I wrote six reviews last month but because two of the reviews have already been written for SFCrownest, I'll post the others in here. Shame to waste them.

Here are the links to the four published in this months' SFCrowsnest:

The Ivory And The Horn by Charles de Lint

X&Y by Heidi Cyr

Wastelands: Stories Of Life After Apocalypse edited by John Joseph Adams

Black Static #1

And these are the reviews not in the zine, behind two LJ cuts:




Review of The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
ISBN: 978-1-59102-594-8
Pyr paperback, 531 pages
US$

I went through a period where I stayed away from heroic fantasy, feeling it had too many cookie cutter identical settings and plots. However, more recently I've found there are writers beginning to break into new ground, whether in setting or in characterisation.

Books like Sean Williams's 'Books of the Cataclysm' sequence or China Mieville's 'Perdido Street Station' are notable for their exquisitely created mileau totally alien to both our world and those we've seen before in fantasy. Joe Abercrombie's setting is less innovative than these examples but this is made up for in his adventurous use of character.

Many have compared his work to that of Tad Williams and George R. R. Martin and the comparisons are not reaching. The books have a strong sense of plot, that there is an intricate plan behind the events of the book, something rare in a first novel.

The main characters are a huge draw. Barbarian Logen Ninefingers, unstoppable in battle but tired of war, meets the grumpy old wizard Bayaz who says he is the First of the Magi, hundreds of years old and apparently immensely powerful. They travel to the capital of the Union, under threat from barbarians in the North and heathens in the South, with further threat massing unseen beyond.

There they meet the other two protagonists. Inquisitor Glotka used to be the finest swordsman in the land before he was captured at war and tortured for years in enemy prisons. Now crippled and bitter at the world, he has become a torturer himself as the only honest man trying to root out treachery throughout the government.

Glotka hates the other protagonist because Captain Jezal dan Luthar is everything the Inquisitor used to be. Handsome and dangerous with a sword, Jezal is also a lazy, selfish drunk. He is supposedly running for the annual sword fight but lacks the interest or will to train for it.

Eventually all the main characters meet in the capital, where they begin to uncover dirty deeds, treachery and foreign agents, as war brews on both borders. The end of the novel sets up the story nicely for volume two, 'Before They Are Hanged', which has a US release of March 2008 even though it is already out in the UK. The final volume of the First Law sequence, 'Last Argument Of Kings' is out in the UK in March.

The dark characterisation brings new life to the fantasy genre and the complex moralities of the protagonists is a real joy. Even the minor characters seem colourful and realised, with strong dialogue and difficult choices for all involved.

The bad guys of this book are only really hinted at and the story has a lot of breadth for expansion. I look forward to reading the rest of the series and you should too!

Tomas L. Martin, 3rd January 2008





Review of Infoquake by David Louis Edelman
ISBN: 978-159102442-2
Pyr paperback, 421 pages
US$15.00

David Louis Edelman published this, his first novel, in 2006 and it went on to be selected in a number of best of the year lists. Like many novels it is set in a few hundred years time but unlike most, the central conflict and action is in the world of business, not war.

Natch is incredibly intelligent and since he was a child he longed to be top of the Primo rankings, which rank all the companies making bio/logics programs in the world. After a short prelude, we are taken back into his childhood to show how he became so ruthless, driven and brilliant.

After this glimpse behind the mask of the main character, much of the book is told from the perspective of his assistant, Jara. Together with programmer Horvil, the trio ascend quickly through the ranks of bio/logics, the field of programming the brain and body much like we do with computers today.

Natch claws his company to the top of the Primo Rankings but things are soon to change in a big way. The heir to the man that invented bio/logics, Margaret Surina approaches Natch with a new technology, MultiReal. She wants him to release the technology on the market but she wants to keep it out of the hands of the armies of High Executive Len Borda.

As Natch and his team struggle to get to grips with MultiReal in the few days they have before release, corporate espionage and government interference all around, the stakes grow ever higher. The novel builds until the climax when the potential of MultiReal is revealed.

Edelman writes well and although at first I doubted his choice of protagonist, the ambitious and ruthless business figure of Natch becomes a hero rather than antihero through clever use of flashback and other characters' point of view.

The story is developed well and the business side of this biotech based future is astonishingly believable. It's remarkable to have a novel that's packed with action, excitement and tension when the action itself is more what you'd see in the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal.

With the sequel, 'MultiReal' out later in 2008 you'd be well advised to pick this one up and refresh your memory on one of 2006's great debuts. Pyr continue to release excellent and above all fresh content. Long may it continue.

Tomas L. Martin, 3rd January 2008