Drakenkoningin - An Janssens

When you look around on in a the genre fiction section of your average Dutch bookshop, you'll notice that not much in the way of fantasy and science fiction on the shelves is local produce. Science fiction is nearly impossible to find in Dutch and fantasy is almost always translated, with the English language world being the biggest supplier. One of the reasons I started reading in English is that the selection offered is very limited in some ways. I do try to keep an eye out for fantasy originally written in Dutch however. It doesn't happen often that I find something worth reading but once in a while I come across a title that makes me curious. Drakenkoningin (literally translated: Dragon Queen), is one such book.

There are two publishers in the Netherlands that publish the bulk of fantasy available in Dutch and one of them, Luitingh Fantasy, must have noticed the shortage of homegrown talent. In 2012 the set up a contest, challenging writers to submit their manuscripts. The winner would, if the manuscript was of sufficient quality, be published. From the conditions of the contest it is clear that Luitingh wasn't going to take too much chances besides publishing a new name. The novel they were looking for should be firmly rooted in fantasy and should appeal to a wide audience. If you read between the lines of the conditions, they were essentially looking for a novel much like the translated works they are publishing and in a way, that is exactly what they got.

Drakenkoningin by Flemish author An Janssens is the winning book of the contest. It was published in October 2013 by Luitingh Fantasy after a round of edits of the original manuscript. It's a fairly short novel that nevertheless seems to check all the boxes of bestselling Fantasy in the Netherlands. It's a not too challenging read, is set in a secondary world in which a magical disaster too place in a distant past and it has dragons. In short, it is the kind of Tolkienesque fantasy that has been doing well here in recent years.

Seven hundred years ago, a magical experiment has gone awry. The wizards responsible for the disaster retreated behind a magical barrier, leaving humanity behind to fend for itself in a cooling world. Their influence isn't entirely gone however. The wizard Venor set up a contest to be held once every century. The winner and his or her descendants would rule of humanity until the next contest was held.The contest is rigged however. For seven centuries, one queen has ruled practically unopposed and with an iron fist. Soon a new contest will be held, and this time the queen has serious competition.

If I'd had to capture this novel in one word I'd probably say it is hasty. The concept behind the story offers lots of possibilities but almost all of them are sacrificed to keeping the plot going at the fastest pace possible. The novel's prologue illustrates this perfectly. We catch a glimpse of a world in turmoil, the last moments of a civilization. It's a chaotic scene and tosses the reader a few riddles to explore further on in the novels. Or at least, that is what one would expect of a prologue. An awful lot of the things mentioned in the prologue are not followed up on. There is the suggestion that wizards are actually a different species instead of humans with magical powers, there is the riddle of what they were doing that so hopelessly screwed up the world and why they thought it was a good idea to try, there is motivation of Venor to create the barrier that remains completely unclear. The contest itself is one of the few things that Janssens does follow up on. The prologue a nice action-packed sequence but if not for the contest and appearance of one of the main characters in the novel, there would have been a total disconnect with the rest of the story.

Fast-forward seven hundred years and we end up in the main body of the story. To further introduce the reader to her creation Janssens uses a main character Thala, who wakes up a captive in the single city humanity is confined to. Most of her memories are gone and she is severely weakened. This memory loss offers Janssesn another opportunity to slip in some tidbits about the world the reader needs to know. She uses it very sparingly however, Thala is soon caught up in a whirlwind of events that sees her take part in the next contest. For most of the story, Thala's actions are driven by an acute need to survive. She is weakened from injuries, dependent on others to keep her safe and on the move and rarely able to make her own decisions. We see what she does, share her most basic responses and feelings but never truly get into her head and that is a huge missed opportunity when you consider the magic that surrounds her.

The wizards may have withdrawn, that doesn't mean magic is gone from the world. The Queen for instance, employs a kind of magic that lets her influence the thoughts of others. Sometimes it is quite crude but she is also capable of very subtle manipulations. Her victims are not always aware that she is manipulating them. The talent is not widespread but a number of other characters are also able to do it. This makes the queen very suspicious, in fact, she is bordering on paranoid for most of the novel. Oddly enough, the knowledge that whatever you are thinking at a specific time might not be your own though, doesn't seem to affect the other characters as much. Thala realizes quickly that the queen and a number of other characters can get into her head. There is a great possibility for a psychological game here but it never really materializes. The more mundane, physical challenge of the contest takes precedence.

Thala has essentially lost her entire identity when she wakes up. She needs to find herself, her past and her place in the world and is surrounded by people she can't trust, tried to hurt or imprison her or plant thoughts into her head designed to keep her form winning the throne. Doubt, paranoia and confusion could have been used to much greater effect. If this novel had explored the psychological aspect of the situation a bit further I think it would have been a much more interesting read.

Thala's nemesis the Queen falls victim to minimal characterization as well. She is essentially cut off from the truly advanced magic of the wizards, ostracised from a society that may have looked down on her but offered possibilities to expand her knowledge and power. What we find seven centuries on is a woman obsessed by staying in power but apparently blind to the fact that the pitiful remnant of human society she is ruling over is effectively dying. Nowhere in the novel is there any trace that she means to reach beyond what she already rules to try and stop this decline. Or perhaps beat the contest once and for all and take revenge, that would have been another good motivation for this character. As it is her ambition is to stay in power, period. Had she had more ambition, the reader would have had to ask the question whether the Queen's goals justify her means, injecting a bit more grey into a character that, right now, is just plain evil.

Drakenkoningin is a novel for really plot oriented readers. Janssens made is a very fast paced tale, where the reader (or the characters for that matter) barely get time to catch their breath. To achieve all this speed and action, worldbuilding and characterization are, sometimes quite brutally, sacrificed. That is a choice some readers may appreciated. Personally, I look for a little more in a fantasy novel. Janssens has the basics for an interesting story here but I feel she is not making the most of it. There is too much shaky worldbuilding and too little attention to the motivations of her characters for me to really appreciated it. In the end I felt that this book needed a bit more Philip K. Dick and a little less Raymond E. Feist to make it rise above the fantasy that crowds the shelves in Dutch book stores. That being said, I understand that it is to be the first book of a trilogy. Some of what I am missing in this story may be addressed in later volumes.

