader, and I enjoy novels where the character is trying to investigate a problem. It's a plot structure that works for me. It was nice to spend some time with some old friends, like Morrolan and Sethra, though we didn't see a lot of them. I get so very tired of the snarky banter back and forth between Vlad and his familiar, Loiosh, but that's not likely to change. I'm not sure how well this would work as an entry point to a new reader of the series, because there are some things about various characters and their titles and Dragaeran politics that aren't explained, you just have to know them. It's a pretty short book, and it wouldn't have hurt to put in more explanation. That said, I'm not a new reader of the series, and it was a pleasant read. It isn't one of my favorites, but it's still pretty good. And the epilogue is fantastic.
Iorich is one of the problem-solving novels in the series, like Jhegaala, Yendi, Orca, and probably some others I'm forgetting. There are political reasons why Aliera has been arrested, and no one who knows the reasons will speak to him, so Vlad has to wander around trying to figure it out himself, and what to do about it. He calls in favors from his friends and makes a nuisance of himself, and in the end manages to spring Aliera and foil the crime syndicate again. I'm being deliberately vague on the details, because in a book like this the joy is in the mystery, and I'm not going to spoil it.
I've been reading this series for about 20 years now, and there have been long gaps between some of the books. (Phoenix 1990, Athyra 1993, Orca 1996, Dragon 1998, Issola 2001, Dzur 2006, Jhegaala 2008, Iorich 2010) Brust also isn't telling Vlad's story in chronological order--he jumps around a bit in Vlad's timeline. This makes it, frankly, hard to remember all the details of what happened in prior books. For instance, I no longer remember exactly why the crime syndicate hates Vlad so much, though I've read all 12 books in the series, some of them multiple times. Likewise, Dzur is set immediately after Issola ends, but there was a 5 year gap between the books, and I had to re-read Issola when Dzur came out because I didn't clearly remember what had happened in it. So it's hard for me to try to place Iorich in context with the series as a whole, because I only clearly remember the books I enjoyed enough to re-read, and I haven't liked them all. To calibrate my tastes, for those are familiar with the series: my favorites are Taltos, Jhereg, Dragon, and Jhegaala.
I enjoyed Iorich. I'm a mystery reader, and I enjoy novels where the character is trying to investigate a problem. It's a plot structure that works for me. It was nice to spend some time with some old friends, like Morrolan and Sethra, though we didn't see a lot of them. I get so very tired of the snarky banter back and forth between Vlad and his familiar, Loiosh, but that's not likely to change. I'm not sure how well this would work as an entry point to a new reader of the series, because there are some things about various characters and their titles and Dragaeran politics that aren't explained, you just have to know them. It's a pretty short book, and it wouldn't have hurt to put in more explanation. That said, I'm not a new reader of the series, and it was a pleasant read. It isn't one of my favorites, but it's still pretty good. And the epilogue is fantastic.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Bloodlist by P.N. Elrod
Jack Fleming wakes on a beach with no memory of how he got there. He then gets hit by a car and shot, before overpowering the man who is trying to kill him. He quickly realizes what is going on: someone has killed him, and he is now a vampire. Jack had an affair with a lady vampire years earlier, and had no way of knowing if he would become a vampire himself until he died. Now he's dead, and he knows: he's a vampire.
Now he must adjust to the realities of his new existence, and he also wants to know who killed him and why. So he sets about investigating. The novel is set in Chicago in 1936, and Jack ends up taking on some gangsters. The level of violence throughout the book is consistent with the first few pages: if he weren't an immortal, he would have died several times over. Even as an immortal, he gets beat to hell.
Bloodlist came out in 1990, before vampires caught on quite as much as they did a few years later. It's not a prototypical urban fantasy with some hot angry chick trying to kick butt, it's a noir story with a vampire as the detective. I like mysteries, and this was a fun novel. It's not mind-blowing, but it was good fun, and I look forward to reading more in the series.
Now he must adjust to the realities of his new existence, and he also wants to know who killed him and why. So he sets about investigating. The novel is set in Chicago in 1936, and Jack ends up taking on some gangsters. The level of violence throughout the book is consistent with the first few pages: if he weren't an immortal, he would have died several times over. Even as an immortal, he gets beat to hell.
Bloodlist came out in 1990, before vampires caught on quite as much as they did a few years later. It's not a prototypical urban fantasy with some hot angry chick trying to kick butt, it's a noir story with a vampire as the detective. I like mysteries, and this was a fun novel. It's not mind-blowing, but it was good fun, and I look forward to reading more in the series.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Merry Wives of Maggody by Joan Hess
This is the latest in Hess's ongoing series of comedic mysteries set in Maggody, Arkansas. Arly Hanks is the chief of police in this backward town, where half the population are named Buchanon, and all of them dumber than a box of rocks. Arly, herself, isn't terribly bright, and she has an annoying tendency to shrug off or ignore things she doesn't want to think about, like almost anything suggested by her mother, Ruby Bee. I used to like this series.
