Locus, January 2013

by Locus Publications

  Andrews’s Edge series follows a pattern more common to romances than urban fantasy, focusing on a different pair of characters, and their relationship, in each book; this makes the series less predictable than the Kate Daniels series, but also allows for some interesting variety. This time we get to see more of the magical land of the Weird, since the female in question is a noblewoman from the magical lands of the Weird, the healer Charlotte de Ney. Devastated by learning that she can’t have children and by the resulting break-up of her marriage, she takes refuge in the Edge, making a meager living with her healing talents. Then a desperately wounded man named Richard Mar turns up, followed by the cruelly vicious slavers he’d been fighting, and Charlotte finds herself joining his undercover mission to stop the slavers. It turns out the slavers have some very powerful friends in the Weird, and Charlotte has to return to the Weird and use the influence she’d always avoided to enter high society. The Mar clan, though Edgers, have managed in the previous two volumes to aquire some powerful friends of their own to help with a plan that involves lots of disguises, magic-enhanced sword fighting, and, of course, a budding romance for scarred souls.

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  Michael Boccacino, Charlotte Markham and the House of Darkling (Morrow 978-0-06-212261-2, $14.99, 293pp, tp) August 2012.

  Gothic romance mixes with weird fantasy in this strikingly strange first novel about a governess who stumbles with her charges into another world. The widow Charlotte Markham works as governess at Everton, the country house of widower Henry Darrow and his two sons. The novel opens more like a mystery, with the grisly death of Nanny Plum, and the inept attempts at investigation by the small town constable, but things quickly veer into the supernatural when Charlotte and the boys walk into a mist and find themselves in another place, where the boys’ dead mother lives in a manor with some exceedingly strange inhabitants. It’s possible to leave, but the boys insist on returning to their mother again and again – and Charlotte fears sinister plots may trap them all in this strange world. Though there are similarities to tales of faerie encounters, things get more and more grotesque and otherworldly (with some fascinating set pieces), while Charlotte struggles to make sense of only vaguely understood rules and conflicts that she must deal with if she is to save her charges and herself.

  Tina Connolly, Ironskin (Tor 978-0-7653-3059-8, $24.99, 302pp, hc) October 2012. Cover by Larry Rostant.

  In a world where The Great War was between humans and fey, Jane Eliot is one of the human victims who survived with a curse. The only way to block the curse is to wear iron over the curse scars, hence the name ironskin for the cursed. Jane’s scars are on her face, so her iron mask cannot be hidden, but she has learned to deal with the stigma – and takes a job as governess to a strange little girl, hoping to help her cope, too. But the child vigorously resists suppression of her unique curse, and her widower father, the artist Edward Rochart, is little help – but Jane finds herself strangely attracted to him, and disturbed by the many society women who visit to purchase his ‘‘art,’’ finally stumbling on his sinister secret. The plot owes much to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, along with a number of fairy tales (most notably ‘‘Bluebeard’’ and ‘‘Beauty and the Beast’’); more novel is the unusual world, where humans had come to depend on fey magics for power and technology and now must return to science for answers. It’s an intriguing, often involving combination, not as successfully romantic (in Jane Eyre mode) as it could have been, but a very promising first novel.

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  Cecilia Dart-Thornton, The Midnight Game (Leaves of Gold Press 978-0-646-57857-6, A$59.95, 367pp, hc) October 2012. [Order from Leaves of Gold Press, PO Box 9113, Brighton 3186 Australia; ].

  This standalone fantasy novel mixes an amusingly wide range of elements, drawing from fairy tales and folklore, gothic romances, and Dante’s Inferno. Set, technically, in the present day, it has more of a historical feel, as Alizarin Hall leaves her home in the city to stay with her brother in a remote seaside town where the people follow the customs of the 19th century. There’s a strong Irish influence in the community, from accents to superstitions. Everyone wears dark clothing, and the wealthy Devlin clan that dominates the town is surrounded by mysteries. Then Alizarin finds herself irresistably attracted to the Devlin chieftain, learns the secret of his terrible curse – and has to go to Hell itself to prove her love and save him. The contemporary-yet-not setting seems slightly contrived, but overall this is a compelling tale, with some wonderfully strange twists and encounters.