Book Details
Title: Drakenkoningin
Author: An Janssens
Publisher: Luitingh Fantasy
Pages: 271
Year: 2013
Language: Dutch
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-90-245-6254-1
First published: 2013

A Door into Ocean - Joan Slonczewski

A Door into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski was first published in 1986 and won her a John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1987. I've never read anything by Slonczewski before but her name pops up in science fiction regularly. She is not very prolific, combining a career as microbiologist with writing science fiction, but from what I've seen of it, what she has written is very well received. This novel might well be the one that is most critically acclaimed. Without having read any of the others I can't say if this is justified but I did think it was a very rich and remarkably complex science fiction novel in terms of worldbuilding. So much so in fact, that I doubt I can do it justice in this review. In the end I was less impressed with the treatment of gender in this novel. It divides the genders along sharp lines in ways that I wasn't really expecting from a book that is considered a highlight of feminist science fiction.

On the ocean world of Shora, a nation of women have created a pacifist society, combining highly developed biological sciences with a deep understanding of the world's ecology. After being left alone for ages, they come into conflict with a neighbouring civilization from the planet Valedon that wants to develop the ocean's resources. Their societies are so different that neither of the parties is completely sure that the other meets their definition of human. This gap in understanding needs to be bridged for Shora to survive. Doing so  poses to be a formidable challenge for all those involved.

The novel has been hailed as an example of eco-feminism. I'm not entirely sure that was what Slonczewski set out to write but the male/female is one of the many dichotomies that can be found in the novel. The population of Shora is entirely female, while Valedon has two genders but is essentially a patriarchal society. This difference is striking but the gap between Shora and Valedon runs much deeper. There is a difference in the development of different branches of science, a difference in the structure of their language, a dichotomy between organic and inorganic and one between pacifist and violent. All of these play an important part in the conflict and add to the challenge of the parties to understand each other. Unfortunately these contradictions all seem to run along gender lines and the story makes it quite clear who the author sympathizes with.

Slonczewski has stated that A Door into Ocean is influenced by Frank Herbert's Dune (1965) and Ursula K. Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest (1976), both of which I've read. The influence of Dune in this novel is very clear. Shora is, in just about every respect an opposite of Arakis. An ocean instead of a desert, a pacifist people instead of a highly violent one, a people maintaining the web of life instead of a people trying to force the planet's ecology into a different mold. Dune must have been a dissatisfying read for Slonczewski. Herbert was one of the first authors who used ecology as an essential part of his stories but that doesn't mean that the ecology of Dune makes sense. For a trained biologist, some of it must have been grating.

The ecology of Shora is more diverse than the one Herbert describes. The dominant species on the planet are based on earth's cephalopods (squids, nautiluses, octopuses and the like), with this difference that the haemocyanin, a copper bases oxygen carrier in their blood, is exchanged for iron bases haemoglobin. Haemoglobin is more efficient, enabling a higher rate of metabolism. They provide an important source of food for the people of Shora and also make sure the surface of the ocean doesn't get clogged up with plant matter. Where Herbert's Fremen, despite their skill at living in the desert, still seem to survive despite their harsh environment, the Shora are truly part of the web of life. They understand their position in it, regulate their numbers accordingly and accept losses to the the enormous, migrating seaswallowers in exchange for the service they provide. The Sharers are the most environmentally aware people I've come across in science fiction.

The role of violence is an other clear element where Slonczewski takes the opposite direction from Herbert. The language of the Sharers doesn't distinguish between subject and object, something that contributes to the problems of the Valans and the Sharers have understanding each other. Early in the novel Slonczewski draws a parallel between Sharer language and Newton's third law of motion which has very interesting implications. When 'I hurt you' in essence is the same as 'we hurt each other' violence makes very little sense. It is, at best, an expression of immaturity but at various stages in the novel it is also described as a disease or even proof than the Valans are not human. It's a twist to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis I haven't come across before.

The treatment of violence is what ties the novel to Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest, which also includes a seemingly pacifist people not considered quite human by invading humans. That story eventually erupts in quite brutal violence however. Slonczewski takes the Shora idea of passive resistance all the way to the climax of the novel. That is not to say that blood doesn't flow but the war the Valan general wants, never materializes. I must admit that, in the face of the large numbers of casualties, I had my doubts about whether or not a human being, or a society as a whole, could face up to the consequences of this position. It seems a tad unlikely to me but then again, I'm from a society where violence is present in every day life. It must be said that, politically speaking, the effect of the Sharer strategies are just as devastating as a victory on the battlefield.

Slonczewski manages to incorporate a lot of very interesting material in the novel. The ecological part of the story in particular had me captivated. When you sit back and think about he various contrasts in the novel however, it does become apparent that the division of positive and negative traits assigned to each culture results in a picture devoid of grey. The feminine Sharers are associated with peace, life and heath, while the masculine Valans represent death, violence and sickness. Had it been just a clash between a pacifist society and one where a certain level of violence is accepted and power is based on the capacity to inflict damage, it would have worked for me. Putting the divide along gender lines feels like pushing it too far. Especially since the novel suggests that neither party is really capable of understanding the other, limited to what their gender allows them. Ultimately the conflict is not resolved with an understanding, or sharing as the Sharers would put it, and that was a bit of a let down for me.

All things considered, I feel that A Door into Ocean would have been a better book if it had been a bit less political. I love the worldbuilding, emphasis on ecology and the way Slonczewski handles language for instance. In some respects it is a very strong novel so I can see why it was awarded the Campbell. I can't help but detect a bit of irony there, Campbell himself would, given the content and his views on women and science fiction, most likely have detested the novel. Ultimately it's the simplicity of the way genders are portrayed that is the novels undoing however. While I enjoyed parts of it greatly, I found the novel as a whole a bit of a disappointing read.

