Stephen Deas' The Black Mausoleum extract

Earlier this month, Stephen Deas, the author of the dragon trilogy (The Adamantine Palace, The King of the Crags and The Order of the Scales) posted an extract (the first two chapters) of his new novel, the follow-up to the first trilogy, titled The Black Mausoleum.

I ordered the book yesterday from Book Depository. Alas, I couldn't get it in e-book edition thanks to the geographic restrictions.  I'll write another post on the subject soon.  Anyway, I should be able to read it soon and post my review next month.  Meanwhile, enjoy!

Chapter one
Chapter two

Chapter one - Karatos 

He wasn’t stupid. Kataros had seen the way he looked at her, right from the start. Her jailer. She was a woman in a prison cell, frail and fragile, and he was the man charged with keeping her, a brute, massive and scarred with one crippled hand. In stories that went one of two ways. Either he’d fall in love with her, or he’d try to rape her and she’d get the better of him. Either way, in stories, fate always found a way to save the frail and fragile woman. 

Actually no. In the childish stories she remembered the frail and fragile woman never saved herself. In those stories she stayed exactly where she was until some gallant rider on the back of a dragon tore open the door to her cell with his bare hands and whisked her away to a happy-ever-after. But in this story that wasn’t going to happen, which left her back where she started. He was interested. He didn’t take much trouble to hide it either. He wasn’t ugly, at least not on the outside, despite the scars. He was an Adamantine Man, though, and so her story wasn’t going to end in love. 

There weren’t many cells down here. As far as Kataros could tell, there hadn’t been any at all until recently. Whatever this place was it had served some other purpose, something more benign, probably until the Adamantine Palace had burned. There were patterns on the floor, tiles, half buried now under a layer of filth. Ornate murals and faux arches decorated the walls. They were all over the place those arches, in almost every room she’d seen as they dragged her here. At the far end, towards the door that was the only way out, hangings lined the walls, intricate pictures of Vishmir and the first Valmeyan duelling in the skies; of the body of the Silver King, carried towards his tomb by men in masks and veils; of Narammed holding the Adamantine Spear, bowing down so he looked almost as though he was almost worshipping it – she could understand that, knowing now what it did. 

Yes, it had been a genteel room once, quiet and out of the way and meant for reflection until someone had slammed in a few crude rows of iron bars and called it a prison. There was no privacy. The prisoner in the cell next to hers had stared the first time she’d had to squat in a corner. The Adamantine Man, at least, had looked away.

[...]

New Poll - Narrative mode

First, let's return to the last poll.  I asked you my fellow readers: "Is there too much graphic violence in Fantasy?" and the result was almost unilateral, as 88% of the answers were negative.  I asked in a previous poll if you liked your Fantasy gritty and the results were almost the same with 87% of yeses.  It seems that the new trend where grittiness and violence are more present than ever is really what readers are craving for.

***

On to the next subject!  A less gruesome one at that... and more technical.

I have presented some time ago the list of my favorite first person perspective reads.  My top three was Croaker from the Black Company novels by Glen Cook, Kvothe from the Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss and Eddie LaCrosse from the LaCrosse novels by Alex Bledsoe (with special mentions to Drothe from Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick and Takeshi Kovacs from Richard Morgan books). I would add Arki form Jeff Salyard's Scourge of the Betrayer to the list!  I can't really do the same thing with the third person perspective since it would include too much novels and the second person narrative mode is even trickier since it involves you as the character.

When you look at the narrative modes definitions, there can be even more specific perspective (like omniscient vs limited) but I think that Wikipedia nicely summarize the topic:

Narrative point of view in the creative writing of fiction describes the narrator's position in relation to the story being told. Point of view differs from similar terms and concepts such as perspective, viewpoint, or the point-of-view of a camera. Perspective refers to a particular attitude toward or a way of regarding something; when discussed in fiction writing, perspective means the subjective perception of a character. 

There is a distinction between first-person and third-person narrative, to which Gérard Genette refers respectively as homodiegetic and heterodiegetic. A homodiegetic narrator describes own personal experiences as a character in the story. Such a narrator cannot know more about other characters than what their actions reveal. A heterodiegetic narrator, in contrast, describes the experiences of the characters that appear in the story. A narrative wherein events are seen through the eyes of a third-person internal focaliser is said to be figural. In some stories, the author may be omniscient and employ multiple points of view as well and comment on events as they occur.

