kellshaw | Entries tagged with book review

The Were Chronicles by Alma Alexander is probably one of my favorite books I’ve read recently. It’s actually three books bundled together, the individual ones being Random, Wolf and Shifter. The introduction posits that it’s a work of ‘Hard Fantasy’, in that the shapeshifting is based on science (the author is a molecular biologist). It’s also a lot more grounded than a lot of fantasy as the book explores the impact of werecreatures on culture, society and on science. (I wouldn’t call it soft sci-fi either, as that always reminds me of Doctor Who, where this is more like Ursula LeGuin playing with urban fantasy tropes.)

Each month, the Were people shift into animal form. It’s not a great existence; they don’t remember their transformations, and have to be kept in cages, lest they run off or hurt people. However, their people are still proud of their heritage and live in large clans that support each other. During adolescence, Weres imprint on an animal that they will turn into for about three days (about the length of a full moon) for the rest of their lives. In a world that reminded me a bit of how the X-Men were treated, Weres are regulated by the government. Weres that don’t have anyone to help them during their transformations are imprisoned in horrific institutions, and there are drugs you can take to suppress (but not completely stop) one’s transformation.

The first book in the collection, Random, is the story of Jazz. As her brother desperately tries to trigger his own transformation as a rite of passage, Jazz’s own transformation is triggered - and she shifts into a human male that resembles her older brother! I was expecting an exploration of gender identity, but it’s really a story of immigrant identity. The focus of the book is a character study of Jazz’s older sister, Celia, her death, and the impact on her family. Jazz reads her sister’s journals and privately blogs about her reaction to them in her internet journal. Celia’s story is about fleeing Eastern Europe, as violence against Weres increases, immigrating to America and trying to fit in. Horror elements are subtly explored through the Turning Houses (where shifters are compulsorily imprisoned by the government each full moon) and the tragic bullying that Celia faces at school. I thought Jazz’s story was largely overshadowed by her sister’s, and yet this thread anchors the entire trilogy.

Wolf is the story of Mal, Jay’s brother. During the events of the first book, he ‘cheats’ to trigger his transformation into a wolf, or Lycan. (He’s friends with ‘Chalky’, a mysterious shifter who can turn into any animal, and he can control and keep his human mind during the transformation, unlike the after Weres. And when Chalky bites Mal, he triggers Mal’s transformation into a wolf.) Now Mal is a member of one of the oldest and most mysterious Were clans. The Lycans come for him and indoctrinate him into their society - and they’re all biologists! Mal is taken to the compound and trained in basic labwork. Each month, Mal enters the wolf sanctuary in wolf form. This is probably one of the most original werewolf society studies I’ve read about. It’s a social story about Mal finding a place in the Lycan society and culture when he’s an outsider to such a closed and cliquey group, obsessed with research, family bloodlines and academia. It’s also about a younger generation rising up and challenging the status quo. This was my favourite story in the book.

Shifter is the story of Chalky (alias Saladin) Mal’s friend, who can shift into any shape. He starts off using it for mischief, and then by the end of the book is involved in a full-blown spy plot against the religious authoritarian movement that’s cracking down on Weres.

Overall, I loved the world-building and the character studies. Alexander’s background as a scientist underlies the trilogy, grounding the story in interesting ways. Especially with extracts of academic reports and papers sprinkled through the books. Probably my main caveat is that Alexander spends a chunk of the second book covering the events of the first, and most of the last book covering the events of the second from Chalky’s point of view. It’s fantastic from a character perspective, but by the time we catch up to events, the plot becomes a bit squished, and could have used longer to explore the intrigue that Chalky gets involved in. Anyway, it was a fascinating dive into ‘Hard Fantasy’ and a highly recommended read, particularly if you want to read a book that explores werecreatures in a different light.

Existentially Challenged is the sequel to last month’s book review, Differently Morphous by Yahtzee Croshaw. Once again, Croshaw has a refreshing take on urban fantasy by showing the impact of magic being revealed to the world.

This book’s focus in on religion. Magic in this universe comes from bargains or possession by one of the Ancients, Cthulhu-esque entities that live outside of space and time. Like gods. And if you can prove that there are gods that are real and grant power, how does that affect people’s beliefs? Crowshaw’s tackles this theme with his subversive sense of humour.

A year after the events of Differently Morpheus, the Extradimensional Appropriation Act is passed that makes it illegal for people to claim to have magic. (Cue a nice gag scene where a group of stage magicians have to admit that they are cold reading people to stay ‘legal’ during performances).

