Review: The Circus of Dr Lao, Charles G. Finney

In the town of Abalone, Arizona, an ad in the local newspaper informs the populace that later that day a circus will be ready to entertain them. A parade through the town will give them a taste of the upcoming wonders, whereafter they can make their way to the circus staging grounds where they can acquaint themselves with the individual freaks and creatures before moving on to the main circus tent proper, for the beginning of the main show itself.

With skepticism, doubt and curiosity the cynical and occasionally hopeful citizens make their way to the circus, determined to either have fun or not be taken in by the obvious chicanery that these establishments provide. When the day is done, will the citizens of Abalone abandon their cynicism and appreciate the wonders that Doctor Lao's circus is capable of showing them?

"... and the sun beat down on the circus grounds of Abalone, Arizona.

Then a gong clanged and brazenly shattered the hot silence. Its metallic screams rolled out in waves of irritating sound. Heat waves scorched the skin. Dust waves seared the eyes. sound waves blasted the ears. The gong clanged and banged and rang; and one of the tents opened and a platform was thrust out and a Chinaman hopped on the platform and the gong's noise stopped and the man started to harrangue the people; and the circus of Doctor Lao was on..."

First off; I had alot of fun with this novel. The humor, whether slyly ironic or with its ribald sexual innuendo, is present throughout and, having been written in 1935, is pretty progressive for its time. There's alot of cynicism and poking fun at humanity present, so much so that at times I felt as if I was reading something akin to a Terry Pratchett novel.

At a 154 pages, the book is pretty short, including the 20 page catalogue at the back of the book which shouldn't be skipped as it's a tongue-in-cheek look at some of the elements present in the book and definitely the source for alot of laughs. It gives a little more information, mostly humorous, about characters, creatures, items and even a list of foodstuffs present in the story; whether that is stuff that is actually supposed to be eaten or not... There's also a list of questions that are asked that will draw your attention to some of the contradictions and unresolved plotlines from the book. Calling them plotlines is a bit much though, as the book is very economically structured and there's almost no time for anything outside of the main event. And when we hit the climax, the book ends abruptly. This niggles a bit, but the catalogue section is supposed to alleviate the sudden end and actually fills in some plot that takes place after the book's ending. You could say it's integral.
Nevertheless, despite this limiting structure , we get a good sketch of the inhabitants of the town and it's easy to see them epitomize alot of the reactions that mankind would have to actual magic. Here, it's mostly cynicism; a suspicion that they're being made fun of and thereby unwilling to give in to the magic of the circus or even a sort of embarrassed and wilful denial because of an inflated sense of self-worth; holding on to their preconceptions they can't let their bubble be burst and in irritation they vanish from the scene.
There's a few characters that give in to the wonder, although their responses are extremely restricted and have to be either read in between the lines or in the Catalogue section at the back of the book. Though even there, not alot is said. Charles Finney didn't have a good opinion of mankind at the time when he wrote the book and it's pretty obvious, as he tends to focus on the negative side of things.

This day and age you can't look past it, I suppose; there are, at face value, some elements of racism present. But in my opinion it never becomes overbearing and needs to be taken into context.

Living in Tucson, Arizona (on which the town of Abalone is based), Finney drew on his own experiences in Tientsin, china, during his 2 years in the army, and it seems to bring an informed sensitivity to his apprach; despite the period-accurate slang and nomenclature he decries the shortsighted townsfolk of Abalone for their limited worldviews and ideologies and brings an admirable depth to the character of Dr Lao himself, who switches effortlesly between the stereotypical clichéd, chinaman with a thick accent, and a well-spoken, cultured philosopher ,depending on his audience. Figures of authority, raucous youths and other disrespectful citizens get brushed off with the cliché. The general curiosity seekers and the ones most open to the magic of the circus get a pleasant, rambling discourse from a well-traveled cynic. An interesting character; alarming how he seemed to be present everywhere, though.

What I personally had some reservations about, actually, was how this man that seemed to love his menagerie and stable of mythical beasties was so indifferent and dismissive of these same sentient creatures' wishes to be released and of their yearning for freedom. It showed a cold and dark side to his nature, belying his general benevolent depiction in the rest of the tale.
At one point he calls the sea serpent his nemesis. Whereas that beast mostly just wants his freedom, Doctor Lao sees some self-aggrandizing theme in that beast's existence.

The circus of Doctor Lao, because of its relative short length , large doses of ironic humor and general cynical approach to humanity is one of the more enjoyable fantasy masterworks I've read.
And I'd recommend it to most people ,with the caveat of reading this more with an eye towards the fun rather than the underlying ideas. Those can get a little bleak.



And now, a lengthy appreciation and some sexy spoilers for a few minor scenes in the book.