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  Tanya Huff, The Silvered (DAW 978-0-7564-0743-8, $24.95, 304pp, hc) November 2012. Cover by Cliff Nielsen.

  War against a ruthless empire provides the backdrop for this rousing fantasy adventure, set in a period reminiscent of the Napoleonic era. The expanding Kresentian Empire threatens the nation of Aydori, where the elite are shapeshifting Pack members, who only marry Pack females or female Mages. Mirian is a mage, the daughter of a merchant and a mother bent on social advancement. Though Mirian’s talent is poor, spread between too many different crafts, her mother is determined to find her a Pack husband, but their first social engagement quickly goes wrong as war breaks out, and the enemy turns out to have new weapons devastating to the Pack. Mirian finds herself in the middle of a great adventure: captured by the enemy, eventually rescuing herself and others, discovering unexpected uses for her ‘‘weak’’ magic – and finding romance. Add an over-the-top villain in the emperor, and it all adds up to a fun, old-fashioned adventure made new with an interesting magic system.

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  Laura Resnick, Polterheist (DAW 978-0-7564-0733-9, $7.99, 375pp, pb) November 2012. Cover by Daniel Dos Santos.

  The fifth book in the urban fantasy series featuring actress Esther Diamond finds her working – as a Jewish elf in a department-store Christmas display. But something very strange is happening in the store, with isolated customers and employees reporting terrifying encounters no one else sees. Naturally, Esther starts to suspect the supernatural and asks her friend Max to investigate, but there are more mundane problems as well: someone is hijacking the department store’s supply trucks, and Esther’s former not-quite-boyfriend Detective Connor Lopez is on the case, as is semi-retired hit man Lucky Battistuzzi, since it looks like someone is trying to frame his mob. Esther has her hands full keeping her less-than-compatible friends from spotting each other while she frantically tries to figure out what’s really going on and somehow keep her schedule of herding kids and singing and dancing with robot trees and toy bears. It’s a fun, frequently goofy, holiday story with more than a touch of satire and just the right edge of supernatural horror to keep things exciting.

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  Reviews by Carolyn Cushman continue after ads.

  David Weber & Jane Lindskold, Fire Season (Baen 978-1-4516-3840-0, $18.99, 287pp, hc) October 2012. Cover by Daniel Dos Santos.

  A dry spell leads to fire danger for humans and treecats on the planet Sphinx in this young-adult SF adventure, sequel to A Beautiful Friendship in the overall Star Kingdom series. But young Stephanie Harrington is more concerned with scientists coming to evaluate the treecats’ intelligence – and her upcoming 15th birthday party and (she hopes) driver’s license. This feels more truly YA than the previous book, and a little bit formulaic – once again a scientist obsessed with treecats turns up and causes havoc, and it’s up to Stephanie and her treecat Lionheart to save the day. But this time, Stephanie’s gotten a little older and is acting more like a teenager: mad at her parents, a tiny bit more interested in socializing with her age mates, and even interested in boys. Even Lionheart notices she’s changing – when he isn’t helping her rescue both humans and treecats from various disasters.

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  Tad Williams, The Dirty Streets of Heaven (DAW 978-0-7564-0768-1, $25.95, 406pp, hc) September 2012. Cover by Kamil Vojnar.

  Williams’s new urban fantasy mixes gritty, hardboiled mystery and the war between Heaven and He
ll, and sets it in a slightly skewed present-day California. (The town of St. Jude replaces San Jose as the center of Silicon Valley, providing some fascinating local color for those who know the area.) Bobby Dollar – the angel Doloriel – is an ‘‘earthbound’’ advocate for the newly deceased, arguing for their souls’ admittance to Heaven, or at least Purgatory. Things get dicey when one of his clients’ souls impossibly disappears, and the constant conflict between Heaven and Hell threatens to turn to all-out war. Bobby Dollar doesn’t remember much of his past – none of the earthbound angels do – but he has a talent for asking troublesome questions, and puts that knack to good use as he tries to figure out what’s going on, traveling the grittier side with plenty of action as he bulls his way in and out of deadly situations, even getting a little help from a sexy member of the opposition. In the process, a disturbing picture of the way Heaven operates begins to develop – something mostly left to be explored in future volumes in this distinctive and entertaining new series.