Book Details
Title: A Door into Ocean
Author: Joan Slonczewski
Publisher: Orb Books
Pages: 403
Year: 2000
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-312-87652-4
First published: 1986

Empress of the Sun - Ian McDonald

Empress of the Sun is the third book in Ian McDonald's young adult series Everness. The books are a mixture of steampunk, adventure, strange vocabulary and quantum mechanics that is pretty hard to resist for the real science fiction geek. When starting out on this project McDonald set himself the goal of writing books that would keep boys reading beyond the age of twelve, when a lot of them give it up in favour of other activities. I'm a little too old to speak for today's twelve-year-olds and I certainly wouldn't go so far as to say they are not appealing to girls but I suspect he may well have succeeded. Although McDonald set up his world to be only limited by his own imagination and plenty of more stories are possible, it would appear that this book is the last one for the moment. I haven't seen anything that points in the direction of more Everness books in the immediate future.

Everett Singh may be a talented mathematician, even he can't keep track of all variables. A failure to imagine a world that's not spherical, has made the airship Everness crash on an unknown alternate Earth where dinosaurs did not go extinct and had 65 million years to evolve into something beyond the giant reptiles whose bones grace musea on Earth 10. The ship is badly damaged and they need to find a way to get it moving again before their enemies find them. The world they landed is far from safe either. Just about everything in this environment seems to have a ravenous appetite and fierce interspecies competition is the norm. With enemies approaching on all sides, Everett and his company are in serious trouble.

The structure described in Empress of the Sun is known as an Alderson disc. It's a hypothetical structure akin to what Larry Niven describes in Ringworld. Everett thinks of it as Discworld however. There are a number of references to Terry Pratchett's work in the book. It's probably the version of Earth that has diverged furthest from the world we know and illustrates clearly how much room to come up with alternative Earths McDonald leaves himself. The location the Everness crew finds itself in, is a jungle where the struggle for survival is both fast and violent. An intelligent species has arisen and created the disc but it has since been locked in a perpetual war for control, making them both ruthless and violent. Their preoccupation with each other might well be the only thing that keeps the rest of the multiverse safe from them. The arrival of the Everness has ruined the equilibrium and consequences of unleashing these creatures could be dire.

The relationship between Everett and Sen continues to develop. Despite the frantic repairs, dealing with the natives of this alternative Earth and having to fend off their pursuers,find time for romance. McDonald has made sure not to underestimate his target audience in these books but I was still surprised at the directness of the novel on such matters as procreation and warfare. Especially since he sold it to an American publisher. The inquiries of  Kax, one of the natives of the Earth the Everness crashes on, into the nature of the relationship between Sen and Everett will probably see it banned from more than one school library.

The novel follows two other story lines as well. The first is that of Everett's alternate Everett M - apparently a nod the Iain (M.) Banks -  who has taken his place on Earth 10 and is trying to keep it from being overrun by the intelligence that has taken over Earth 1. He is a very tragic figure, trying to save the world but unable to tell anyone. The temptation to do so is overwhelming at times and so he decides to push people away from him, adding to his loneliness. Where he appeared to be Everett's enemy in the previous book, their goals seem to align more in this volume. He appeared very cold-blooded to me in Be My Enemy. McDonald is clearly trying to show us a different side of this character in this book.

The second story line besides Everett's is that of Charlotte Villiers, the villainess in this series. We get to see more of her political manoeuvres and gain more insight in her motivation. Unlike Everett M, this doesn't make her more sympathetic however. She uses people and has a very low opinion of anyone who allow themselves to be used by her. People are pawns to her, useful at times but completely disposable. She does however, immediately see the danger the journey of the Everness poses to the panoply of worlds and her response to this threat is characteristically brutal. What I like about this story line is not so much the character but the fact that it shows the reader just how little Everett knows about the multiverse and how shaky the information on which he bases his decisions is. He doesn't see so himself but this is one aspect in which the very competent Everett is truly a teenager.

Although it is clear from the ending of the novel McDonald doesn't intend to stop here, the novel does provide a proper climax for the trilogy. Several story arcs are completed with one very obvious omission. Everett has made a new life for himself in a universe that is larger than he ever imagined. The Everness books are a wonderful ride among the parallel worlds. McDonald, who isn't lacking imagination in his adult fiction either, clearly went all out in this set of books. The result is a fast and fun read that should appeal to science fiction veterans as well as the target audience. The quality of these books has only increased since Planesrunner. I for one, wouldn't mind seeing an announcement that McDonald has sold a few more of these.

Book Details
Title: Empress of the Sun
Author: Ian McDonald
Publisher: Pyr
Pages: 283
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-1-61614-865-2
First published: 2014

The Reindeer People - Megan Lindholm

The Reindeer People by Megan Lindholm is the first novel in her duology about Tillu and Kerlew. I read these books years ago in Dutch translation but I've since decided to get rid of the translations and get them in English instead. I'm considering doing this for the Robin Hobb novels I own in Dutch as well. Lindholm has been fortunate with her translators, but good as they may be, I prefer to read the original English versions. There are the last two of Lindholm's I've been able to get my hands on. I would very much like to read the one remaining novel, Cloven Hooves (1991) I haven't review yet, but unfortunately it appears to be long out of print (except of course, in Dutch translation.) If anybody happens to know where I can find a copy that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg for please let me know. But let's get back to the issue at hand.

Tillu is struggling to bring up her socially awkward son Kerlew among a people strange to her. While most people she encounters see Kerlew as an odd boy, one better avoided, the shaman of the people she is staying with, a man named Carp, thinks he might make a good apprentice. He also thinks Tillu would make a good wife. She feels he is too creepy and arrogant to be allowed to teach the boy, let alone touch her. Her position is weak however. Among this tribe, women do as they are told. There is only one option open for Tillu: move on. It is the start of a trek though a subarctic winter. Their environment poses a formidable challenge and worst of all, Carp is not about to let them escape.

The Reindeer People and its sequel Wolf's Brother were written before Lindholm switched to the pen name of Robin Hobb. One of the things I like about her Megan Linholm books is that under that name, she was a lot less constrained, resulting in novels that include epic fantasy, urban fantasy, science fiction, and in this case, prehistoric fiction. While I enjoy the Robin Hobb novels immensely, I do get the feeling that as a writer she is more bound to the Realm of the Elderlings than she would like. The many negative reaction to her Soldier Son trilogy, her only departure from the Realm of the Elderings as Robin Hobb, do not, I feel, do justice to the thematic leap she tried to make there. Maybe I should reread those books some time soon as well.