Review: Beyond the Shadows

Well shit, that was pretty awful.
I've thought about distancing myself from my experience and my views on this book and trying to give as objective a (re)view as possible, because in the end every book is an ideal book to someone, and it seems the very height of hubris to dismiss something just because its not in line with my views.
But these are my posts. They're my opinion and as accurately as possible reflect my experience and it's likely that they won't match yours.
So, feel free to discard or even contradict, it doesn't really matter.

Now, where do I even begin?

Maybe with a disclaimer or something;
Now that it's all done, I would've doubtless felt different about it had I known how to apprach it though even then I know I'm obviously not in the right age group to be reading this trilogy.
Though it deals with occasionally dark subject matter there's a disconnect with how maturely it's approached. That, coupled with its characters seeming preoccupation with sex and chastity leads me to believe that the Night Angel trilogy is ideally read by adolescent males below 18 preferably with no past reading experience with any sort of competent writing, fantasy or otherwise.

Yes, from that backstabbing disclaimer you can probably tell I'm more than a little irked.

The more I read of this trilogy, the less I liked it.
Every book took a while to get into but this one, was something else.

Book one was pretty good. A gritty coming-of-age story of a boy-assassin. The childish tone of the story was easily dismissed because of the characters' age, and the plot was, if not inspired or original, at least competent in its execution, its escalating stakes and rapid pace. The square focus on the main character was servicable and it made him relatable.

Book two was the story of several adolescent males coming to grips with their hugely altered lives in the wake of the devastation of book 1. Oh, and their one-note female love interests are also present but serve mostly as plot devices. Several strands of said plot, by the way, get abandoned until they're given lip-service in the final pages, just in time for book 3.
There are some very odd beats and character decisions here, easily explained as the characters are still young and any traumatic fallout from the calamity from book 1 is to be expected but it still takes up over half of the book's plot for these things to be resolved and any actual forward progression  to be made. Half of it was due to the author, undoing the decisions that characters made at the end of book 1.
However, any problems are easily read over and dismissed because of one particular character's interesting storyline (interesting to me at least), a deeper, more engaging magic system, several mysteries and the promise of a spectacular resolution.
This is helped by seemingly better writing, a better sense of pace and less irritating dialogue.
And would you know, that ending delivered on its promise.

And now we come to book 3.

Which is in almost every way a big step down from the previous book.
Everything gets rushed and that bad scene transitioning from book 1 that I mentioned?
It's back with a vengeance. And that's not all.

Though I'm sure that the big plotlines were there all along the story is made up of clichéd and extremely shallow worldbuilding with contrived plot elements coming out of nowhere, without rhyme or reason. It was as if the author just started flinging whatever shit he could find at the wall, seeing what would stick and then deciding to just use it all anyway. What's worse is how these new elements were introduced: Whenever something new is needed to advance plot, character, the magic system or the worldbuilding, then that something will get namedropped in a random conversation bare pages or even sentences before it is needed and then; boom! it's there and without any time to adapt we're supposed to accept it and incorporate it into our existing vision of the world.
It gives the whole thing a semblance of having no actual rules.

Because there's always something new around the corner, as the author re-writes the rules to service his plot, the characters are never in any real harm. And for a book that relies solely on plot, this kind of unreserved bloating can be very damaging. It takes away our trust in the author as a craftsman and turns him into a stage-magician pulling rabbits out of his hat. After a while there's so many different long-ears on display that it becomes quite impressive, until you realize that only the bare minimum of them are actual rabbits, rather than the fluffed up balls of fur that they actually are (I'm saying it's shallow, and that all those impressive names don't actually have anything of substance behind them).
The actual handling of the plot is some of the worst of the trilogy as whole swathes of the story kept getting skipped or revisited to be narrated to the reader after the facts, accompanied by steady but indiscriminate infodumping. Dumped, as I mentioned before, mere scenes before that information would actually start to steer the plot, before being forgotten as something else would be introduced.
A very visible author's hand.

Against all that though, there was one marvelous piece of worldbuilding. a nice bit of sleight of hand that slid right under my nose for most of the trilogy. When it was finally revealed, it actually made like the author's dedication to some of the plot build-up. The element had been there all along but until it was stated black on white, it had completely passed me by.
So, kudos for that one.

I got the feeling that though the quality of the writing had improved, the plot in contrast was very unoriginal and too much time was spent in storylines that were only relevant for its shallow worldbuilding and possibly for a future trilogy rather than actually being crucially relevant to the plotline in this book.

And that ending was disgustingly puerile nonsense.
Hope and true love and magic and everything is perfect in a perfect city.
There was a death that was supposed to make the ending bittersweet but I had stopped caring about this particular character mere pages into book 2 because the character was so over the top saintly and good and best about all that was pure in the world, so that I had hoped for a while that she would just, to god, die already.
So no, the ending did not satisfy and it actually was a big dissappointment.
That, followed by a hackneyed feel-good monologue of what everyone was going to do now that the big bad plot had happened and every last good feeling I had had about the story just evaporated.