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  Patricia C. Wrede, The Far West (Scholastic Press 978-0-545-03344-2, $17.99, 378pp, hc) August 2012. Cover by Juliana Kolesova.

  The third book in the fascinating Frontier Magic trilogy finds Eff joining yet another expedition into the frontier wilds, this time pushing further west than any since the doomed Lewis & Clarke expedition, hoping to find out why magical creatures like the deadly medusa lizards have been moving east toward settled land. The plot’s a little formulaic by this point: a magical disaster looms, an expedition heads West, and Eff manages to save the day again, but the specifics are different enough to keep the story involving. Eff’s changed through the series; at this point she’s grown up enough to be making more decisions for herself and even considering marriage. She also gets a chance to closely observe a new magic system, the exotic Hijero-Cathayan magic, while learning still more about her own unusual abilities. All together, this is a fascinating picture of an alternate America filled with magic, full of down-to-earth details, philosophical arguments, and plenty of frontier adventure. The developments in Eff’s life make for a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy, even though the frontier still beckons, both for Eff and the reader.

  –Carolyn Cushman

  Return to In This Issue listing.

  LOCUS LOOKS AT BOOKS: DIVERS HANDS

  A Niche in Time and Other Stories: The Best of William F. Temple, Vol 1, William F. Temple

  Shadow and Bone, Leigh Bardugo

  The Raven Boys, Maggie Stiefvater

  The Crown of Embers, Rae Carson

  RICHARD A. LUPOFF

  A Niche in Time and Other Stories: The Best of William F. Temple, Volume 1, William Temple (Dancing Tuatara Press 978-1-60543-614-2, $45.00, 295pp, hc) January 2012. [Order from Ramble House, .]

  If William F. Temple (1914-1989) winds up as a footnote in the history of science fiction, it would be a miscarriage of justice. Still, it’s hard to overlook the fact that he was Arthur C. Clarke’s roommate in London when they were starry-eyed science fiction fans just making the transition to professionalism. Well, yes, that’s true, but there’s so much more reason to remember Temple.

  He wrote half a dozen novels plus a series of children’s books. Only one of the former seems to have had much staying power. He also wrote something like 70 short stories published in US and UK magazines. His best-remembered novel, The Four-Sided Triangle, was published in England by John Long in 1949 and in the US by Frederick Fell in 1951. It was the Galaxy Novels edition of 1952 that made a strong impression on my adolescent mind. The film version, starring Barbara Payton, failed to do much for Temple – or for Payton, whose career spiraled downward until she died at the age of 39.

  I suspect that John Pelan is a saint. That’s in view of his work in assembling collections of the short fiction of unduly overlooked and unjustly forgotten science fiction authors of the pulp-and digest-magazine era. Certainly the present volume of Temple’s stories, the first of several that Pelan promises to issue under the Dancing Tuatara imprint, will be cited when Pelan is up for beatification.

  The lead story is a short version of ‘‘Four-Sided Triangle’’ that appeared in Amazing Stories in 1939. At 20 pages, this story packs less of a punch than the novel version – or perhaps that’s because I’m a trifle older than I was when I read the Galaxy Novels version in 1952.

  Still, it’s based on a splendid idea. Two men are in love with the same woman. She only loves one of them, but she consents to their running her through a matter duplicator so that ‘‘she’’ can marry both suitors. But the process is so successful that the duplicate chooses the same man as the original. Temple works wonders with the material of this situation.

  There are 15 stories in this collection, not all of equal merit, but the overall quality is thoroughly admirable. I was particularly impressed by ‘‘Uncle Buno’’ from Science-Fantasy in 1955. As with many of his stories, Temple has a way of developing an intriguing theme up to a major plot point, then turning in a new and surprising direction. ‘‘Uncle Buno’’ is a prime example. For most of its length it seems to be a pleasant and thoroughly readable story, but not an especially noteworthy one. Then – wham! – Temple circles around behind you and delivers a punch that leaves you wondering what hit you.

  And then there’s ‘‘The Two Shadows’’, from Startling Stories, 1951. Humankind on Earth has pretty much committed mass suicide through nuclear war. A last, desperate attempt at species survival via a settlement on Mars results in a crash which kills most of the would-be colonists. How will the few survivors manage in the hostile environment of an alien world?

