Book Review: A Matter of Temperance by Ichabod Temperance

A Matter of Temperance by Ichabod Temperance

This is my first official adventure into the steampunk genre and it was definitely an enjoyable start. Ichabod Temperance is a young American inventor, whose first big claim to fame are his “Green Beauties,” a pair of goggles gifted to the famous Professor Plumtartt. Meanwhile, the professor, who is famous for the invention of Sol Furnaces, has also managed to harness the powers of the strange comet that recently passed over the earth. Or has he? Serendipitously, a freak accident at Plumtartt’s factory results in his daughter, Persephone, gaining strange new powers, just in time to fight off the monstrous creatures that have broken through to our world from another realm.

So begins round-the-world adventure, told in the alternating POVs of Ichabod and Persephone. Initially, the two are separate, but its not long before they join forces to fight the great evil that has been unleashed. The writing for Persephone’s chapters is a bit more solid, while Ichabod’s is more whimsical, each reflecting their particular character, but they blend well together, even when duplicating scenes, where we get to witness an event from both unique points of view.

Apparently, this began as a back and forth story adventure between two friends, which is a process dear to my heart. I’ve witnessed or participated in many such online collaborative storytelling and I love the idea that this particular story has been published to share with a larger audience. I’m sure there are some inside jokes that most readers will never know, but they were subtle and the overall tongue-in-cheek humour ensures that the story is fun for any adventure lover.

There were a few editing quirks – tense changes, inconsistent use of capitalization, grammar – but nothing to take away from the amusement, charm and excitement.

3.5 of 5 stars

Want more steampunk? New to the genre? Visit Once Upon A Time's Clockwork Carnival 2013 for all sorts of steampunk goodies.

Building A Broken Empire: An Interview with Mark Lawrence

In just a few short years, Mark Lawrence has gone from being a debut author to a dominant name in fantasy fiction. His latest book Emperor of Thorns, which released in the US earlier this week, is the breathtaking conclusion to The Broken Empire trilogy, a series of books that has taken the genre by storm (see our review of Emperor of Thorns here!)

One of the things we really admire about Mark is his openness and constant connection with his fans. In turn, we as readers have enjoyed the emotional journey on which his books have taken us. It is thus a great pleasure and honor that we were able to talk a little with Mark about himself and his writing, and share our questions and his answers with you here at The BiblioSanctum.

"There’s something brittle
in me that will break
before it bends."
- Jorg Ancrath

The BiblioSanctum: In the trilogy, Jorg grows from a young boy to become a 20-year-old in EMPEROR OF THORNS, very formative years for a character. Fantasy features a lot of main characters who age and mature throughout a series, but Jorg's brutal history certainly sets him apart in making growing up a much different and more difficult process for him. Were there any challenges or highlights for you as you were writing Jorg's journey from boy to man?

Mark Lawrence: We see Jorg at age six, age twenty and quite a few ages in between. I didn’t find any difficulty in maturing him – I just had a vision/model of him in my head and wrote that. It helped that he was always intelligent and confident beyond his years so the only real growth he had to make was emotional.

The challenges and highlights are the same thing for me and are always whether I can make the strong emotion that certain sections of the books generate in me come through the page. I don’t plan my story so I’m taken by surprise and shocked as often as the reader is. If the turn of events hits me hard, I want it to hit the reader hard too. That’s the writing challenge. It’s difficult to arrange letters on a page so that someone years later and far away both in geography and background will find their heart beating faster or punch the air or blink away a tear.   

The BiblioSanctum: The world of The Broken Empire has a medieval fantasy feel, but there's also an intriguing twist to its history that introduces some genre-bending elements into the series. Without getting too spoilery for readers new to these books, was this aspect of the setting intentional or was it something that worked its way into the storytelling as you went along?

Mark Lawrence: The setting, like everything else, grew with the story. The first hint of the twist that I got was when I typed out the first hint of a twist. I don’t sit down knowing what I’m going to write.

"A dark time comes.
My time.
If it offends you.
Stop me."
- Jorg Ancrath

The BiblioSanctum: In your EMPEROR OF THORNS afterword, you were very firm in informing readers that the character's story ends with this book. What are some of the factors that led to that decision and how does it feel to be wrapping up Jorg's story? What are your future writing plans now?

Mark Lawrence: The main reason is simply that the best story I could find to write ended on the last page of book 3.

Secondary reasons include the fact I signed up for a trilogy. I told the readers it was a trilogy. And I didn’t want to be the guy who started stringing it out once it looked like being successful.