The characters were the same immature people this time imbued with a veneer of responsibility.
There's at least one character that has changed radically from someone that that person used to be. The book explained it as a deliberate changing of self but it seemed more a change to suit exposition rather than any actual evolution or growth to the character.
Other characters, but not alot of them; before, seemingly extreemly relevant to the plot get cast aside as soon as convenient and are not revisited.

The antagonists are underdeveloped and constitute the brunt of what I mentioned before about the author seemingly just pulling stuff out of his hat. At times I felt literally inundated with various new magic types of demons, characters and hellbeasts of all sizes. At one point it seemed as if a big moment of pay-off was present at the time of reading, but in hindsight that particular reveal didn't actually end up meaningful.

The fragmentation of the character viewpoints didn't help with keeping me invested. because half of the points of view were boring until the moment something interesting happened. and then the author switched back to another p.o.v. that wasn't as interesting. this repeated again and again and again made for some very slow reading.
I've read other books that used this same technique and they pulled it off.
Just being flippant now, I assume it's down to the characters' unique voice, or here, lack of it.

So in summation; this is yet another time I've fallen victim to the hype train.
Debuts are usually shaky but even then, good authors show promise in their debut and though the quality of Weeks' writing did actually improve (marginally) over the course of the books, there's on a more personal level reasons to not read his work;
The best books are books that work on several levels.
This book and in fact the whole trilogy only works on the one; plot. and that one was simplistic, puerile, rushed and poorly plotted. Add to that boring and occasionally inconsistent characters and this becomes just too much of an uphill struggle. I'm done with this kind of writing and I'm done reading Brent Weeks.

EDIT: Yes of course. not liking this trilogy doesn't make it impossible that I won't like anything else this author has written or will write. But I also doubt that there's going to be such massive jump in writing quality that'll make his future books take their place among the best I will have read. As such, it doesn't seem worth the bother.

American Gods trailer

Well... that was unexpectedly bloody...
I've got alot of problems with this trailer but hey... we'll see.

Small opinions after the jump.

Taboo Season 1 Review

Of course my last post didn't give me any other option than having to review Taboo myself, so here we go.

As the war between the British Empire and the United States (secretly) nears its end a man long thought dead returns home to Brittain. An enigmatic man of hidden wealth and dark secrets, surrounded by rumors and whispers of terrible violence and depravity from his stay in Africa; James Keziah Delaney.
He returns to London at the time of his father's death and becomes the sole inheritor of his father's mansion and little remaining wealth. Key in the inheritance, however, is the deed to a tiny strip of land on America's west coast, Nootka Sound on the island of Vancouver. It is the hinge on which the trade between America and China turns.
At odds with his halfsister and her bullying drunk of a husband, The East India Trading Company and the King himself, James Delaney, though his motives are vague and his end goal in doubt, will have to play a shadowy game of manipulation using violence and deception to stay alive.

Tom Hardy as James Keziah Delaney is incredibly intense; an unblinking and piercing stare, ritualistic tattoos and a cloak-whipping gait throught the grimy streets of London set to some catchy theme music.
He's an odd man, scowling and mumbling and grunting his way through conversations, which can be very hit and miss for most viewers. I found it engaging and yet occasionally unintentionally hilarious.
He is drunk or delirious most of the time, doesn't seem to eat or sleep, he also seems to have special shamanistic powers and occasionaly suffers from alcohol or madness-fuelled hallucinations in which a painted crow lady cackles madly at the screen.

Some of those scenes, with their wildy varying filters, strange scenes and jumping visuals were a little annoying and I wished they'd used a different approach.

James Delaney also wears a hat.
You know, just like one of those it was fashionable to wear in london society at the time. There's nothing special about it. It isn't garishly pink. It isn't made from human skin and doesn't even cast an enormous shadow.
It's just a hat. There's no reason to dwell on it except that it's trendy to ascribe to any sort of meme zeitgeist in a weak and sad effort to broker a few laughs.
Put it on a hulking, muscular, broad-shouldered and scowling Tom Hardy though and there is an intimidating effect, I'll give it that.

1,2,3,4,5,6,7...8 Hats. Hmmm
You'd almost say it wasn't something out of the ordinary.

Jonathan Pryce, veteran actor who you might know from the early Pirates of the Caribbean films (Elizabeth's father) is a little typecasted here, playing the role of the head of the East India Company but he does seem to have enormous fun doing so.
Tom Hollander, also known from Pirates (as Cutler Beckett, the main East India Company villain of movies 2 and 3) steals every scene he's in, bringing some much needed levity to the show. A depraved chemist with a pallid skin, with a constant drug addled gaze that is contrasted by his pleasant and witty dialogue.

Laughing gas, shit chewing and 'duck hunting',
Good times.