Some people classify The Reindeer People as fantasy although, apart from some shamanic rituals, there is very little in the way of fantasy elements in the novel. Lindholm doesn't specify where or when the story is set but it is strongly reminiscent of Sami reindeer herding culture. Some of the vocabulary she uses seems to point in that direction too, although she slips once and refers to reindeer as caribou.  The level of technology is bronze age, although bronze implements are scarce so far up north. I guess it could have been set further east, or a completely imaginary world but my money is on Scandinavia. It has the feel of a very well researched book but Lindholm was probably wise to not name the place and period to specifically.

I've been thinking about Kerlew a lot after finishing this book. He is a very difficult child. Anti-social, very self absorbed in a way. He often comes across as downright rude and doesn't seem to be interested in helping provide for their basic needs. Carp's influence over him only worsen this attitude as he feels a lot of chores are beneath his dignity as a shaman. Without his mother, he wouldn't survive a week in this unforgiving environment. He reminds me a bit of Gotheris, one of the characters in her Ki and Vandien novel Luck of the Wheels. Kerlew's attitude points more towards a disorder in the autistic spectrum though. It made me wonder if Lindholm had and specific disorder in mind what she created this character.

The people who Tillu encounters after fleeing Carp's tribe are semi-nomadic reindeer herders. Their way of life is being described in detail in this novel. Form the food and the preparation of it, to the trade with more southern people and the implements they use in everyday life. The Reindeer People and Wolf's Brother were originally intended to be one volume. The book was eventually split in two (not the last time in her career that would happen) but nowhere in the novel did I get the feeling she gets bogged down in unnecessary detail. I did feel that, while Lindholm found a natural point in the story to split the book, the end of this first novel is rather abrupt. It's one of those books where you absolutely have to have the sequel on hand, otherwise it might prove an unsatisfying read.

Although the story is centers around Tillu, one of the major characters, a man names Heckram, is of the reindeer people. Through his eyes we get to see a people with a rich culture, where status is an important aspect of one's position in society. Lindholm draws a sharp contrast between the people Tillu is coming from and the one she encounters on her fight. The position of women in particular is completely different. His people have strongly ingrained traditions but recently they have been suffering from misfortune and indecisive leadership. It leaves them wide open to those who don't mind putting their own interests or ego's over the common good. As strangers, Kerlew, Tillu and eventually Carp put additional stress on the situation. Something Lindholm means to build on in the next novel.

I remember liking these books a lot when I first read them in Dutch and reading the English original hasn't changed my opinion that much. What I don't remember noticing is the abrupt ending of this novel. I might very well have read them back to back the first time around. When Lindholm wrote these books she already had a few books under her belt and they are much more confident than the first Ki and Vandien stories. Apart from the slightly awkward split, these two novels are among the better ones she wrote as Megan Lindholm. It is of course not the Robin Hobb style, epic fantasy many readers are used to but if you care to step outside that genre, Lindholm has a few very interesting titles to offer. My personal favourite remains Wizard of the Pigeons but these two are not that far behind.

Book Details
Title: The Reindeer People
Author: Megan Lindholm
Publisher: Voyager
Pages: 348
Year: 2011
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-0-00-742544-0
First published: 1988

Redemption in Indigo - Karen Lord

I picked up Karen Lord' second novel The Best of All Possible Worlds (2013)  last year as part of a reading challenge. It was one of the more interesting books I've read for the challenged so Lord ended up on the list of authors I want to read more of. Earlier this year I decided to get a copy of her debut novel Redemption in Indigo. It's one of those books that have gotten quite a bit of attention recently but I hadn't gotten around to reading. Redemption in Indigo was first published in 2010 by Small Beer Press. I have a newer UK edition however, published by Jo Fletcher Books in 2012. Redemption in Indigo won a number of awards, including the Mythopoeic award in 2011. It's quite different from The Best of All Possible Worlds, these two novels show a versatility that that many writers would be jealous of.

The novel tells the story of Paama, a woman who, fed up with her husband's gluttony, has fled back to her family and refuses to return to him. Her husband is not about to let that happen however. He sets out after her and succeeds in making a complete fool of himself. Paama is obviously not going to change her mind but then something happens that will make her see the world in a different light. The undying  ones, or djombi, present her with a gift. A dangerous gift as Paama soon finds out.

I understand that Redemption in Indigo is partly based on a folk tale from Senegal known as Ansige Karamba the Glutton. I had of course never heard of it so I did a few searches to see if there happened to be an English version online. Such stories tend to exist in many variations but it would have been interesting to find one. I came up with nothing however. Maybe I would have had better luck finding a French. Unfortunately I can only count to ten and order coffee in French so it would have been as useless to me as one in say Wolof or Pular. It's quite possibly that there simply is no version out there. It sounds like the kind of story that needs to be listened to rather than read. If anybody does knows where I could find a version please let me know.

Like Asingne's story, Redemption in Indigo is presented as a tale that needs to be listened to. The reader gets told the story by a skilled storyteller, one is not afraid to move back and forth on the time line and cast doubt on the truthfulness of what he is telling the audience. In fact, he struck me as being quite opinionated. He means to entertain. There are all sorts of hints of other tales in the story that he then abandons in favour of Paama's tale. They serve to raise curiosity in his audience. It must have been pretty hard to keep this style going for the entire novel but in some chapters you really feel as if you're around some fire with a group of people completely immersed in the storyteller's tale. The narrator's voice is not that strongly present in the entire novel, some sections read more like a regular third person perspective.

In the early stages of the novel, it is something of a comedy. Asingne's antics are hilarious at times and even the trouble he puts Paama in, is not enough to make me stop grinning. Despite leaving him, she does try to protect him from too much embarrassment. There's more than a bit of tragedy here as well. Her husband seems to think he is entitled to the attention Paama pays to him and the lengths she goes to to provide him with the comforts he desires. His ways will eventually get him what he deserves in a way but Paama's attention is also more than he deserves.