I’m happy with the decision (at least now!). I think there’s a power in knowing when to end things. It’s a bit like knowing when enough is enough, when the joke stops being funny, when it’s time to leave, when to stop speaking etc. As I said in the afterword, I would very much rather people remember wanting more when Jorg’s tale ended, rather than just remembering which of the dozen books they finally gave up on as Jorg became a caricature retreading old ground for the umpteenth time. 

The BiblioSanctum: With EMPEROR OF THORNS completing The Broken Empire trilogy, you’ve gone from new author to seasoned writer in the last few years. What has the journey been like for you? How has life changed?

Mark Lawrence: It’s been swift. I’ve gone from having no books out to having a completed trilogy out in a touch under two years. Life hasn’t changed very much at all really, excepting that I spend more time writing now, and because my very limited spare time has not increased that means I spend almost no time doing the stuff I listed on my author bio when I started. My life is still dominated by caring for my very disabled youngest daughter. My day job is still the next biggest call on my time, and my writing still gets slotted in around those things. The big change I guess is that I now spend a lot (too much probably) of time on twitter and facebook etc keeping in touch with readers.

"Every man has his thorns,
not of him, but in
him, deep as bones."
- Jorg Ancrath

The BiblioSanctum: What kind of things fuel your creative fires? Where or when do your best ideas come to you? On the flip side, do you ever have moments when you just need a break from writing, and in those cases, what do you do to zone out?

Mark Lawrence: I think the biggest source of fuel for my creative engine is boredom, or at least a vacant mind. I tend to get my best ideas when I’m cycling to work, or digging the garden, or sawing logs, or staring into space. When my mind empties then ideas bubble up to fill it. The more interesting and fun my life is the less I have to say.

I never really find I need a break, but I do manage to fit in the odd film or book. PC/console gaming sadly is something I just haven’t been able to make time for recently.

The BiblioSanctum: We loved your recent blog post about what THE BROKEN EMPIRE means to you, and your hope that it meant something to your readers. We also appreciate your constant interaction with fans through Twitter and your blog, with fun contests, advice on writing, sharing fanart and more. What's the best part about interacting with your fans?

Mark Lawrence: That’s hard to say. I’ve ‘met’ some great people over the past two years. With my caring duties I can’t go to conventions or signings, but chatting on the internet is a good substitute. I love reading reviews where people have really connected with my work, and one of the best things has been the competitions where I get to see so much creativity and skill on display, often in areas where I’m lacking myself. It’s also been rewarding to have been able to raise so much money for the charity that runs children’s hospices (including one that my daughter uses). But I guess in the end the best part is that some of those fans have become friends.

Thank you for your time, Mark!

Book Review: Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal

Glamour in Glass by Mary Robinette Kowal

I think 2013 has seen me branching out into more sub-genres of fantasy than any other year, thanks to participating in events like the Worlds Without End's Women of Genre Fiction Reading Challenge. Once, Mary Robinette Kowal fell into the category of "An author I've never read before, but would really like to" and so the book I chose for the challenge was 2012 Nebula Award nominated Glamour in Glass.

Someone once told me that when writing a review, it helps to think about what makes a book different and why readers should care. For this one, the thing that struck me right away was the setting. But while I may have read fantasy fiction aplenty that takes place in this time period, this is the first time I've actually ventured into something with strong elements of Regency romance, complete with the stylistic conventions that bring to mind the works of Jane Austen. This is also the first time I've ever heard the term "Fantasy of manners". Hooray for discovering new things!

It wasn't until after I picked up Glamour in Glass that I discovered it was actually the second book of a sequence called the Glamourist Histories. Normally, I dislike reading books in a series out of order, more out of a fear that I'd get lost than anything. That's why I was happy to learn that you don't have to read the first book Shades of Milk and Honey to follow the story and understand what's going on. The magic system in this book, called Glamour weaving and described with textile-related metaphors, was sufficiently explained and the general idea of it is easy to pick up. I also quickly got that our main characters, Jane and Vincent, were newly married since the last book, and now they're looking forward to settling down to a life of nuptial bliss and doing Glamour together.

However, at the start of this book is also the period following the abdication of Napoleon. While Jane and Vincent are on their honeymoon in Belgium, the deposed emperor escapes exile and makes his return to France, leaving the newlyweds with no easy way to return to England. 