The Department of Extradmensional Affairs (or DEDA) is empowered to investigate claims of magic. Their current case is where a young girl, Miracle Meg, can heal people through her connection with her Ancient, El-Yetch. Genuine faith healing! However, a few suspicious corpses of people horribly aged to death are found in the area, which suggests that this healing isn’t as genuine as it appears.
Alison Arkin and her over-the-top partner Doctor Diablerie (think of a dramatic 1930s villain in top hat and tails) investigate what’s really happening with Miracle Meg, and her family, Miracle Dad and Miracle Mum. The role of the internet is a big part in the Miracle Meg case, with her followers big on the forums, her father desperate for fame and television appearances, and a group of Youtubers in a van (with a dog) following the case and making things more complicated for Alison.

Several subplots weave in the background for the other DEDA agents. Pyrokinetic Victor Casin tangles with a woman possessed by the same entity that empowers him. Is she his girlfriend or his archnemesis? Or is that one and the same? And Adam Hesketh struggles with his first proper investigation that isn’t a seek and destroy mission. And he’s terrible at it. Alison tries to piece together Diablerie’s real backstory and agenda; what’s he actually planning?

Despite their powers, the DEDA agents aren’t the world’s sharpest lot. They blunder their way through events, making disastrous decisions, but get there in the end. The story’s told through a mix of regular third person narrative, internet forum chats and other extracts. The book skewers the religion and the media, particularly in a great scene where the Christian Church is accused of breaking the Extradimensional Appropriation Act, culminating in a late-night television debate between followers of El-Yetch and hardline pastors.

I enjoyed the first book more (the mystery was tighter) but this is still an entertaining read. I liked how the characterisations of the DEDA were dug into a bit more. And I’m looking forward to the next one, and discovering Doctor Diablerie’s secret agenda…

This book stood out while browsing for two reasons.

One: Yahtzee Croshaw? Didn’t he do those video game reviews back in the day for the Escapist? What’s he doing writing urban fantasy?

And two: based on the blurb, this story is about an urban fantasy reality where the masquerade breaks, and the prosaic world is exposed to magic for the first time. Not something I've encountered a lot of.

Let’s check it out.

The Ministry of Occultism keeps Britain safe from magic and monsters. But their practices are all mired in the nineteenth century. The organisation sponsors demon hunters, is led by a doddery council of robed elders called the Hand of Merlin, and funnels all detected magical practitioners into two schools: a pleasant one designed to find out which people for sure can cast magic, and a more sinister reform school. Rather than being taught to channel the magic and integrate with society, the students are instead treated like prisoners.

Things change when a group of extra-dimensional creatures, called shoggoths by the Ministry, ask for refugee status. Unlike their Lovecraftian namesakes, these shoggoths, or fluidics, are sweet, enthusiastic but bumbling sluglike creatures, eager to integrate with society and eat garbage. They see themselves as part of a whole, rather than as individuals. Usually, the Ministry sends in flannel-clad Yorkshire demon hunters to shoot the fluidics with salt (which kills them) each time they cross over, but in this case, the fluidics contact the well meaning Henry, who stages a public march with a mass parade of the entities. With the supernatural exposed, the Ministry is outed and forced to shed its nineteenth century practices, joining the British government as the Department of Extradimensional Affairs.

Our main protagonist is Alison Arkin, a wannabe magic student, but leaves to work for the Ministry when the teachers discover she doesn’t have any actual powers, only an eidetic memory. After a few disastrous administration assignments, Alison is partnered with field agent Doctor Diablerie, a pretentious and possibly unstable individual who wears a top hat and cloak, and speaks about himself in the third person and who doesn’t appear to have any of his own magic. (I wasn’t sure Diablerie was a Doctor (Who) parody at first, given his bluster and nonsensical babble, but he remains marvelously Over The Top throughout the book, although his presence may be an acquired taste. Despite Diablerie not having any explicit magical abilities (he mostly blusters his way through things) he has a 100 percent case clearance rate.)

While I was initially interested in the Department’s transition into the real world (complete with humorous clashes with more politically correct public service staff and policies) the actual main plot is more of a mystery. Someone is murdering fluidics! Diablerie and Alison investigate, and Alison doggedly pulls everything together. I was pleasantly surprised by the mystery’s pay off - it’s well done. Yahtzee is skilled at setting up a joke or situation that leads to a strong punchline or payoff, even if it’s down the track.

The tone of the book is humorous, a bit Laundry Files, maybe a touch of Discworld. It took me a while to become fully immersed, but as the cracking plot progressed, I was hooked.

Anyway, recommended.

Back to blogging with the RIB (Review of Interesting Books).