Third person perspective is usually considered as more versatile. However, I think that a well-written first person perspective novel can be more powerful, deeper in emotional response.  On the other hand, there's more limitation to what can be experienced by the protagonist and he ought to be a particularly great character.

I didn't find any statistics on the number of first vs third person narrative epic Fantasy novels but as with most genres, the latter is clearly more present. The choice of narrative point of view is a crucial one for the authors. I imagine that some books would be considerably different if they were written in another perspective.  The Malazan book of the Fallen seen through the eyes of only Ganoes Paran would have been a far cry from what it is now.

In the end, when I think about my favorite books, they are almost all set with the third person perspective.  So I think I will have to answer that narrative mode... even if I like a first person novel from time to time...

Which narrative mode do you prefer?

• First person
• Third person
• Both

Esslemont's Blood and Bone cover art

The cover for the next installment in the Malazan universe, Ian C. Esslemont's fifth novel in his Malazan series surfaced today.  The book is titled Blood and Bone and the release is December 25th so far... it would be a nice Christmas gift to have a third Malazan novel to read this year!  It sure looks a lot like Steve Stone last covers for both Erikson and Esslemont.  It will be the first visit to the continent of Jacuruku and a return to the Crimson Guard storyline.

Here's the blurb:

In the western sky the bright emerald banner of the Visitor descends like a portent of annihilation. On the continent of Jacuruku, the Thaumaturgs have mounted yet another expedition to tame the neighboring wild jungle. Yet this is no normal wilderness. It is called Himatan, and it is said to be half of the spirit-realm and half of the earth. And it is said to be ruled by a powerful entity whom some name the Queen of Witches, and some a goddess: the ancient Ardata. Saeng grew up knowing only the rule of the magus Thaumaturgs -- but it was the voices out of that land's forgotten past that she listened to. And when her rulers mount an invasion of the neighboring jungle, those voices send her and her brother on a desperate mission.

To the south, the desert tribes are united by the arrival of a foreign warleader, a veteran commander in battered ashen mail whom his men call, the Grey Ghost. This warleader takes the tribes on a raid like none other, deep into the heart of Thaumaturg lands. While word comes to K'azz, and mercenary company the Crimson Guard, of a contract in Jacuruku. And their employer... none other than Ardata herself.

David Walton's Quintessence cover/blurb/excerpt

Tor.com posted an excerpt for David Walton's Quintessence, the author's second novel which will be released March next year.  Walton won the 2008 Philip K. Dick Award for the best paperback science fiction novel of the year for Terminal Mind.  Here's the cover by one of my favorite Fantasy artists, Kekai Kotaki :

Blurb:

Quintessence is an Alternate History/Fantasy set 500 years ago in the Age of Exploration, full of arcane science, alchemy, human dissection, sea monsters, betrayal, torture, religious controversy, and magic. Scientists and explorers gamble with their lives to turn lead into gold and bring the dead back to life. In Europe, the magic is thin, but at the edge of the world, where the stars reach down close to the Earth, wonders abound. This drives the bravest among them to the alluring Western Ocean. An alchemist, Christopher Sinclair, who cares about only one thing: quintessence, a substance he believes will grant immortality and magical powers, has a ship. Fleeing an inquisition for illegal dissection, Stephen Parris, the king's physician, follows Sinclair to an island that perches on the edge of the world, bringing his daughter Catherine with him against his wife's furious protests. The island is teeming with fantastical animals whose secrets they explore, using extracted powders and tinctures to make bread from sand, turn salt water into fresh, and--just possibly--find the secret of immortality.

Dead's dead?

Recently, I watched a movie that you may have heard about, The Dark Knight Rises.  I'm also watching the Star Wars movies with my son who's growing up to be a kind of like-his-father geek. For my gaming urges, I bought Darksiders 2, staring a protagonist called Death.  Finally, I'm reading Orb, Sceptre, Throne by Ian C. Esslemont set in his shared Malazan universe.  Those four don't have any real connection but they all brought to me some questioning about a particular topic, death.