  Sounds like a promising if not especially original idea, but once again Temple takes it to what seems to be its logical conclusion, only to veer at right angles for a while and then twist again as the story approaches its ending. There are elements here of Robinson Crusoe, Lord of the Flies, and any number of other stories, but Temple mixes them in a wholly remarkable and original way.

  Another notable piece is the title story, ‘‘A Niche in Time’’, from Astounding, 1964. The idea of a time-traveler influencing a great artist is hardly new. The earliest instance that I know of is The Panchronicon, by Harold Steele Mackaye (1904) in which a New England schoolteacher travels to Elizabethan England to help Shakespeare write Macbeth. Once again, Temple works a surprising switch on the familiar theme, producing a satisfying and memorable reading experience.

  The book comes with an introduction by British anthologist and researcher Mike Ashley, and an afterword by Pelan. Both are involving and informative.

  –Richard A. Lupoff

  GWENDA BOND

  Shadow and Bone, Leigh Bardugo (Holt 978-0-805-09459-6, $17.99, 368pp, hc) June 2012.

  High fantasy never left the young adult and children’s field, with such prominent authors as Tamora Pierce and Megan Whalen Turner at its forefront. But in recent years, they have been joined by a number of exciting new authors like Rae Carson, Kristin Cashore, and Malinda Lo, who are chronicling a diverse range of kingdoms, creating fresh mythologies, and bringing memorable characters to life. And now we can add Leigh Bardugo to that list.

  In Bardugo’s accomplished, Tsarist Russia-flavored debut Smoke and Bone, the kingdom of Ravka is one in which war is simply a fact of life, its Border Wars a constant and seemingly immutable part of the landscape. To be an orphan in such a place isn’t unusual. But young members of the First Army Alina Starkov and her childhood best friend Mal Oretsev have an unusually strong bond even for orphans who grew up together. But they are no longer children, and stand on the cusp of traveling with their fellow soldiers into ‘‘the Fold,’’ also known as the unsea, a black seam cutting the inland country off from the coastal port cities. A cartographer, Alina’s uneasiness about the mission they are about to embark on is palpable as the novel begins. Mal, a tracker and fierce fighter, pulls her out of the road before the coach of the Darkling, the most powerful of the Second Army’s wealthy and magic-using Gris
ha, can run her down. Mal assures Alina that everything will be fine, that they’ll be together. While their closeness is undeniable, Mal clearly doesn’t understand the full nature of Alina’s love for him – he doesn’t know that she is in love with him.

  Their journey across the Fold proves as dangerous as feared. When flesh-eating volcra attack in the darkness, Alina is saved by Mal only to find her life will be forfeit to the monsters anyway – and his will be lost, too. But a mysterious light drives away the creatures, and Alina passes out. When she wakes up, Alina’s treated as a criminal. Marched to the Darkling’s tent, she discovers that, according to the witnesses present, the light came from her. Disbelieving, she denies it. All children are tested for Grisha power, after all, and she doesn’t have any. But the quartz-eyed Darkling is able to summon her power forth. It seems scruffy, skinny orphan Alina may be a rare type of Grisha, a sun summoner, the only person that could do away with the Fold and the evil in its shadows forever – and therefore a powerful weapon whom Ravka’s foes will stop at nothing to destroy.

  Dispatched in the Darkling’s own coach with a full Grisha escort, Alina can’t even say goodbye to Mal. Plagued by assassins en route, once Alina reaches the Darkling’s palace and the lush court of the King in Os Alta, her old life begins to feel distant. While she yearns for Mal, writing him constantly, she settles into an entirely new world, one where there’s no sign of the poverty and scarcity of the world outside the capitol. She also begins to explore her power – one which she can’t summon, but which can be called forth from her – and learn more about the different types of Grisha: the Corporalki (order of the living and the dead), the Etherealki (order of summoners), and Materialki (order of fabrikators). She develops a friendship with Genya, a servant to the queen, and is increasingly drawn to the handsome, mysterious, frighteningly powerful Darkling. But her own power remains elusive, a promise instead of a presence. With such high political stakes, motivations begin to become as dark as creatures from the Fold. Alina can’t be sure whom to trust.