I found this book on my e-reader. I can’t tell you how or when I acquired it, but it was likely part of some promotion or special deal. Despite acquiring a small mountain of these books, I curate the books I decide to read. I don’t enjoy a book, or if it fails to grab me after the first few chapters, I move on.

But this book made the cut.

The DeChance Chronicles Omnibus is a set of four books by David Niall Wilson, who I’m not familiar with otherwise but has written many books, including Star Trek tie-ins, and who’s won the Bram Stoker Award for horror writing.

In the introduction, Wilson grabbed my attention with a reference to the old White Wolf roleplaying game company, whose urban fantasy roleplaying games like Vampire: The Masquerade, Mage: The Ascension, and Werewolf: The Apocalypse solidified my love of urban fantasy in the 1990s and 2000s. The DeChance Chronicles are about Donovan DeChance, a wizard in the fictional American city of San Valencez, and some books were initially proposed as World of Darkness tie-ins.

This volume contains the first four books and some short pieces. I really enjoyed these; I wouldn’t say that the books are especially ‘gamey’, but rather solid and well-written urban fantasy adventures. (In some old D&D tie-in novels, you could practically hear the click of dice as the characters did things!)

DeChance is a refined, gentlemanly, academic wizard. He’s not especially snarky or witty like Dresden, but enjoys fine dining and wine, and has a stable, healthy romance with his intriguing wizardly girlfriend, Amethyst. DeChance has a large sanctum filled with books and occult paraphernalia. He’s well connected with the local occult community and has a cat familiar, Cleo, an Egyptian Mau breed. Much to Cleo’s consternation, DeChance later picks up a scruffy raven familiar as well. (Cleo doesn’t talk but communicates with her wizard through mental impressions and cat-like mannerisms.)

The first book, Heart of the Dragon, is about some dragons possessing the members of a local gang. When artist Salvatore paints these dragons, he empowers the gang members and and fuels an occult feud between the different gangs. DeChance’s involvement here is a bit more peripheral than the later books, but he does get involved to stop a powerful summoning. I enjoyed DeChance’s visits to Club Chaos, the typical urban fantasy nightclub where deals are made and many creatures are encountered. (We had a lot of those special nightclubs in our old Vampire games!)

The Vintage Soul is centered on DeChance’s relationship with a group of vampires. In this world, vampires can flavour wine with blood and store it for a long time. At a vampire gathering, a powerful female vampire is kidnapped, and her partner, the city’s vampire ‘prince’, Johndrow, hires DeChance to get her back. This case intersects with the theft of a tome from DeChance’s library. The culprit is a wizard who plants to sacrifice the kidnapped vampire to fuel an immortality spell. Of the four books, this was the closest to the World of Darkness mythos (in fact, this was originally proposed as a World of Darkness novel).

My Soul to Keep explores DeChance’s origin story in the wild west, where as a boy he was apprenticed to the drunken hedge wizard, ‘Dr. Hugo Rathman, Healer, Mystic, and Clairvoyant’ (as painted on the side of his wagon). Rathman moves from town to town, trying to stay ahead of a demon after his soul. Donovan suffers abuse from his mentor, while trying to learn magic from books. One day, the demon finally catches up, and DeChance has a chance to escape. Wilson clearly enjoyed writing the old west setting, and there’s a particular vibrancy that shone through the descriptions.

The last book in the collection, Kali's Tale, is linked to characters from The Vintage Soul, about a vampire, Kali, who wants revenge on the man who made her a vampire. As requested by the vampire prince, DeChance chaperones Kali, and a group of her fellow young vampires on her journey. While the setting around the Great Dismal Swamp in North Carolina is quite evocative, one moment irked me: when DeChance saved his little vampire charges from the ghost of an old blues musician who was simply protecting his turf from the bloodsuckers!

Other stories are linked to Wilson’s Great Dismal Swamp setting, about a mad preacher, and the eccentric con man and occult investigator Cletus J Diggs, a fun and lively character.

What made these stories work are the evocative, well-detailed characters, and sense of place, especially around the North Carolina scenes, where Wilson lives. Wilson sometimes writes in the character’s head, and sometimes as though we’re behind a camera, watching the character. This is a style taken from some mystery novels, which gives a certain secrecy to the character’s actions; I didn’t find it limiting at all. Other things of interest are the snippets of lore as Wilson slowly builds the mythology of his world, such as that vampire banes are variable, and are based on what they feared when they were alive. For example, the mad alchemist vampire in the fourth book is repelled by dogwood rather than a crucifix.

I enjoyed my time in DeChance’s world and would recommend this volume.