Simply put, should the dead stay dead?

One of the possibilities created by Fantasy is... well... supernatural elements stretching the limits of imagination.  Among these elements are the cheating of death, the portrayal of the underworld, ghosts and resurrection in many forms. Even necromancy is found often enough in Fantasy.  When a thing becomes a concern that big and touches everyone, it's easy to think that it's also one of the principal worry for the characters and the authors behind them.

Moreover, death is a feature that can be used by the authors to create suspense and emotion. For suspense, finishing a book like George R.R. Martin did in A Dance with Dragons with the possible death of a main character (who actually survived quite a long time so far) is almost cruel but that's the kind of narrative choice that will make us even more eager to pick up the next book. That's something I like but for almost all cases of possible death I can think of, the character usually stayed alive. Consequently, one name from Abercrombie's series comes to mind and even before knowing that he will finally make an appearance in Red Country, I knew that he couldn't be dead.

As for emotion, I remember being quite astonished at the death of some protagonists in Mr. Martin's books again but even more so in Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson.  I won't spoil but the death a certain character really got to me (and if you have read the book, you know whom I'm talking about).  That was a nice way to use death to create or break emotional attachment.  However, in Erikson's case, death is not really permanent or simple oblivion, it's a transfer to another warren (realm, dimension, universe to explain it simply).  This creates interesting possibilities but sometimes it feels almost too easy to return to a dead character.

Even if many modern writers kill more important character than in the past (maybe it's only an impression I am under), like Abercrombie, Martin, Erikson, Deas, Cook, Bakker, Buchanan (another great example where death is emotionally striking), I still remember the feeling of reading about Gandalf's death.  And then, I was glad he came back. At least, for some others (just one come to think of it), death was really the end.

I also remember a resurrection in Anthony Durham's Acacia trilogy that rather frustrated me.  In that case, I had a hard time overcoming that dead's dead opinion. In the end, Durham used this 'come back to life' with great care and wrote a compelling storyline nicely woven into his tale. Also in his case, ghosts make an appearance.  Maybe ghost is not the right term but you understand my meaning. Like Obiwan talking to Luke, a dead character can become a great asset for the development of a protagonist or to help him with his psyche (maybe I'm thinking a bit too much about Dexter and his father here but it's not actually a ghost, it's more of a hallucination) and mental conversations.

Actually, I think that death is sometimes more interesting than life happily ever after.  In the hazardous worlds we usually read about where evil lurks, the paths the characters go on are quite treacherous and they often find themselves doing the greatest sacrifice, putting their life in danger, gambling it on the possible outcome.  If no real death threatening circumstances are present, some stories completely fall apart.  I'm not asking for that kind of situation in every book but it's still one of the principal aspects I'm looking for.

I think that one of the reasons why it's easy to kill many important characters in Epic Fantasy is simply because there are lot of them.  When you have as many threads as series like Martin or Erikson, you can easily keep the intrigue going with a few less protagonists to write about.  That kind of situation is not really possible with series like Scott Lynch's Gentlemen Bastard Sequence.  Locke and Jean will still be around when book seven comes out. Then, even in this kind of book or books written with the first person perspective, actual death may not be a good idea but death threatening situation still ought to be quite present and hopefully it seems natural for many authors. 

That being said, when the heroes struggles are over, if the character's dead, it can lead to even more fascinating turns of event for the world and the other characters.  Even more interestingly, that sacrifice can become the first thing you remember and cherish when thinking back about a book and that particular character.  There's one possibly coming soon that I hope will finish this way, The Wheel of Time. I would be glad for him is Rand finally got some peace in another world.

So I ask you again, should the dead stay dead?  Do you prefer to see your beloved characters come back to life?  Do you feel it's important that death lurk around the corner?

The Hammer and the Blade review

The Hammer and the Blade, A tale of Egil and Nix is a new original series by the author of several Star Wars and Forgotten Realms novels, Paul S. Kemp.  It's my first read from the author and it was released on June 26th.