Mrs. Jim Bob Buchanon, the mayor's wife and head of the Missionary Society, has decided to mount a charity golf tournament to raise money for the poor starving golf widows. Maggody doesn't have a golf course, but they mow down the pot growing on Raz Buchanon's back forty and consider it good enough. There is an entry fee for each golfer, and as an enticement she manages to get a local businessman to donate a really sweet bass boat as a prize for the first person to get a hole-in-one. The bass boat is sufficient enticement to get nearly everyone in town to enter the tournament and start taking up golf lessons. It devolves into a battle of the sexes as the husbands and wives of Maggody enter the tournament without informing each other of their plans. The men all want the boat to go fishing with; the women all want the boat to sell it and use the money for something else. A couple of dead bodies appear, and Arly has to get off her ass and try to investigate.
As I said, I used to like this series. They're light and stupid, and the populace of Maggody are mildly amusing. But I didn't enjoy the last one that much, and this one was a tedious slog. I'm not sure why, but it's probably just me. Either I was in the wrong mood, or my tastes have shifted over the last several years. But either way, while this delivered pretty much what all the others have and therefore it served its purpose, I didn't really enjoy it. I spent a week picking away at it, and yesterday finally sat down to slog through to the end so that I could return it to the library. Dull and disappointing.
Mrs. Jim Bob Buchanon, the mayor's wife and head of the Missionary Society, has decided to mount a charity golf tournament to raise money for the poor starving golf widows. Maggody doesn't have a golf course, but they mow down the pot growing on Raz Buchanon's back forty and consider it good enough. There is an entry fee for each golfer, and as an enticement she manages to get a local businessman to donate a really sweet bass boat as a prize for the first person to get a hole-in-one. The bass boat is sufficient enticement to get nearly everyone in town to enter the tournament and start taking up golf lessons. It devolves into a battle of the sexes as the husbands and wives of Maggody enter the tournament without informing each other of their plans. The men all want the boat to go fishing with; the women all want the boat to sell it and use the money for something else. A couple of dead bodies appear, and Arly has to get off her ass and try to investigate.
As I said, I used to like this series. They're light and stupid, and the populace of Maggody are mildly amusing. But I didn't enjoy the last one that much, and this one was a tedious slog. I'm not sure why, but it's probably just me. Either I was in the wrong mood, or my tastes have shifted over the last several years. But either way, while this delivered pretty much what all the others have and therefore it served its purpose, I didn't really enjoy it. I spent a week picking away at it, and yesterday finally sat down to slog through to the end so that I could return it to the library. Dull and disappointing.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Shadow Prowler by Alexey Pehov
Shadow Prowler is a quest fantasy translated from Russian. I have had good luck with other translated Russian fantasies like the Watch novels and The Stranger, so I decided to give it a try, even though I stopped reading quest fantasy a long, long time ago. It is the first of a trilogy.
Shadow Prowler's protagonist is a thief named Shadow Harold, who lives in the city of Avendoom. He is very, very good at what he does, and is enlisted by the king to help save the kingdom. There is a dark lord, an ancient and powerful magician who was punished and imprisoned, who has been gathering strength and now has enough forces (human and orcs) to invade the kingdom. Meanwhile, there are demons in the streets of Avendoom, hunting anyone foolish enough to set foot outside after dark. Harold is enlisted to travel to a Moria-like underground complex that is teeming with magic and monsters, sneak in, and acquire a magical artifact that is humanity's only hope. He will be escorted on the journey by a troop of eleven humans, three elves, a dwarf, a gnome, and a goblin.
Sound at all familiar? Throw in history lessons and bits of epic poetry, and we've got a rather Tolkienesque fantasy, though Harold is far more competent than Bilbo or Frodo Baggins. Most of Shadow Prowler takes place in Avendoom, as Harold is recruited and he makes preparations for the trip. Little is known about the complex where he is supposed to go, and he sets about trying to gather information, including a trip into a section of the city that was destroyed by magic several centuries earlier, from which almost no one who enters leaves alive. Harold has all sorts of adventures, and we establish that he is a very, very competent character. Meanwhile there are numerous attempts on his life, and he must also cope with the demon problem in the city.
