The Lancelot Murders

Fantasy/Murder mystery by J.M.C. Blair

If this book is any example, the legend of Arthur is undergoing some considerable rewriting nowadays.
The Lancelot Murders introduces us to the legendary characters with more human failings than were ever seen in the original legends:
* An increasingly disillusioned Arthur tends to drink too much.
* Guenevere, who is a non-stop schemer and plotter (mostly plotting to yank the throne out from under her estranged husband) is also shown as someone who likes her men BIG and DUMB ...
* and this leads us to Lancelot, who appears to have the I.Q. of a fig.
Blair's Merlin -- my favourite character in the book -- is very similar to the Merlin in Walt Disney's Sword in the Stone: grumpy but shrewd and somebody you wouldn't hesitate to go to with a problem.
And there is no magic -- not a smidgen -- in this version of the legend.
Blair's Merlin is a scholar and researcher, seeking to build on the knowledge of ancient civilizations, who gets increasingly annoyed when people refer to him as a great wizard or sorcerer.
I had some doubts about whether this book belonged in this blog. However, the Arthurian legend as a whole almost qualifies as a fantasy, as historians and interested laypersons have squabbled for decades over whether he really existed and if so, who was he?
So between that ... and the rather startling anomalies in the story ... I figured it fit nicely in here.
As for startling anomalies ... at the beginning of the story, Arthur is advised that a messenger has arrived carrying mail.
Mail?
Then one of the commanders of the guards refers to an 'intelligence report.'
Come again? Is there some Arthurian version of the CIA here?
Also note that the commander in question is a woman.
However, the author makes no claims that this is even remotely historically accurate. A different author, Peter Telep, in the introduction to one of his books, says the Arthurian legend contains anachronisms and contradictions that are maddening to authors.
Blair takes advantage of this to give us a lightweight retelling of the legend with Merlin as a Dark Ages Sherlock. Merlin alone makes it well worth reading, but if you can get past the out-of-time oddities it's a fun read overall.

Kitty Goes to War

A series by Carrie Vaughn

Kitty Norville is the host of The Midnight Hour, a radio call-in show.
She's also an alpha werewolf.
I'd never heard of this series before I picked this up but would like to read more. This particular novel is especially intriguing because it's timely: someone is creating werewolf soldiers to fight in Afghanistan -- and some of them have gone rogue.
Now they're loose in the U.S., and Kitty wants to track them down before officials do. She hopes to 're-humanize' them. The officials just want them ... gone.
As if that's not enough, she's also being sued by a convenience store franchise owner who's ticked off that she has implied on her radio show that his chain is attracting, shall we say, occult nastiness.
If this is a standard example of the series, it's a good series with well-developed characterizations. People are not necessarily all good or all bad. Even the ultimate rogue werewolf has his reasons -- not that they excuse his behaviour. And she explains the behaviours of the other members of the rogue pack in well-informed terms of lupine behaviour: wolf packs are highly organized, and the social order is extremely important. So what happens to the pack when the alpha male disappears?
Besides the human viewpoint, Vaughn also frequently attempts to give us a wolf's-eye view of things -- the view the werewolves have after they transform.
Overall it sounds like an intriguing series and one worth following.

Rotten Relations

ANTHOLOGY EDITED BY DENISE LITTLE

Everybody knows Santa Clause, right? The jolly fat guy in the red suit who brings presents to all good little children.
But did you ever wonder what it would be like to be Santa's child?
Especially in the 20th century?
"Every year it's the same. Out all night on Christmas Eve, he flies back in the middle of Christmas Day with a massive sugar hangover, and falls into bed without a Merry Christmas to anyone."
So grumbles Santa's not-quite-thirteen-year-old son, self-nicknamed 'Sharp,' in Home for the Holidays. It's one of 15 stories in the anthology Rotten Relations, edited by Denise Little.
" ... It's worse since Dad took over the Three Kings' outfit. Months of negotiations in Mexico, conference calls from Spain at all hours, and now he insists on going out personally on Epiphany, too. Rides a burro behind the three camels. Comes home with saddle sores."
"Sharp" sounds like every other kid slouching through the early teen years since adolescence was invented -- your parents have gone from people you look up to, to the leading citizens of Dorkville. But it's done with such humour that you can't help but sympathize, even as you grin.
Among the other stories:
* the real lowdown on why Grendel killed Beowulf (father abandones pregnant girlfriend, never bothers to check up on his son, you gotta think that's gonna
come back and bite you ... in this case, literally ...),
* an intriguing retelling of Cinderella (which girl did the prince really get?),
* a follow-up to Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story Young Goodman Brown -- by no less than a distant relative of Hawthorne's,
* Mirror, Mirror cleverly combines the Snow White story with a recognizable retelling of the story of Henry VIII -- though his last wife bore little resemblance to the story's narrator;
* the story of the young Arthur, from his arrival in Sir Ector's household until his coronation feast, told from the point of view of Sir Ector's son Kay -- and this Arthur has an edge that we don't usually see in the legends.