Unlike others I did not like Mark Gattis as king George, I usually find him alright but in this show, looking like a prosthetics bomb went off, he's just over the top camp in any and every way.

Other notable actors are Oona Chaplin (yes, that Chaplin) as James' halfsister, inhabiting a wasted and sordid plotline. All staring eyes and little believeable acting. She's an odd contrast to her time in Game of Thrones.
Franka Potente as Helga, (I'm thinking the Bourne Identity?) is also hit and miss, mostly because of her thick accent. As opposed to others, I have to say that there are no whores with a heart of gold here. Just flawed but believable people living in a hard world.
In contrast to both, relative acting newcomer Jessie Buckley as Lorna Bow is a joy to watch as she plays a stage actress claiming to have been married to James' father.

Jessie Buckley as Lorna Bow
Wry grins added to grace and class.

A period show that has been a passion project for Tom Hardy, Taboo, intended to last three seasons, will follow James Delaney on his journey to Nootka Sound and will presumably end with him taking command of the island.
Directed by Ridley Scott, Taboo is written by Tom Hardy, his father Chips (yes) and Peaky Blinders creator Steven Knight.
It can be slow and plodding in its early hours. But if you don't mind being kept in the dark for a while and if you like Tom Hardy's acting it shouldn't be a problem to stick it out until things start to fall into place.

As I mentioned it's alot of fun to watch Tom Hardy strut around doing his stuff and occasionally stalking through the streets of London set to an inspired theme music that will ultimately reach its crescendo in the damn good season finale that manages to tie off practically every dangling plot thread with either unflinching brutality or quiet emotional moments.

The music is by Max Richter, who you might have had a taste of in the recent movie, Arrival. His "On the nature of Daylight" opens and closes that particular film. Here he does, I think, the entire score and it's a good one.



Some small warnings.
The sex and violence are pretty explicit but not gratuitously so.

Or  are they?

The taboo from the title derives its name from several themes; racism, slavery, incest, cannibalism, apparent sorcery and madness.

Lastly, the show's treatment of women seems to be a point of contest. I'd like to adress it here as it's relevant for a hypothetical future review (series or seperate seasons) of Black Sails, which can be accused of having the same problems.

It's hard to defend against any sort of accusation of misogyny.
In this time and age with everyone's hair-trigger access to technology, it's easy for anyone to spew bile at a moment's notice at the slightest provocation. The forward march of equality will get any show, movie or story that has women treated badly earmarked and boycotted as a misogynistic show. Taboo doesn't deserve this.

These things happened and still happen to this day. Women are threatened and women are beaten, raped, killed and worse.
Either way, It's worse to close your eyes to it, and to pretend it doesn't exist is not the answer.
Don't mistake depiction for endorsement.

And people who wilfully take issue knowing that it isn't intended as such are doubly at fault.


In the end, I really enjoyed watching Taboo and I'm looking forward to the next season.
Recommended.

Slight Rant

I'm not a good critical reviewer.
Of anything.

Give me some time to get into any form of fiction from any sort of media and I will get into it.

I'll accept it on its own terms and I'll try my best to understand why it all is the way it is.

I'm an analytical sponge and an emotional chameleon. anything anybody says I'll take in and incorporate into my own analysis and rarely anything will ever get dismissed. The more I'm aware of other people's opinions and views and criticisms the more I'll have to say myself. I'm not sure if this can be called plagiarism. Because they do end up my views. They become my opinion.
Sight seen not understood, once seen and made to understand will always be how I will then look at it. When a writer tells me why he did what he did, If I didn't before, I'll understand it then and I will adapt to it, I'll feel exactly what he wants me to feel. The more information I have the more I'll be in tune. It doesn't take effort on my part. Just give me the information and I'll be on your level.
Music in media is an extremely easy way to do this. Games, movies, series... Tug on those strings and you'll tug on mine.
When I watch any type of show I subconsciously take over mannerisms and speech patterns.
Last I was watching Eastbound and Down and I was quite amused and slightly apalled when I realized I was mimicking Danny McBride as Kenny Power's tone, his swearing and sentence structure.

It's like a special power and a blessing, a form of empathy, intensely in the moment. You'd be envious if you knew how much joy and heartache it gives and how easy that it comes to me. and I know that that sounds ridiculous, get off my fucking back, I'm really tired.
That's why whenever I read reviews I tend to become a little angry and mystified when the viewer or reader or listener doesn't apprach the experience the way it should be approached.

And here we get to the reason for this little rant.