A pair of down-at-heel treasure hunters and incorrigible rogues. Egil is a priest, happy to deliver moral correction with his pair of massive hammers. Nix is a sneak-thief; there’s no lock he cannot open, no serving girl he cannot charm. Between them, they always have one eye open for a chance to make money – the other eye, of course, is on the nearest exit.  Nix’s idea? 

Kill a demon.

Steal the treasure.

Retire to a life of luxury.

Sounds easy when you put it like that. 

Unfortunately for Egil and Nix, when the demon they kill has friends in high places, retirement is not an option.

The Hammer and the Blade is a blend of sword and sorcery and the good old adventure novel. The two main characters, Egil and Nix, are some kind of an Indiana Jones split between two personalities living in a medieval world full of fantastic elements, magic trinkets and Egyptian-like crypts belonging to long dead wizard-kings.

The beginning of the book is clumsy.  Egil and Nix, strictly the treasure hunters at that moment, are in front of a door they have some difficulty unlocking.  To put the reader up to speed, they have a weird dialogue that explains why they are now in that particular situation.  It was quite annoying to read lines like these:

"Remind me again what we're doing here, Egil." [...] "Right, right, but why?"

The author should have spent more time on this dialogue (and on much of them come to think of it), or he could have added a chapter to start things more smoothly, with a better flow.  Anyway, after a couple of chapters, the design behind the two protagonists and their ultimate antagonist, who also has his point of view, for the book becomes clear.  The wielders of the hammer and the blade are quite different fellows and come from different backgrounds.  However, we mostly learn about Nix's origins and he remains the main character throughout the book.  He's a smart ass, quick fingered and witted, very talkative and altruistic tomb robber while Egil is more reserved, built like an ox, a priest with a temperament waiting to be unleashed.  What is uniting them and creating devotion for each other is their taste for adventure, beer and trinkets.

Purposely, they are the ultimate archetype of the double act.  The lines they exchange create some entertaining moments, a bit of humour.  This is not the kind of tale that takes itself too seriously from the start but still, serious matters eventually find their way into the narrative, heavy stuff.  One example of this even felt perturbing.  The reaction of Nix seems right when thinking about his personality developed throughout the book but it still feels exaggerated.  On the other hand, Rakon, the villain, stays true to his intentions and he is surrounded by subordinates showing more nuances.

The story of The Hammer and the Blade is simple even if it's layered and wants to carry a message.  The two heroes are forced to do what they are good at, tomb robbing, for the sake of something that doesn't really concern them.  Sooner or later, the goal of their quest and its implications becomes their burden, they decide to get involved.  The tales becomes predictable at that point with no big surprises in store but with enough action, perils and incidents to keep the story entertaining. At that point, I cared for the well-being of the two sturdy and lucky heroes but wasn't mesmerized by the climax and conclusion.

Hopefully, magic and the different artefacts, monsters and races used by Kemp in the book create a world that can stand on its own with enough wonder to keep it intriguing long enough. Sadly though, that same magic is used to save the day when no other possibly is offered to Egil and Nix.  The feeling of completion for the characters feels more hollow when handy tools are used this way.

Even if the dialogues could have used more work, Kemp's writing isn't bad. The pace is uneven at times but I didn't get distracted too much.  The author uses some dubious references for his world like 'raptor' and in what I assume is a try not to offend readers use the words 'fakkin' and 'shite'... At any rate, I have confidence that the imagination behind this tale of Egil and Nix will be sufficient to create a series of interesting adventures.  

I would recommend this book to all those who love 'roller coaster' adventures within a sword and sorcery setting.  If you're not too touchy about dialogues but are looking for an entertaining read that doesn't ask you to concentrate on a complex story (but don't forget that it tackles serious subjects) but to enjoy the ride, that novel should suit you.

Technically, I think the Angry Robot cover is perfect for this novel, it presents a nice representation of the protagonists in their preferred setting. Sadly, there's no map included. The paperback edition of the novel stands at 441 pages.

The Hammer and The Blade review score :

Characterization.............   7.5 / 10
World building...............  7 / 10
Magic system.................  7 / 10
Story..............................  6.5 / 10
Writing........................... 6.5 / 10

Overall (not an average) 6.5 / 10

Enjoy!

Paul S. Kemp page