Later on in the novel the tone gets much more serious. Paama is drawn into a conflict between djombi and their power is such, that their games are very dangerous to mere mortals. One of the djombi wants Paama to hand over her gift to him, a gift he feels was his power to begin with. In his attempt to get Paama to hand it over he shows her things about the world that change her outlook on life. But she is not without her influence either. His view of humanity is, which he held in very low regard until meeting Paama, changes profoundly. As Asingne should already have figured out, she is quite a special woman.

Redemption in Indigo is an unusual book in many respects. There is the way the story is told, with a very present narrator and a myriad of side plots that seem to go nowhere but are somehow essential to the novel. There is the elusive strong female main character that the fantasy genre is trying so hard to find. There is African inspired setting and mythological influences that you only rarely find in English language literature. All of this and more Lord manages to put into a relatively short novel. The book is so many things that don't usually come up when people think fantasy that is should really open the reader's eyes about what is possible in fantastical literature. It is quite simply a great read. For anybody who wants more out of the genre than your typical Tolkienesque epic fantasy, this novel is a must read.

Book Details
Title: Redemption in Indigo
Author: Karen Lord
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Pages: 280
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-78087-308-4
First published: 2010

Forge of Darkness - Steven Erikson

After finishing the monumental job of writing the ten volumes of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, Steven Erikson must have wondered how to continue. The series is one of the most complex and demanding works of Fantasy I've come across. The scope and depth of the history of the world of Malaz is simply way beyond anything encountered in other fantasy series. It leaves plenty of options to tell other stories of course but the temptation to start something fresh must also have been present. In a way Forge of Darkness, the first novel in the Kharkanas trilogy is a bit of both. The story is set so far back in history that it might as well be a different world despite the familiar characters that show up.

Forge of Darkness takes us to the realm of Kurald Galain, back to the time when the Tiste were one people. In recent years the cult of Mother Dark has gained prominence in Tiste society and this is not to everybody's liking. As her darkness spread through the Tiste lands resistance against her and her chosen consort Lord Draconus is growing. Most of the major players are aware that civil war is about to erupt and precautions are being taken. Outside the borders of the realm things are stirring too. Especially along the shores of the mysterious Vitr sea things are happening that will change the world.

In a way, Erikson takes a bit of a gamble here. Despite the vast gulf of time that separates this story form the ten book series he wrote before, the fate of the Tiste people is known. We've even seen some of it in one of the flashbacks in the later Malazan Book of the Fallen novels. To keep things interesting Erikson uses a technique not often encountered in Fantasy. Where most series strive for internal consistency and time lines that sometimes are know from day to day, Erikson leaves things fuzzy on purpose. He often employs unreliable narrators, people who were present at events in the distant past, people who have stakes in these events or have reason to want them to be remembered a certain way. In short, what Erikson chooses to show us our knowledge of history is flawed, sometimes corrupted and often unreliable. Nothing that can be gleaned from the Malazan Book of the Fallen novels can be taken for granted. To stress this point, the novel is essentially a frame story. In the prologue Erikson introduces us to the narrator of the book, who readily admits his own bias in telling it.

The shape of the story is what we've come to expect from Erikson. He uses a great number of point of view characters to show events in a lot of different locations, patiently working his way to the climax of the novel. Where many of his books have a military campaign at the heart of at least one major story line, this novel has a slightly different focus. There are armies on the move and a few battle scenes are included but civil war is much messier than an outright military conflict. Nobody appears in control. While everybody can feel the momentum building and an eruption of violence approaching, the immediate goals of the characters seem limited. There is no Kellanved with dreams of an empire, no Crippled God aiming to shake up the pantheon. It is epic fantasy but somehow a shade more manageable than the sprawling series that made Erikson's name.

Another very interesting touch is that while the religious tensions appear to tear Tiste society apart, they are fast approaching an ecological crash too. There are lots of references to deforestation and the extinction of animals. Beyond the loss of good hunting game, nobody seems overly concerned about it. Erikson is clearly exploring more than one way in which a culture can doom itself. In that respect, the Tiste are certainly being thorough.

Besides the Tiste, Erikson shows us a number of other elder races in this book. The Jaghut show up as they were before a war of genocide was unleashed on them and before Hood's ascension. The Jheck make an appearance, there are references to the Forulkan and their eternal pursuit of justice and the Eilent crash the party. For the established reader the opening chapters of this book is a feast of recognition. Before Erikson pulls the carpet from under you and lays out a very different history from what we thought we knew anyway. The Azathanai, which I assume are linked to the Azath houses of a later age, are perhaps the most interesting. They already seem to have a very long history and struck me as gods living among their own creations. They seem to have already distanced themselves from their creations though. Their whole stance made me wonder where Erikson is going to take that particular part of the story.

As you will probably have realized by now, there is plenty that ties this book the to the Malazan Book of the Fallen. For an established reader it will be a treat. Erikson also wanted to make it an entry point into the series. One that didn't need the reader to commit to ten large volumes. Having read all ten Malazan books, as well as five novellas and five novels by Ian C. Esslemont set in the same world, it is hard for met to answer the question if it is successful in that respect as well. The story itself should be no problem but I do feel you get an awful lot more out of this book if you've read the series. Of course Gardens of the Moon (1999), the other obvious entry point into the world of Malaz is not without it's flaws. The series is notoriously difficult to get into. With so much more experience, Erikson has delivered a better written book and a much smoother read. There is something to be said for starting here.

Carrying on after completing such a huge series as the Malazan Book of the Fallen is quite a challenge and Erikson proves up to it with Forge of Darkness. He manages to create a new chapter in the story that is both fresh and different from what has gone before but retains the kind of messy complexity and immense tragedy that characterize his previous novels. I was quite impressed with the opening novel of the Kharkanas trilogy. Erikson is clearly not finished with the universe he and Ian C. Esslemont created. I for one, look forward to seeing where he will take this trilogy. I may have to wait a while to find out though. It looks as if Fall of the Light won't appear until next year.