My favourites in this anthology were Mirror, Mirror and Cuckoo's Egg (the Arthurian tale), mainly because I've got a strong interest in both Tudor history and Arthurian legend to begin with.

But most of the stories are engaging, clever and well-written.

Of them, I found Rapunzel -- The True Story to be the most confusing. The last line reads, "The scene held for a moment before collapsing into something else, as all the scenes of life are wont to do, especially if a witch is stage-managing them." I could wish that the witch in question had stage-managed things in a more orderly fashion; I found it hard to keep track of exactly what was happening as the story progressed.

Still, given the wide array of familiar characters in unfamiliar settings, times and storylines, it's an anthology that's well worth checking out.

The Sorcerer's Academy

ANTHOLOGY EDITED BY DENISE LITTLE

This is a book about a school for students with magical powers.
No, no, not that school for students with magical powers ....
This school is set in Sedona, Arizona.

The Sorcerer's Academy is an anthology of 15 stories. It leads off with the arrival at "Sorcerer U" of three students in particular: Janice Rosa Redding, from New York; Barry Silverhorse, born on a Dine reservation in Arizona, but raised by an aunt in Los Angeles after being orphaned at 6, and Matt Johnson, of Dallas, Texas (where Sedona is known as the "Land of the Wild Woowoos," because of its apparently hefty collection of "New Agers, Crystal Worshippers and Tree Huggers."

The original three students are supplemented by others in the various stories and the authors have used the opportunity to bring in an international staff and multicultural curriculum (Slavic Sorcery, Oriental Sorcery, Totem Animals of North America). There is a student who is not what she seems and a parrot who is not what it seems.
Oh, and although electronics are highly sensitive to magic and must have protective wards, renewable weekly, there is also a course called Cyber-Magic. Where do I sign up?
The students come across as very realistic: they are by turns anxious and stubborn, frightened but determined to do what needs to be done ... they occasionally blow up sections of the school and have school dances at which one student berates another for dating a vampire ... okay, so maybe those last bits aren't all that realistic ....

I could have done with a little less realism in the case of one of student. Silva (we never learn her last name), who has a massive crush on a popular singer, constantly uses "so" as an emphasizer: "He just soooooooo deserves it." "It'd have been soooooooo worth it." "I soooooooo totally understand him."

I wanted to hit her with a silence hex until she learned some new adjectives and adverbs (or any at all, since "so" is neither). That aside, however, the story is still engaging ... she has dreams about meeting her idol but why do they cause her to scream half the dorm awake -- especially when she can't recall anything even remotely unpleasant about the dreams?

And the first story ends on a note of mystery: a shadowy room, peopled -- if that is the right word -- with beings who are particularly interested in the trio in the first story. Who are they? Do they wish the students well or are they malevolent? Their interest could be read both ways.

Add to that the fact the head of the school is named David Reynard ... and Reynard the Fox was medieval Europe's trickster figure ...

I have to add that I was mildly annoyed by the introduction, a segment of which came across as both smug and jingoistic. It is, however, a small gripe, and did not at all affect my enjoyment of the stories.

