Review: River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay

Ren Daiyan is a man born for combat. As a boy he took the lives of seven outlaws while guarding an imperial magistrate of Kitai. At that moment he makes a decision and sets off into the forests to join a group of outlaws himself, intent on honing his skills. Due to events in an earlier dynasty military prowess is frowned upon and Ren's dream of regaining Kitai's lost lands seems unachievable. Lin Shan is the daughter of a scholar, who is educated by him, something not done for women in this period. Shen finds herself struggling to find her own place in the world. A power struggle in the northern steppes creates an interesting proposition for an empire divided into competing factions at court who serve a cultured emperor interested more in his art and gardens then in governing.

Kay has always been interested in how history shapes the characters in his story, so I found it particularly fascinating how the two central characters are shaped by events that occurred hundreds of years earlier in his previous novel Under Heaven. Kay's characters and world-building are phenomenal and very much intertwined. The reader is introduced to the history and culture through various characters points of view which works better and much more seamlessly than the info-dumping some other authors have been guilty of. It amazes me how quickly Kay can bring a minor character to life in minimal space.

Pacing is very well controlled throughout with a conclusion that had me pondering possibilities hours later.

Overall Kay,is as always, at his best. 9.25/10.  

Review: Cold Days by Jim Butcher

After recovering from his near death experience and undergoing some rather intense training at the hands of his new liege lady Mab, Queen and Air and Darkness, Harry receives his first assignment as Winter Knight; the assassination of an immortal.  Besides this seemingly impossible task, Harry has to deal with some members of the Winter court jockeying for position at his expense, deal with confronting his friend's who believed him dead and trying to defuse an island that is about to go nuclear.

This novel definitely sets the direction for the remainder of the series, revealing some far reaching plot points and moving firmly away from 'case by case' novels we knew earlier in the series. The landscape has defintely changed and there were more than a few 'wow' moments.

Pacing is, as always, tightly controlled, Harry remains an engaging protagonist and I still love his snarkiness. While remaining true to his genuinly decent guy nature it was interesting to see him struggle with some darker impulses that the mantle of winter knight brought on.

My only criticism was that Butcher didn't really explore the effect Harry's return from the dead had on the supporting characters especially Molly, Murphy and Thomas. We saw the former two deeply affected by his death in the previous novel but no real lingering effects were obvious in this one. Granted they were all going through a major life and death crisis throughout the novel and exploring their emotional state wasn't a priority but some down time would have been interesting.

Overall Butcher continues to deliver in a big way 8.25/10.

Review:The Knife's Edge by Matthew Wolf

Having watched his best friend die a young man is consumed by the power of the dark sword that destroyed her. Before he comes to his senses he has murdered several innocent people. Mercifully his grandfather takes away all his memories but only after informing him he is the object of prophecy. The boy takes the name 'Gray' and lives a simple life with a friendly hermit. That is until legends come knocking and forcing him into a world he scarcely understands.

The first thing that struck me is how derivative this novel is from Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.  This  is obvious right from the start and includes organizations that are run along the exact same lines as Aes Sedai to one character,Darius, who is a complete knock off of Mat Cauthon.

The prose is tidy but sometimes too simplistic for what is trying to be conveyed in the content.  The world-building is very uneven with much left unexplained and some things contradictory, for example the residents of the Shinning City, a city isolated for thousands of years, hardly seem to be put out by the arrival of stangers.

The pacing is very uneven with the ending far too rushed and again too much left unexplained especially with the secondary characters. There were different character point of views sprinkled throughout the text but these certainly could have been used better.

Overall this novel is noticeably derivative, uneven in both world-building and pacing and leaves too much unexplained. 4.75/10.