Book Details
Title: Forge of Darkness
Author: Steven Erikson
Publisher: Bantam Press
Pages: 662
Year: 2012
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-0-593-06217-3
First published: 2012

Robbie & de Kruiper - Raymond E. Feist

In May last year Magician's End, the final book in Feist's long running Riftwar series, appeared. It was the final chapter in a series that had been going for over thirty years. Earlier that year, Feist published the novella Jimmy and the Crawler to tie up a loose end in the series. As usual with Feist, I read it in Dutch translation. One of the earlier translators of Feist's works, I think translator Mat Schifferstein is the fourth to have a go at Riftwar material, has decided to rename the character Jimmy the Hand, hence the Dutch title Robbie & de Kruiper.

This novella is part of the Riftwar Legacy subseries, which is tied to the PC games Betrayal at Krondor (1993) and Return to Krondor (1998) which are based on Feist's Midkemian setting. Three full novels have appeared in this series, two of which are novelizations of the RPG storylines in the computer games. Originally two more full length novels were planned, with working titles Krondor: The Crawler and Krondor: The Dark Mage. Due to a conflict wit Sierra, the developer of the computer games, these novels were never written. Feist has alluded to events taking places in these novels in several places in his other books, leaving an obvious hole in the series. It seems clear now that the novels will never be written but this novella does attempt to tie up the dangling story lines.

Jimmy and the Crawler is set some time after Krondor: Tear of the Gods. The precious artefact has been recovered but the mysterious Crawler still hasn't been taken out. Arutha, Prince of Krondor, is worried about this threat and puts his thief-come-nobleman Jimmy the Hand on the case with. To make sure he lives though the assignment he is accompanied by William, soldier and son of Pug the Magician and court magician Jazhara with him. The trail leads to Durbin, a port city nominally part of the empire of Great Kesh and notorious for the slave trade and pirating that goes on in the city. Jimmy soon reaches the conclusion that everything they thought they knew about the Crawler is incorrect.

The Riftwar Legacy series features some of the poorest novels in the entire Riftwar cycle. Most of them read like a poorly worked out scenario for a role playing game, with a strong emphasis on action at very little room for such things as characterization and overarching story lines. I guess, given their origins as RPG computer games it is not entirely surprising but they still disappointed me at the time. Jimmy and the Crawler doesn't really escape this. Feist is obviously in a hurry to finish an constantly refers to earlier books to keep from having to elaborate too much. I have a feeling that some continuity errors creep up in this book as well. Since the later books are riddled with them, it shouldn't bother the reader who has stuck with Feist for this long too much though.

Feist usually uses multiple points of view to tell his story, enabling him to depict events at several locations and tell the story from the mundane level al the way up to the gods. This novella focuses entirely on Jimmy's exploits. His point of view is dominant. Feist switches once or twice when he needs to depict events taking place outside Jimmy's line of sight but for the most part we stick with him. The multi-layered approach is entirely sacrificed. It results in a very straightforward tale with a rather high dungeons and dragons level.

It doesn't help that to the reader who has already completed most of the other books in the series, what needs to happen in this story is obvious. There is very little surprise in it. To make matters worse Feist reuses one of the more important plot devices in the first book of the Darkwar Saga, Flight of the Nighthawks (2005). He attempts some twists and turns but nothing the experienced Feist reader hasn't seen before. With all the references to other books it's is not a good place to start the series either.

In the end, Jimmy and the Crawler feels like a novella Feist felt he owed his readers but was not particularly inspired to write. While I could enjoy and appreciate Magician's End at some level, this work reminded me again why I was so disappointed by the earlier Krondor books. It's so straightforward, hasty and uninspired that only the completist will want to read it. Maybe with a bit more fleshed out plot it could have been a worthwhile addition but as it is, it achieves nothing other than plugging a plot hole.

Book Details
Title: Robbie & de Kruiper
Author: Raymond E. Feist
Publisher: Luithingh Fantasy
Pages: 155
Year: 2013
Language: Dutch
Translation: Mat Schifferstein
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 978-90-245-6288-6
First published: 2013

Astra - Naomi Foyle

A couple of weeks ago I won a copy of this novel over at Worlds Without End. The nice things about book giveaways is that you tend to take a chance more easily on books that you wouldn't have purchased or the release of which you most likely wouldn't have noticed. This is one such book. Although the premise appealed to me I probably would have missed it without the giveaway. Foyle is a relatively new name in genre fiction. As far as I have been able to determine, this is her second published novel after Seoul Survivors (2013). Astra is the first novel in the Gaia Chronicles and it doesn't appear to be related to Seoul Survivors. It set in a post apocalyptic world, with a generous helping of genetic engineering and social experiments mixed in. The premise and style of the novel are very interesting but I must admit that at times, the book tried my patience.

Growing up in Is-Land, seven year old Astra's greatest wish is to do service in IMBOD, the agency that defends Is-Land's borders against intruders an terrorists. To do that she needs her Security Shot, a serum that will  make her more receptive to the training she will have to follow, more resistant to doubt and closer to the children she grows up with. One of her shelter mothers, Dr. Hokma Blesser, disagrees with Is-Land's policies in this regards and fears that it will take away something of Astra's intelligence and curiosity. The excel in science, she needs these qualities in tact. She offers Astra a choice to conspire to refuse the mandatory shot. Reluctantly Astra accepts.

The entire story is told from Astra's perspective and revolves around the unfair choice she has been offered. The novel is divided into three parts. The first is set when Astra is seven years old, the second part shows us a twelve year old Astra and in the final part she is a girl of sixteen. Astra's upbringing is very sheltered in a way, she lives in a small and somewhat isolated community, allowing Foyle to slowly introduce elements of the nation of Is-Land and the wider world. On the surface, the community Astra grows up in appears idyllic but it is obvious from the start that all is not well in Is-Land. The feeling that things are being hidden from the children is present from the very first pages of the book and finding out what, is what keeps the tension up in this novel. There are things that will make the reader feel unease throughout the book.

Their religion, or perhaps I should say philosophy, revolves around respect for the planet. Killing an animal, no matter how insignificant is an almost impossible act in Astra's seven year old mind. It's a crime, something that hurts Gaia. At the same time, radically altering crops, animals and even humans is everyday practice in the community. Many weaknesses in the human genetic code have been fixed and radically altered versions of animals that went extinct before the crises humanity barely survived are being introduced. On top of all that, the Gaians are now raising a new generation of humans with the aid of the serum. An experiment they believe will safeguard their nation for generations to come. There is something fundamentally contradictory in those two approaches. There is a kind of respect for the natural world, life is sacred, but at the same time it is manipulated to an unprecedented extent to suit human needs.