Wertzone Review: Taboo season1

Adam Whitehead taking the piss out of Taboo is not what I expected to set me off. I have a huge respect for his analytical and critical capabilities and his blog and even in this review I can see all his points and agree with them. (give me time and I'll come around fully, and maybe this is why I got to to this post, a last ditch effort before I can only see Taboo as something to be ridiculed)

Taboo is grim and it's dark and it takes itself very seriously so I do too. so when I see Adam advising that it's only viewable without taking it serious... I just don't get it. The mocking of the hat especially makes me grit my fucking teeth.
Jocular mocking is something that seems to have become trendy in most types of review as of late and I really don't like it. It needs to crawl back into its little neon-lit hipster cave and choke on its dirty hipster socks.

This is a knee-jerk rant. I know. I'm taking it all too serious.
But it's how I do things. I am very serious, to my everlasting detriment. But as long as I'm aware of it I can be cautious about it. So here at the end I'd like to apologise for the low professional standard. And the pretentious and melodramatic phrasing. And the swearing. I apologize for that too.

Have a great fucking day.

Down the rabbithole; the search for Lyonesse

I've been looking to collect  a complete, matching set of Jack Vance's Lyonesse Trilogy.
I had a few options here.

As a compulsory collector and reader of the Fantasy Masterworks series (I came very late to the party though) I first looked if I might find the trilogy somewhere within its titles.
And yes they are; the three books are collected in 2 volumes:
Nr 27 Lyonesse 1 collects Suldrun's Garden and nr 35 comprising Lyonesse 2 and 3 collects The Green Pearl and Madouc. Because they've both been out of stock for a while, the second hand prices have become a prohibitively expensive. Lyonesse 1 seems pretty reasonable most of the time but Lyonesse 2 usually goes upwards of 60 dollars.
Yeah, hmm, I guess I'll just keep my eyes open for a good opportunity to collect these particular ones.

I also had already bought what I believe to be Suldrun's Garden under nothing but the name of "Lyonesse" as part of the Ultimate Fantasies Sequence published in 2008 by Gollancz.

Beautiful Artwork, Slight embossing and reflective lettering. 

It's an ex library copy and as such arrived in deplorable condition. I cleaned it up as best I could and bending it back in its original shape I wedged it for several months beneath some heavy objects and let it stay there. It turned out reasonably well but the entire book is still pretty yellow from exposure to sunlight. I'm pretty sure there's nothing to be done about that.
It's a start but as the Ultimate Fantasies Sequence is comprised of 8 books with only this one a jack Vance book I had to look elsewhere.

Very noticable discoloration on Lyonesse.
Also, 5 out of 8 books. I'm currently
tracking down the remaining 3.

Another option was to try and track down the Gollancz Big Black Books version, collecting all three books in a very handsome hardcover.

Pretty

Perfect for what I wanted but because I have the 2 books in the 6 book series that collect Lovecraft's work (Because the faux leather makes it seem like it's an occult work, what? shutup!) Buying Lyonesse in GBBB version would lead me to absolutely having to get the three remaining ones. Not a bad thing in itself as I've already read all of Conan and alot of Howard in general. That accounts for 2 more books in the Big Black Gollancz series but I'm not really keen to read Tarzan and the books in general are hard to track down and pretty expensive as a result.

Pay no attention to the dishevelled bookmarks,
been re-reading these
dipping in and out over the longest time.

I usually buy my books from the bookdepository and after fiddling with the advanced search button I got some interesting results.
There were some russian translations, some spanish versions with beautiful art but the odd purple text kind of put me off (not knowing any spanish might have something to do with it too, idem ditto russian). Some cd-audio versions and a whole host of out of stock notifications.
There were also versions without immediately visible cover art collecting each individual book in the trilogy. Pretty expensive at 19 euros per book. 150-230mm in paperback, a size I love. Great I thought, and delved a bit further.

Publisher was Spatterlight Press. Sounded kind of familiar but looking at their catalogue (we're still on the bookdepository site at this point) they hadn't published alot. In fact, all they seemed to have published was relative recent and all of it Jack Vance.

A slight tingle but I easily ignored it.

I then looked at google pictures at individual covers for the lyonesse trilogy as published by Spatterlight Press and something in my mind started to hum.
Overall pretty good-looking cover art but the bottom of the cover had a grey-white background with black lettering. I glanced at the rest of the visible pictures and there were a few similar ones, all by Jack Vance but not part of Lyonesse. All with that grey-white background with black lettering at the bottom. A theme...

At this point alarm bells were ringing.

Still in google Pictures I typed in Spatterlight Press and... my jaw dropped.

Nervous Excitement accompanied by a sinking feeling

62 Deluxe paperback volumes...
The Spatterlight Press signature series...

Jack Vance. Return of the Master.

Spatterlight Presents the collected body of work of Jack Vance-
An Integral edition in 62 deluxe paperbacks.

I went to their site and...

Spatterlight Press'- Jack Vance Signature Series

Turns out that Spatterlight Press was formed by friends and family of the late Jack Vance in order to publish, promote and preserve his entire written body of work, excluding a mystery crime trilogy he wrote for the Ellery Queen house name under the pseudonym of John Holbrook Vance.