The Hickory Staff

Book 1 of The Eldarn Sequence, written by Robert Scott and Jay Gordon.
I picked this book up on a whim and made several attempts before I got through it – not because it’s a bad book, I should add. But it hits nearly 600 pages and it’s a complex story with about a dozen major characters.Nor does it help that the first chapter is labelled “Next winter.” Um, what? Did I miss something? Like, maybe, a few dozen chapters?The story then shifts to Rona, a land best described geographically as “elsewhere” (it has two moons so we know it’s not on earth) and then jumps to Colorado, in the late 1800s.
You see why I’ve had to go through it more than once?
Once you get past that, however, it settles into a more reliable storyline. It revolves around Steven Taylor, a bored assistant bank manager in Idaho Springs, Colorado, and his friend and roommate, history teacher Mark Jenkins. They find what appears to be a large piece of finely woven cloth, but are a little unnerved by the glitter and flicker that hovers in the air over it. Both find out the hard way (one stumbles onto it and the other, after figuring out what has happened, steps onto it deliberately) that it is a portal to Rona.
Aha. Now we’ve got the connection.
Rona is a land filled with magic. It is also suffering under the oppression of Nerak, a rarely-seen and probably no-longer-human leader, who is trying to garner even more power than he already has. The results would be disastrous for not only Rona but earth as well ... for Ronans have travelled to earth and back for centuries.
Mark and Steven fall in with partisans battling Nerak and this first book tracks them across the country. Once I managed to figure out what was going on and who was where, I found it to be a very engaging book. The characters are three-dimensional: one, a skilled warrior and proficient killer, hates what he does but must use his talent to protect his friends. Steven has to face his own cowardice. Others reflect on what they should have done, or could do better in the future.
And the book actually is well-organized, despite my first impression. The 600 pages hold five books, according to the contents (and a map, which I never pay attention to as I can’t even read a standard map of earth). Book 1 focuses on Colorado; Book 2 on Rona, and each of the other three on a different area of the “elsewhere” land.
My one complaint is with Book 3: the party takes shelter in a trapper’s cabin. The trapper herself is introduced in the next chapter – for no apparent purpose other than to be introduced and die. It seemed to me a waste of a chapter; it could have been used to further the storyline or just left out altogether. However, since this is the first book in what is (at the moment) a trilogy, it’s obviously not the end of the story, and she may turn up again.
Overall, I’d recommend The Hickory Staff, although it’s the type of book that is best read over long stretches rather than in quick snatches. I’m looking forward to reading the sequels, and seeing how Steven, Mark and the partisans are faring.

Ghost of a Chance

Supernatural mystery novel written by Yasmine Galenorn
How would you react to a translucent figure hovering over your bed in the wee hours of darkness?
If you’re like most people, it would probably involve a screaming exit from the bed.
For Emerald O’Brien, however, it’s just an annoyance.
Emerald, divorced mother of two children and a lifelong psychic trained by her “Nanna,” runs the Chintz ‘n’ China Tea Room (“Not Tea Shoppe, with the cutesy extra pe, but Room”) in the small town of Chiqetaw, Washington. Recently deceased romance author Susan Mitchell can’t speak but she can write ... her name and her plea: “I was murdered by my husband, but nobody knows. Help me.”
The official report says Susan died after slipping into a diabetic coma. But she was hospitalized four times in the previous year for low-blood-sugar seizures, which suggests a certain sloppiness on her part. Susan later appears to Emerald's son, Kip, followed by something dark, formless and evil.
Ghost of a Chance is the first of what is often called the ‘Chintz ‘n’ China series’ which features Emerald O’Brien. I enjoyed it well enough. It’s well-written with a good pace and I found the characters believable. Emerald struggles with problems common to divorced mothers everywhere -- including a disappearing and deadbeat husband.
However, I have to say it's also a fairly light read. I didn't find it to be the type of book that grips you to the point of letting dinner burn because you can't put it down.
Still, I like the addition of the supernatural -- the real thing, not a prank gone wrong. It adds a twist to what might otherwise be a basic mystery story.
It's not every day that a murder victim comes in person to plead for justice.

About Me

I've always been an avid reader. I've read most genres (my interest in the classics came to a screeching halt with my attempt to read War and Peace).

My current interest is primarily fantasy novels. These range from 'adult' novels to the ones you find in the teens' and children's sections. My interest in this genre started about a decade ago with my purchase of the first book in a seven-book series about a certain boy wizard ....

Some of these books are complex and lengthy, others are extremely simplistic and short, but all have one thing in common: a lot of imagination. Somebody -- or, in the case of multi-author books, more than one somebody -- has to gone to considerable trouble to create and populate a whole new world.

In this blog I will share my opinions of these books. If I'm reviewing a series, I'll look at each book both individually and with an eye toward how it fits into the series. Does it add to the overall story arc, or does it seem as if the author has begun to flag? Are the characters still believable? Are there glaring inconsistencies?

To those who don't read this genre, I hope my comments will spark some interest in it. To those who do, if you have an author, book or series you would like to recommend, I would love to hear about it.