Review: The Juging Eye by R. Scott Bakker

Twenty years after the events of The Thousandfold Thought the Aspect-Emperor Kellhus has united the entire Three Seas and is leading a vast army in it's first steps against the Consult, to ensure the No-God's  apocalyptic resurrection does not come to pass. His wife Esment is tasked with ruling the empire in his stead but is beset by her own fears as well as the plots of her own children. Her eldest daughter Mimara travels to see Drusas Achamian hoping he will teach her sorcery and become the father she has never known. Achamian has been receiving visions of Seswatha's lfe that have offered him a clue to Kellhus' origins. Mimara's arrival spurs him into more concrete action and sets him onto a journey in which he hopes to expose Kellhus as a fraud.  Meanwhile young King Sorweel of conquered Sarkarpus finds himself as part of Kellhus' army struggling between his belief in Kellhus and in his father's belief that he is a fraud.

As can be noted from the above the Judging Eye is divided into three main plot points. The biggest problem is that for two of them the pace is too slow and there is too much time spent on settting up events in future books, only Archamian's plot seems to advance to any degree.

The characters themselves are wonderfully conflicted and do keep things very interesting, throughout. This was undoubtedly the highlight of the book for me.

Overall Bakker continues to produce some very interesting characters, however pacing does let things down in this one. 7/10. 

Review:The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams

For eons there has been a delicate balance between Heaven and Hell with earth providing both a neutral territory and a battleground controlled by strict rules. When someone on earth passes away advocates from both sides are allowed to argue their case as to why the soul in question should be sent to their domain. That is until one soul disappears before either side can make a move, making the possibility of their cold war turning hot a frighteningly real one. Bobby Dollar an advocate for heaven and the first one on the scene finds himself caught in the crossfire, unsure even who on his own side he can trust.

Like a good majority of urban fantasy out there DSOH is told from a first-person perspective. For this to be successful the character in question needs to be entertaining, engaging and keep a delicate balance between capability and vulnerability. With Bobby Dollar Williams hits the nail on the head and his snarky cometary keeps the reader hooked throughout. Jim Butcher fans will see some very real similarities to Harry Dresden but without being too derivative.

The world-building is very interesting and Williams utilizes the fictional city of  San Judas  better than all of the urban fantasy's I've read bar Kate Griffin's London. Pacing is also well controlled throughout.

Overall Tad Williams again demonstrates his versatility in his first foray into urban fantasy. 8.25/10.

  

Review: Stray Souls by Kate Griffin

 
Sharon Li's has unexpectedly discovered she is a Shaman. For an instant she was one with the city, knew every detail about everything then suddenly it was gone. She decides to create a support-group Magicals Anonymous for people who have had similarly strange experiences. This group quickly comes to the attention of Matthew Swift, the midnight mayor, who needs a shaman's help in trying to find souls which seem to have gone missing throughout the city, including the very powerful Greydawn.

Like in her Matthew Swift books Griffin's descrpitions of life in London make it an interesting character in it's own right. Sharon is an accessible and well developed protagonist  but where this book really excels is the development of the support characters. Each one gets their own few pages to essentially describe themselves which works brilliantly. Short-sharp chapters keep the pacing ticking along nicely throughout. I enjoyed seeing Matthew Swift in a supporting role and love the potential with having the two series running concurrently.

In sum Griffin delivers a great novel yet again and shows real skill in developing a lively group of characters. 8.5/10.

Review: The Unremembered by Peter Orullian

Tahn is a young woodsman living in a small village at the edge of the world. For reasons unknown to him his childhood is a blur and he feels compelled to utter a phrase each time he draws his bow and greet each dawn. One day creatures out of myth descend on his village and target Tahn and his sister Wendra. Tahn is forced to put his trust in a pair of mysterious strangers and flee his village.

To put it bluntly this book was an absolute chore to read and only sheer bloodymindedness got me through it. It wasn't so much the recycled plot lines, I've read Terry Brooks and enjoyed his work, but the poor quality of the writing that put me off. The characters were all wooden and Orullian failed to make me care about them at all. The dialogue is clumsy and the prose feels like it is trying to be something it's not,though does improve slightly as the novel progresses. While there is a lot of world-building going on there is never enough development to truly grasp the details. This feels like a writer's first attempt at a novel and if I read it as part of a writting group I would say Orullian had potential but needed to write a few more to get to a point of being publishable. Why TOR decided to print and market this book so strongly is beyond me.

Overall Peter Orullian's debut is plagued with problems and I would have to advise giving this one a miss. 4/10.