A fucking titanic and dedicated undertaking of very high quality, still being published right now with a few evolving parameters (introductions by noteworthy authors, varied artists and such) and, for me, a chance to jump in early. Get the books as they come out. I'm not sure about the color pattern that a finished collection would have on shelves (see the picture of the hypothetical complete dutch version of the series above)  but regardless, it would be an absolute eye-drawing prestige piece worthy of any collector.

62 books though...

There's bound to be a few bad ones in there, right? I have a rule that whatever I buy has to be eventually read. It's an everlasting and ongoing process, but I haven't given up on it yet. There's a ridiculous amount on my To Be Read bookshelf though and I'm not sure if I'm willing to commit to anything of this magnitude. But on the other hand, it isn't as if they look like massive tomes.

I have already read The Dying Earth saga and after a wobbly start (mine) ended up liking it quite alot. I actually fell in love with the novella Dan Simmons did in homage to it, a very beautifully written little book. Also, I think the name Spatterlight came from somewhere in the Dying Earth Saga, but I'm not exactly sure from what. In this series The Dying Earth will take up 4 volumes.
The Lyonesse trilogy will take up 3 volumes.
Names that ring a bell are Emphyrio and Night Lamp which were both published under the SF Masterworks collection by Gollancz (which I will NEVER collect, there's simply too much in that collection for me to open that particular door).
The Blue World has an arresting cover that I doubt will hold up when I actually would have the thing in my hands.
The 5 volume Demon Princes has way better covers than whatever is out from other publishers right now.

Those are the ones that I had considered in the past and had thought about purchasing (barring Blue World). That's 14 out of 62, With 4 of those having been read already. And most of them don't really look that big...

I'm in trouble aren't I?

Review: Shadow's Edge

I finished Shadow's Edge this week, book 2 of the night angel trilogy.
I thought it was pretty engaging and a huge improvement over the quality of book 1.
A more measured, but still very fast, sense of pacing with better scene transitioning and better dialogue, though its romantic parts still managed to irk me at times. It also has a hugely upscaled and interesting magic system and way more atention to worldbuilding, though that still isn't very great.

Plotwise the story follows on directly from book 1, so much so that I felt that this was part 2 of one big book. Not alot of time is spent reintroducing characters and plotlines so it does feel advisable that the books should be read fairly close together.
I had alot of fun with the progressing storyline and I wasn't as much bothered by some of its more obvious flaws as I was with its predecessor although there were still some moments of ridiculous deus ex machina, not exactly in the big plot points, but just some small elements that that were very visibly incorporated to keep the pace going and which seemed very implausible at the time.

One of the better things is that in alot of scenes I found myself in a pretty much constant state of dread. Somewhere along the way I had started to care for the characters, both the important ones and some of the side characters, and when the writer has a habit of killing them left and right in quite gruesome fashions, you get a little anxious whenever scenes seem to build up to facilitate alot of bloodletting.

I'm not going to say much about the story or the characters because relating anything of the current status quo at the start of book 2 would naturally entail huge spoilers for the climax of book 1. And since these books tie very closely together I'm not going to spoil a thing (and it would also save some time :). I'd say it actually comes close to a Lord of the Rings level of trilogy coherence, so again; it's a good idea to read all three back to back (though not having read book 3 yet I might have to end up eating those words, though it would be surprising).

On a more personal note
The part where a mysterious magical forest where anyone who goes in will never come out alive was very, very interesting. It also really gave me a hankering to finally go and read Mythago Wood.
This also helped: Feeding the forest with Memory

Hyperion AND The Prince of Nothing? Holy shit, I really need to bump this up on my reading list.
 Alas, due to my nature that's easier said than done. It also doesn't help that there isn't a good complete matching set of Holdstock's Ryhope Wood in existence (that isn't out of stock).

Or, you know, Gollancz; I would love to have some new editions to match the 2 fantasy masterworks I have.

Beautiful covers!

Anyway,
I wasn't quite sure if this trilogy would actually be worth my time but I'm starting to warm up to it.
On to Beyond the Shadows.

Review: The Way of Shadows, Graphic Novel

Alright then,
I've read a few comic book adaptations of popular fantasy novels and I must say that I can really appreciate this one.
Most adaptations have either alot deviations from the source material, which isn't a bad thing in itself (for example; taking the character of Conan and building new stories around him. The Dark Horse line has some great stuff), or they adhere too strictly to the source material (like for instance the First Law comic, which wasn't and now never will be finished, despite its good start - in opposition to that though, the Game of Thrones comic book is pretty great whilst being far more faithful to the novel than the show is).

First up, the Book itself;

Naked Book!

Silver reflective letters on the spine...

...and a pretty cool fold-out.