Foyle cleverly used a number of unreliable sources to lay out the history of her world. From what little we get to see about what befell the planet, a large conflict, partially caused by oil and food shortages, ended the world as we know it. Gaian communities were already in existence then, combining a reverence for the planet with advanced knowledge of genetics, they tried to forge a new way of living independent of fossil fuels. According to official Gaian history, their communities suffered terribly during the conflict but in a post apocalyptic world, their genetic resources prove invaluable. So much so, that they've been able to found their own nation, protected by a treaty with the outside world. This sanitized version of history hides a lot of ugliness and power politics. Their knowledge gives the Gaians and edge they exploit to enable to build a community based on their principles. It is not until the twelve year old Astra meets a dissident that she starts to seriously doubt the stories she's been fed all her life.

It's doubt that plagues Astra throughout the novel. Where the serum makes her playmates more susceptible to the stories they are told, more ready to conform and accept, Astra questions. As Hokma feared, the serum changes children in ways that may lead to the creation of good border guards, they loose something in the process as well. Astra is constantly forced to try an suppress her natural curiosity. As she grows up, the gap between her and the other children widens but interesting enough it's her relationship with the adults that suffers. The strain that hiding her secret puts on Astra intensifies as the demands being made on her grow. Gaian education is thorough and all-encompassing, it has little patience with those who question the tenets of Gaian society. The conflict between her curiosity and her desire to fit in  is central to Astra's development and it makes her a fascinating character.

Foyle puts a lot in this novel but it is still not a book for impatient readers. I think the book dragged, especially in the middle section. The section dealing with the twelve year old Astra deals for a large part with the structure of Gaian society on all levels. Their family structure is complex and beyond anything that existed before the conflict that ended our way of life. Sexuality plays a large part in that. Although something that could be considered a marriage exists and some taboos remain, individuals enjoy a much larger sexual freedom from puberty onwards, than would be considered acceptable in just about any culture in our world. With Astra's own sexual maturity approaching, quite a lot of her time and energy is devoted to the subject. There is an elaborate rite of passage being described that appears to be only loosely connected to the central conflict in the novel. Foyle's description of the Gaian look on sexuality, bonding and family is interesting but I couldn't help but feel she overexpanded that bit of worldbuiling.

What I felt Astra has going for it, is the way Foyle handles what to reveal to the reader and how. The limited perception of the young Astra and the numerous unreliable tales spread throughout the novel make the reader feel uneasy about the true nature of Gaian society but also prevented me from jumping to conclusions. I don't think the pacing of the novel is perfect, Foyle does tend to elaborate on some aspects of the community Astra lives in, but the tension present in the mail character is very well built up. The climax of the novel left me curious about which challenges Astra would be facing next. I probably would have missed the release of this book without the giveaway but I'm going to be keeping an eye out for volume two.

Book Details
Title: Astra
Author: Naomi Foyle
Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books
Pages: 379
Year: 2014
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-78087-634-4
First published: 2014

The Mount - Carol Emshwiller

I read Carol Emshwiller's The Secret City last year as part of a reading challenge. It's an interesting little novel and one of the better ones I've read in 2013. After reading it I wondered what Emshwiller could do in the short format, as her style seems more suited to that. I was planning on reading a collection by her this year but somehow ended up with a copy of her novel The Mount instead. It was published in 2002 and won the Philip K. Dick Award that year, beating, among others, China Miéville's impressive Bas-Lag novel The Scar. The Mount is quite a different story than the one told in The Secret City but both are fascinating reads.

The Mount is the story of Charley, a boy nearing adolescence who is bred and brought up as a mount for a race of aliens. The Hoots, as they are referred to are intellectually superior to humans but, although endowed with formidably strong hands, are incapable of walking any significant distance. Instead they rely on their mounts to get around, which they control with their hands. Humans are ideal for the task. Smart enough to be trained, just the right size, endowed with strong legs and capable of understanding the threat posed by the hands of their riders around their necks. Charley doesn't need to be threatened though. He wants to be a good mount. Until, that is, wild humans raid his settlement and he comes into contact with his father and a different way of life.

Emshwiller does a number of very interesting things in this novel. She has stated that she was originally inspired by a class she'd taken in the psychology of pray animals versus predators. The Mount turns these rolls around with the prey eventually enslaving the predator. There are lots of little signs of the origins of the Hoot as prey. Most notably their tendency to seek out small enclosed spaces to hide for shelter. I'm not entirely sure how much sense this makes biologically speaking but in the story it makes Hoots and their response to danger quite unique. Their control often seems tenuous at best, although Charley doesn't seem to think so, and is mostly based on the image of benevolence and superiority. When it comes to physical violence they are only dangerous in very specific situations.

We see almost the entire story through Charley's eyes and over the course of the novel his view of the world changes drastically. In the early stages of the novel he just wants to be a good mount and has a close relationship with his master. He wants to please and he wants his master to take good care of him. In fact the devotion he shows to his master gave me the creeps in the opening chapters of the novel. It would have been easy to have him radically change his mind when he is exposed to freedom for the first time but Emshwiller takes her characters down a different path. His conditioning doesn't break easily and his relationship with his master remains strong. Charley is torn between wanting to make his own choices and being protected by his master. Eventually the slave/master relationship shifts into something harder to define.

Many readers will be so used to their freedom that they'll find it hard to imagine how Charley might not be all that interested. The wild humans he is first exposed to are to be pitied in his opinion. Their lives are misery, devoid of even the smallest of comforts. Charley wonders why they would want to live this way when they can have the Hoots take care of them. It's a naive view from a young boy who hasn't seen the full extent of the treatment humans get from the Hoots. It clashes so violently with the freedom western society takes for granted that many readers will have a hard time swallowing it. I thought it was a brilliant bit of writing however. Emshwiller shows us Charley's level of maturity and challenges the reader to think of oppression and the psychology of the oppressed in one move.