Certainly, this book was somewhat of a departure from the kind of fantasy I usually read and the experience was very new and different for me. The language and characters' mannerisms are definitely in keeping with the time period, which I have to admit was delightful and yet frustrating at the same time. Mostly, the frustrations come from the narrator Jane and the way she dwells on issues for a long time and perceives every little indignity as a personal slight to her, especially those pertaining to marriage and her husband.

I find this still bothers me even when taking into account the era in which these books take place, a time when men and women's statuses vastly differ, so I'm not holding that against Jane. Instead, my dissatisfaction of her character stems from from her relationship with Vincent and how often their marriage feels "off". First of all, a big chunk of the novel's conflict is the result of a breakdown of communication between the two of them. I've seen this trope commonly used in romances, but I'm personally not a fan of it.

Also, despite being madly in love, the two of them don't seem to know each other very well. Awkwardly, Jane is still constantly discovering new things about her husband that surprises her or makes her doubt him, and I also found myself questioning why she so often feels the need to seek permission or approval from him for every little decision. I have to assume their courtship mustn't have lasted very long, but perhaps this is where I need to pick up Shades of Milk and Honey to find out. 

Speaking of the first book, I do intend to go back and read it. Despite my problems with the main character, I thought this book was well-written and contains interesting ideas. I can't really talk about some of the issues in it without giving away too many spoilers, but suffice to say the emotional reactions of the characters are very well-described, deep, and most importantly, realistic and believable. I also love the idea of Glamour magic, which is just abstract enough to give one the sense that it's so much more than can be put into words. I'm looking forward to learning more details about Glamour in the first book, as well as in future installments of this series.

3.5 of 5 stars

 

An Interview with Ascension Author Jacqueline Koyanagi

The first thing that struck me about Ascension: A Tangled Axon Novel was the cover. It’s rare to see a person of colour – and a female at that – as the main protagonist in a science fiction/fantasy story. But in reading the book, I learned that there was far more to Alana Quick. And a lot more to her inspirational creator, Jacqueline Koyanagi.

Ascension was recently released in digital format and reviewed on Bibliosanctum but reading and enjoying the book wasn't enough for me! Thankfully, Ms. Koyanagi very kindly agreed to satiate my curiosity about both book and author in this interview!

Book Review: The Golem and The Jinni by Helene Wecker

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

I absolutely adored this. Magical realism at its finest! And even though it wasn't exactly what I had expected, I can't really say that I minded. Otherwise, as a character so deftly put it in this book, I would be like "a man who complains that someone stole the eggs from his henhouse and replaced them with rubies."

This fantasy novel is also a touching and meaningful immigrant tale at its heart, combining religion and mythology to tell a story of two supernatural creatures who find themselves in New York City in 1899. Chava is a magically-crafted clay golem, brought to life to serve a husband who dies at sea while on the voyage from Poland. When the ship reaches NYC, she is left directionless and without a master. Ahmad is a jinni, released accidentally after being trapped in a copper flask for hundreds of years. Though freed from the vessel, he finds himself still bound to the physical world by a band of iron around his wrist, placed there by the wizard who imprisoned him so long ago.

The story plays out like a fairy tale for adults, complete with elements like love and villains. It is filled with wonderful, fully-realized characters which hooked me from the start. The multiple narratives paint an enchanting picture of the bustling and culturally rich setting of turn-of-the-century New York, where immigrants from so many places around the world settled in the hopes of finding a better life. In this milieu, the golem and the jinni become two more faces in the crowd trying to seek a new beginning in America. Despite being creatures of lore, their struggles and aspirations make them feel entirely too human.

Both the golem and the jinni face questions and obstacles that deal with the notion of freedom versus subjugation; how the two characters approach these issues and choose to deal with them is what forms the basis for this story and makes it so interesting. In this novel, everyone you meet will guard their secrets and hold mysteries in their past. As you read on, the fun is in watching all these histories unfold and the connections start to form. 

Just simply a beautiful book, and a great choice if you're in the mood for some literary fantasy.

4.5 of 5 stars

Audiobook Review: Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

This is the third Neil Gaiman book I’ve read and I’ve noticed a trend:

An average, unmemorable male protagonist with slightly/over-controlling girlfriend/recently turned fiancé crosses paths with an unusual human that turns out to be magical and leads the protagonist into a whole new world of magic that has always been there for those willing to see it. Apparently, this is such a common occurrence for Gaiman’s characters, that he’s even written instructions on what to do in such an occasion in A Wolf at the Door: And Other Retold Fairy Tales . Unfortunately, Richard, in this case, has never read those instructions, and, as with the other characters I’ve met in the other books, spends a frustratingly large amount of time in disbelief of the world unfolding around him. This reminded of Alif the Unseen , where the main character, an avid fantasy reader, stumbles into the same situation. The creature in question notes that North Americans in particular love science fiction and fantasy stories, but are the least likely to believe when presented with the reality of them.