They eventually set out on their way, twelve humans, three elves, a dwarf a gnome, and a goblin. At the end of the novel, they are still traveling. It isn't a particularly satisfying ending point, but at least it wasn't a cliffhanger. This was obviously one large novel that got chopped into parts, rather than a series of related books. The good news is that when I reached the end, I wished I had the second volume so that I could continue and find out what happens next. It may be derivative fantasy, but it was entertaining derivative fantasy.
I was a little frustrated by the pacing of the book. I am an admittedly very plot-driven reader. I want to know what happens next, and get frustrated by things that slow me down, like long descriptive passages, history lessons and bits of prophecy, and flashbacks. Shadow Prowler had all of those. It also seemed overly long to me. I was interested in the plot, but there seemed to be a lot more description of their travels than was really necessary. I also would have liked a character list somewhere, as we were introduced to a lot of people in a short time, and most of Harold's human companions kind of blurred together for me. There's the one with the familiar, the quiet one, and the one who is supposed to be the comic relief. The rest are a bit hazy for me. I don't doubt that I will get the hang of them when I read the second book, it was just a bit too much to retain all at once.
I was quite entertained by most of Harold's adventures. It is becoming clear that he is mentioned in a prophecy written 3,000 years ago by an insane gnome, and he is on his way to becoming overly powerful. But I'm okay with that, because at least it's fun, and things aren't just falling easily into his lap. There were a couple of times when Harold endured an experience sufficient to render him unconscious for a lengthy period of time, and yet when he wakes up he feels fine, hops up and continues as if nothing happened. I'm not sure I really buy that.
Mostly, though, I want to get my hands on the rest of the trilogy, because I enjoyed it a lot and I want to know what happens next. Recommended.
Shadow Prowler's protagonist is a thief named Shadow Harold, who lives in the city of Avendoom. He is very, very good at what he does, and is enlisted by the king to help save the kingdom. There is a dark lord, an ancient and powerful magician who was punished and imprisoned, who has been gathering strength and now has enough forces (human and orcs) to invade the kingdom. Meanwhile, there are demons in the streets of Avendoom, hunting anyone foolish enough to set foot outside after dark. Harold is enlisted to travel to a Moria-like underground complex that is teeming with magic and monsters, sneak in, and acquire a magical artifact that is humanity's only hope. He will be escorted on the journey by a troop of eleven humans, three elves, a dwarf, a gnome, and a goblin.
Sound at all familiar? Throw in history lessons and bits of epic poetry, and we've got a rather Tolkienesque fantasy, though Harold is far more competent than Bilbo or Frodo Baggins. Most of Shadow Prowler takes place in Avendoom, as Harold is recruited and he makes preparations for the trip. Little is known about the complex where he is supposed to go, and he sets about trying to gather information, including a trip into a section of the city that was destroyed by magic several centuries earlier, from which almost no one who enters leaves alive. Harold has all sorts of adventures, and we establish that he is a very, very competent character. Meanwhile there are numerous attempts on his life, and he must also cope with the demon problem in the city.
They eventually set out on their way, twelve humans, three elves, a dwarf a gnome, and a goblin. At the end of the novel, they are still traveling. It isn't a particularly satisfying ending point, but at least it wasn't a cliffhanger. This was obviously one large novel that got chopped into parts, rather than a series of related books. The good news is that when I reached the end, I wished I had the second volume so that I could continue and find out what happens next. It may be derivative fantasy, but it was entertaining derivative fantasy.
I was a little frustrated by the pacing of the book. I am an admittedly very plot-driven reader. I want to know what happens next, and get frustrated by things that slow me down, like long descriptive passages, history lessons and bits of prophecy, and flashbacks. Shadow Prowler had all of those. It also seemed overly long to me. I was interested in the plot, but there seemed to be a lot more description of their travels than was really necessary. I also would have liked a character list somewhere, as we were introduced to a lot of people in a short time, and most of Harold's human companions kind of blurred together for me. There's the one with the familiar, the quiet one, and the one who is supposed to be the comic relief. The rest are a bit hazy for me. I don't doubt that I will get the hang of them when I read the second book, it was just a bit too much to retain all at once.
I was quite entertained by most of Harold's adventures. It is becoming clear that he is mentioned in a prophecy written 3,000 years ago by an insane gnome, and he is on his way to becoming overly powerful. But I'm okay with that, because at least it's fun, and things aren't just falling easily into his lap. There were a couple of times when Harold endured an experience sufficient to render him unconscious for a lengthy period of time, and yet when he wakes up he feels fine, hops up and continues as if nothing happened. I'm not sure I really buy that.
Mostly, though, I want to get my hands on the rest of the trilogy, because I enjoyed it a lot and I want to know what happens next. Recommended.
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