Like The Secret City the story is told in fairly straightforward language but it makes the reader work to get the full picture nevertheless. Charley's views are often childish but portrayed in such a way that the reader can get more meaning out of it than Charley does himself. His Hoot master, although in a similar state of development himself, is usually a few steps ahead of him but puts things into an alien framework. Another important character in the novel, Charley's father, has problems expressing himself in clear language. His body language and the way he vents his frustration are an important part of how he communicates with Charley and the reader. All these very limited views combined can be interpreted in a number of ways, making the book deceptively challenging. It's one of those books that rewards the reader for looking beyond the superficial and diving into the characters.

The Mount is clearly a science fiction novel but the focus is very much on psychology. The alien invasion is not the center of the story, there are no epic space battles or explorations of strange alien cultures. Readers looking for that type of science fiction will be disappointed. The novel is something of an allegory for slavery or oppression and can be interpreted or applied to many different situations. Some reviewers have suggested it comments on the way we treat animals ourselves for instance and, although I don't think that was Emshwiller's intent, it fits well enough. It's a very effective text really, I'm impressed with how much Emshwiller has packed into such a short novel. It is challenging the reader's convictions about freedom and oppression and invites them to pick the characters brains to understand their motivations. I'm pretty sure I haven't gotten all out of this novel yet after one reading. I'm going to have to revisit it in a few years.

Book Details
Title: The Mount
Author: Carol Emshwiller
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Pages: 232
Year: 2002
Language: English
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1-931520-03-8
First published: 2002

The Shelters of Stone - Jean M. Auel

I have done reviews of the first four books and the final book  in Auel Earth's Children series. The Shelters of Stone is the fifth in the series and not having reviewed if feels like a loose end. Since I was ahead of schedule and waiting for another recently ordered batch of books to arrive I decided to do something about it. I've read this book once before, shortly after it was released in 2002. From what I remember I wasn't that impressed with it and I suspect Auel disappointed quite a few readers with this book. It appeared 12 years after The Plains of Passage and does little other than repeating all that has gone before. While I didn't think it was as dreadful as The Land of Painted Caves, it's most certainly not the highlight of my reading year.

After a year long trek across Europe, Alya and Jondalar finally arrive at the home of his people, where the plan to mate and settle. Ayla is apprehensive about meeting his people. She worries they may not accept her and wonders if it was a mistake to leave the Mamutoi who have adopted her. She quickly finds her place among the Zelandonii though. Her unusual background ant talents gain her the attention of Zelandonii, the people's spiritual leader who intends to induct her in the mysteries of the great mother. Ayla doesn't only make friends however. The speed with which she gains the attention of the high status members of the Zelandonii gains her her share of enemies as well.

Jondalar's people occupy what is today a part of France, more specifically the Dordogne. The region is well known for its prehistoric sites and from the way Auel descibes in, it must have been very densely populated by the standards of the time. I've visited the region when I was a child, I think it was the summer of 1984 but I might be a year off. One of the places we visited was Lascaux, famous for its cave paintings. Back then the original paintings were already closed to the public to prevent them from further deteriorating but we did see the replicas in Lascaux II. I also remember seeing some of the overhanging cliffs that serve as a shelter for the Zelandonii. As usual Auel's research has been meticulous, even if she is stuck with some of her earlier choices regarding Neanderthals in particular, that by the time his novel was published were already outdated. I probably would look at the landscape with different eyes if I would visit this region again. Not everybody is enamored with Auel's tendency to describe landscapes in detail but she does have an eye for it.

One of the things that seriously annoyed me in this series as a whole is how much human development and technological advances come together in Ayla and Jondalar. The list of their inventions and discoveries is much too long to be plausible and I suspect that Auel took some liberties with the archaeological record is some cases. Fortunately Auel manages to limit herself to just one in this novel. She has Ayla discover the Lascaux caves. The paintings that have been found there are several thousand years younger than the time Ayla's story is set in, so I didn't really see the need for it. I guess we should be grateful she didn't paint them herself.

Most of the book is not about prehistoric life though, it is about status. Like among the Mamutoi, status is important among the Zelandonii. Jondalar is a high status male, son of a leader, attractive, talented and well connected. For Ayla to be suitable mate, she should match him. High status almost comes naturally to Ayla. She is, after all, practically perfect in every way. The challenges to her position mostly come from people who are jealous of her. Either low status man or women who desire something she has. They never really pose a serious challenge in this novel, as much as I disliked The Mammoth Hunters, at least Auel managed to create tension within the Lion Camp generated by her presence.

With so many people meeting Ayla for the first time, every significant event in her life up to that point is rehashed in this novel. Some events several times. Auel seems to think that because she took twelve years to write this novel, the reader will have forgotten all about Ayla. Take out the repetition and the superfluous introduction rituals and there is enough plot left to fill a novella. With so much emphasis on Ayla's position in Zelandonii society the focus of the novel also shifts away a bit from topics such as ice age ecology and techniques of survival in the paleolithic. While a lot of people feel the detailed descriptions of everyday life are tiresome, they are much more the strength of this series than dialogues or the petty drama Auel puts into her story.

Auel achieves very little in this book. You could say the only thing she does manage in this 750 page doorstopper is convince Ayla she belongs among the spiritual elite of the Zelandonii and that puts her in a position to force the loss of innocence (or in less cryptic terms the realization that sex and reproduction are linked) described in The Land of the Painted Caves on these unfortunate hunter-gatherers. Ayla brings change, she is like a storm waiting the break loose but it doesn't happen in this book. In fact, Auel would need many more pages to get to that point. With a little better plotting it might have been worth reading but as it is The Shelters of Stone is mostly filler. Not many people would be willing to plow though that many pages of ineffective writing. The only thing that saves this book for being the worst in the series is that Auel manages to outdo herself in in the final volume. It's very sad to see that a series that started with such a special novel as The Clan of the Cave Bear sinks to these depths in the final volumes.

Book Details
Title: The Shelters of Stone
Author: Jean M. Auel
Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
Pages: 769
Year: 2002
Language: English
Format: Hardcover
ISBN: 0-340-82195-7
First published: 2001