In Neverwhere, Richard’s life is significantly altered when he stops to help a wounded girl. She is the Lady Door and she’s being hunted by some very dangerous men. She leads Richard to the London beneath where the people who slip through the cracks reside. Don’t be so quick to discount the street people wrapped in blankets, the story seems to say. All sorts of knowledge and magic could be wrapped up within their filthy coats and blankets.

Once Richard is forced from his dull life, the adventure becomes fairly typical and Richard works his way through various gauntlets to prove himself a hero in the end and change his perspective on life and on himself. Again, this is a similar theme in the other Gaiman books, however, each one does it in a unique way with very memorable supporting characters so, while the process might be similar, the journey is still fun and interesting each time.

This was an audiobook listen, and I was pleased to discover that it was narrated by Gaiman himself. Since beginning my foray into the wonderful world of audiobooks, I’ve wondered how much the narrators deal with the authors (not much or at all, it seems). Do they get the pronunciations right? Have they captured the author’s intent with the various characters and situations? For the most part, the answer seems to be yes to the latter, at least, but with Gaiman reading his own works, the answer is absolute

3 of 5 stars

Mogsy's Book Haul

Added a few more books to both my physical and digital library since my last book haul update! First, the mailbox pile:

Ex-Communication was a book I received from LibraryThing's Early Reviewers, which I was very excited about! I very much enjoyed the two books that came before and just love this fun and action-filled series about superheroes and zombies. 

Generation V was a review request, and my thanks to the author M.L. Brennan who kindly sent me a copy of her very awesome and original urban fantasy novel. Both Ex-Communication and Generation V were great! I think I devoured both these books within days after they arrived, so be sure to keep an eye out for the reviews in the coming weeks.

Atria Books also just had one of their Galley Alleys which was how I got sent a copy of Dragon's Child, the first book of M.K. Hume's The King Arthur trilogy. Originally published in 2009, the Atria paperback and ebook edition will be available later this year in the fall. It looks interesting, so I'll probably get to it closer to the release.

Finally, I won an Amazon gift certificate last month for a review I wrote on Worlds Without End, so naturally, it went towards buying -- what else -- more books. That's how I got Anthony Ryan's Blood Song. I probably could have waited until later when I've whittled my summer reading list down some more to pick this up, but it just looked really good. I suppose I wanted it on hand in case the urge to pick it up and read it becomes overwhelming.

On to the digital pile:

I told myself I would try damn hard to hold myself back from requesting any more eARCs from NetGalley until I catch up a bit on my reading list, and so far I've been doing really well. Of course, it's also a new month now, so we'll see how that goes. On the other hand, I did get a few new ebook additions, and the two above are a couple of the highlights.

I was practically beside myself with happiness when I received Hollow World by Michael J. Sullivan. It's not due for wider release until next year, but people who backed the Kickstarter campaign were able to get it first. Much respect to Mr. Sullivan, as the book was sent to readers in July like he originally promised, with only an hour to spare. I have to say it was a great way to end day, though, seeing that in my inbox.

And lastly, The Red Knight was a book that caught my eye when it was a Kindle SFF daily deal, and it seemed like a few of my friends on Goodreads had rated and reviewed it quite highly. For $1.99, I couldn't pass it up, and from the description it looks like something I'd love to read.

Books in the cloud

I discovered a new toy today and have been making clouds of all the things! Here is the cloud of words commonly used here at Bibliosanctum. Looks like we're doin' it right! We hope you like read more, too. ;-)

August Book Club Read: The Ocean at the End of the Lane

From this list of recommended summer reads, members of the LeVar's Rainbow Book Club selected Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane for August.

A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Book Review: The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman

The Walking Dead: Rise of the Governor by Robert Kirkman
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

Yeah, my summer reading is in a funny cycle right now, and my current bender has been focused on The Walking Dead.

Anyhow, I pretty much have to cut this whole review for major spoilers, and it's a little hard to talk about the story without talking about the biggest spoiler of them all in this book. So, I'll just use this little quote from the book as a spoiler warning and for spoiler space:

As they drive off, each and every one of them--even Penny--glances back through the rear window at the little square sign receding into the distance behind them: 

ALL DEAD 

DO NOT ENTER