Published by Yenn Press this book is a complete adaptation of The Way of Shadows, book 1 of the Night Angel trilogy. It stays very close to the source material, bringing some things into focus and leaving out the less important plot points. A pretty good balance all in all.
Another good thing; it's finished. The comic book ending might not stand up that well on its own but, at the very least, it makes for a decent companion piece for those who have the novels, it works well to refresh your memories for those getting ready to dive into book 2 and for those who haven't read the novels it might tempt you into trying out the trilogy.
Beware, there are some loose ends that only reading book 2 and 3 will answer.

The art by Andy Macdonald is black and white, functional and stays pretty consistent throughout, except at some scenes near the end which felt a little rushed to me. But it might be the problem of the scene transitions from the book manifesting themselves in the comic and anyway, since this is a comic it's easily forgiveable.

Seeing the characters on the page and grasping how young they actually are was quite startling. It did bring home how messed up some of the earlier stuff is. Though the depictions of those scenes were kept vague, they weren't vague enough not to let your imagination fill in the blanks. Very well done.

Eleven years old...

So to reiterate, a good adaptation that mostly works well on its own, though there are some loose ends and the ending itself is abrupt. Those two things make me think this would be best reserved for readers of the novels.

Vague SPOILERS for the ending after the jump. A tiny personal rumination, if you will.

Review: The Way of Shadows

Alright, here we go. my first actual book review;

I've held off for more than a few weeks on this, biding my time with comic book reviews, since it's rather difficult to talk about any plot or characters in this particular book without spoiling it.

Since the plot is always moving, I'll just have to settle for mild spoilers. Very mild.

The story can be roughly described as a brutally messy coming of age story of an assassin.

I think the blurb is rather inept so how about I try to tease you with some blurb of my own devising?

Azoth is an eleven year old growing up in the filthy lawless slums of the capital of Cenaria, an insignificant country governed by an even more insignificant king. To the south bordered by Ceura with its celebrated swordsmen, in the north by the expansionist kingdom of Khalidor, ruled by its cruel God-king,

In Cenaria City, with a river neatly dividing rich and poor, Azoth is a young orphan byproduct of the introduction of slavery by the powerful rulers of its criminal underworld, the true rulers of Cenaria. They maintain their grip on power via manipulation, bribery and secrecy.

When their power needs to make itself felt they have their enforcers; the Wetboys.

Highly trained killers and assassins capable of using magic to enhance their abilities. When they take a contract, the target is as good as dead. Now Azoth, to escape the brutal everyday life of the slums will have to leave friends, name and morality behind in order to apprentice with the city's deadliest Wetboy, Durzo Blint.

On the other side of the river, Logan Gyre is a young cenarian noble thrust into responsibility when his father is exiled. He will have to lead his once great house into an uncertain future, and when the king himself bears the Gyres ill will, Logan needs all the help he can get. Aiding him is Solon, a powerful mage in disguise, sent by a prophet foreseeing a terrible doom for Cenaria.

Well-liked and goodnatured, Logan will strike up a friendship with the recently arrived landless baronet, Kylar Stern. Their friendship will change the fate of the kingdom.

A bit lengthy but it got the things that mattered. Or at least the things that I wish had been made more clear while reading the book. I don't think I've stressed how big the slavery angle is and how integral it is to the entire novel but this'll be good enough.

Alright then, some bad, some good.

The plot hits the ground running and doesn't really let up.

And you'd think that I was making a compliment but I'm actually describing a problem; it doesn't have alot of proper pacing. The switching between one scene and the next is frequently off and can sometimes feel very jarring. It is a problem which occurs throughout the entire book.

Build-up or lack of it, is a problem. I've already mentioned there were things I wish I had been more aware of. And this might be something to do with me, as I'm very comfortable reading big books with frequent info-dumping. It lets me feel more involved with the characters and their world.

Personally, I didn't like the romance between the characters, and normally it's something I really enjoy. But here it always felt juvinile (fittingly though?) and as a result the romantic dialogue feels mildly offputting.

There isn't alot that is of substance, but it's got a very dark and very fast moving plot with a ton of action and violence. Some of it, mainly at the start of the book, like a warning sign, is against and between children. Rape and maiming and it's a little hard to read but as it is integral to the world-building it isn't gratuitous.

Wow, it really looks like I hated this huh?

Well it's hard to say what my feelings really are but it's not actually that bad. The plot is super fast and it's got alot of twists. The different magic systems are interesting. There's violence, chaos and some very dark stuff. 

I wouldn't call it grimdark as its characters generally are pretty morally conflicted (though two characters are planted squarely and occasionally very obnoxiously in the black and white category) and the theme of hope and redemption is pretty prominent, but in it's darker moments it sometimes feels pretty close to grimdark.

Normally I'd also talk about the writer a bit more, and it's definitely merited here, but as I'm pretty sure I'm not going to say much about the next book for fear of spoilers, I'll keep it for when I review book 2.

I also read the Way of Shadows comic book and I'll give that a post of its own.

Book Haul

A very nice book haul. Most have already been read in one form or another, I just purchased those to complete a collection or to back a certain favorite author of mine. And then there are some books or comics which are uncharted territory.

Hellboy v6-v9
I actually already have the 6 Library editions but for some dumbass reason I thought it'd be a good idea to collect the individual Hellboy paperbacks as well.

Mignola Covers

Then there is Abe Sapien 1,

which I'm already regretting having bought.
It's very likely this series will be collected in sumptuous hardcovers by Dark Horse anytime in the future. And now that I've bought this trade paperback, I feel that I have to purchase the rest of the series in matching trades. But you know, for a dark mythology afficianado like myself, you can't really go wrong with the Mignola Verse so I won't complain that much. Slightly creased at the top, though.

Klaagzang van de verloren gewesten. Which is usually translated as Lament of the Lost Moors.
Which is a good-looking hardcover matching the collection for cycle 1, and offers more value than if you'd just buy the 4 individual comics.

I don't know what happened to it, but it looks like somebody took a knife to the spine and I'm none too pleased about that.
I'll keep it though as anything I get I always keep. and if I sent it back somebody would just have to throw it away.

Received from Bol.com.

The German version of Heroes Die, collected in 2 books with pretty great covers. They're certainly better than the fucking HIDEOUS e-book covers for the english editions of the Acts of Caine (Who the hell is responsible for those things? they actively stop people from buying them! Apparently there's a bunch of stuff wrong with them in digital print as well).
Also note the cover blurb from two popular authors Scott Lynch and John Scalzi. Still need to read The Lies of Locke Lamora, now that I think of it.

Ooow yeah!

The Cut-off point for book 1 is "Caine couldn't do more damage if he himself was an Aktiri." which is a pretty nice ironic line to end book 1 on.
I bought these 2 for various reasons; because I love the Acts of Caine and I wish to endorse it and its author Matthew Stover in any way possible, also because the covers looked good and because I was curious as to how the entire Acts of Caine was collected in 2 books (turns out it wasn't, it's just book 1 split into 2 paperbacks, which explains why I didn't recognize the Overworld title) and because occasionally I get excited about doing something and even more occasionally that thing is learning to read and/or speak german. This desire naturally cools by the time my books get here. But hey, never say never.

Oh yeah, go buy Heroes Die!

Then we have the books and comics which will be read sooner rather than get shoved onto my TBR shelf for later.

Leviathan by Ian Edgington.

I was watching some 2000ad youtube videos and this one got endorsed by Mike Molcher, the pr-guy for 2000ad, and some things he said about it made it seem like it would be right up my alley.
I've now found out that writer Ian Edgington has some few other comics (un)officially set in the same universe, all which seem to contain Lovecraftian horrors and some other stuff and as it's just a few more paperbacks from titles that can be read on their own I'll purchase those quite soon.

The "A Land Fit For Heroes" trilogy by Richard Morgan.

I loved the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy, Woken Furies in particular with its hints at cosmic horror (that one scene actually, shut up), and since swords and Fantasy is in general just more my thing I thought I'd like this trilogy too. They look like pretty compact books. Gay protagonist and explicit sex. very violent. Sounds great.

Not completely matching spines, but they do actually look
Like they belong together... Maybe?

I also have the lettered subterranean press editions for the first 2 books. which both look fucking stunning. I'm pretty sad because I don't think that Subterranean will ever get round to printing The Dark Defiles. Poor sales, I figure, I mean; I was able to buy the Lettered edition which was up months after initial pre-order, that should tell you something.

This trilogy will be read after I finish off both the Night Angel trilogy and The Kusiel's Legacy Trilogy.
Oh and by the way, Filming has just begun on book 1 of the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy so If you're into Science Fiction with violence and pretty sexy sex (:p), that would be a good book to read or you could just look forward to seeing the adaptation on the small screen later this year.

Now, this one I'm really looking forward to;
Seven to Eternity.

I've been eyeing the Fear Agent library editions for some time now but as I did think that they were a bit expensive I held off. Having heard alot of good things of Rick Remender I looked around a bit in his catalogue and upcoming in 2017 was "Seven to Eternity" I read some of the blurb and when my eye caught sight of "An evil God" I immediately stopped reading and blindly ordered it.
Seven to Eternity was also made by the same collaborative team that worked on Fear Agent. So when I've read this, I'll have a good estimate of how much I would like Fear Agent.

And then there's the prequel to "Your Highness".
Comprising two very short comics, "Knight" and "Dazed",  together having some mild wordplay.

I'm not expecting great things from this one, but I had a good laugh at the movie so I'l give it a go anyway.

Now, no more books to look forward to until at least the end of March.

Maybe Fear Agent and some Edginton? Who knows?