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A Night in the Lonesome October — Roger Zelazny

Published on November 2, 2022Leave a comment

Cover of A Night in the Lonesome October

A Night in the Lonesome October
Roger Zelazny
Gahan Wilson (illustrator)
280 pages
published in 1993

A Night in the Lonesome October is a special book: except for the various collaborations he did with Robert Sheckley and others, it was the last novel written by Roger Zelazny before his death two years later. It was also a return to form. Zelazny had been one of the more interesting writers to emerge from American New Wave science fiction back in the sixties and had been a steady Hugo and Nebula nominee and winner in the sixties and seventies. the latter half of the eighties he had been mostly concerned with writing the second, lesser Amber cycle while in the nineties he mostly collaborated with other writers. A Night in the Lonesome October was the first new, solo non-Amber Zelazny novel since 1987 and more than that, it was good. As such it became a bit of a fan favourite among the people on the Usenet group rec.arts.sf.written, which resulted in a tradition of reading the novel day by day during October each year. This is possible because each chapter is a diary entry devoted to one day in October. I never took part in this, but this year I decided to try it when I wanted to reread it. (UPDATE: liar.)

Set in Late Victorian London, A Night in the Lonesome October is the diary of a dog named Snuff, companion to a man called Jack who has a special knife. Yes, that Jack. He and Snuff are participants in the Game, held every few decades when there’s a full Moon on Halloween, October 31. There are some other, very recognisable characters taking part in this game: a certain Count, the Great Detective (of course), the Good Doctor and his self made man, etc. There are also some less recognisable people taking part in the game, like Crazy Jill and her cat, Graymalk, the latter as close to a friend that Snuff has in the Game. What the Game is about is only gradually made clear, but it is one played between two sides, Openers and Closers. Each player may not know which side the others are on; each player is basically playing on his own until the climax. Therefore there’s room for schemes to be drawn up, alliances to be made and betrayals to happen.

It takes discpline to read A Night in the Lonesome October this way, day by day, especially at the start when the chapters are sort. The tendency to read ahead is great because Zelazny sprinkles enough interesting tidbits around even in these short chapters to tempt you into reading further. Why is a dog keeping a diary and why is it Jack the Ripper’s dog? What are the Things it is guarding in the Mirrors, Circle, Wardrobe and Steamer Trunk? What is it patrolling for and what is it his master is seeking? What does it all mean? Luckily ultimately every question does get answered, albeit often indirectly and in passing. The backstory is only hinted at, never explained. There’s also a little bit of legerdemain going on; not every player is what they seem, nor is every player even in the game. Not everything that looms large in Snuff consciousness as part of his duties is as important as it seems either, especially in those early chapters.

A Night in the Lonesome October at heart is a horror mystery pastiche where a lot of the fun comes from that frisson of recognition as characters wander in and out of the story and understanding their true roles in it. It’s a fun little book that you’d normally read in an hour or two, but reading it spread out like this heightens the anticipation for each chapter. I’m not a patient man and it did take some effort to stick to it, but I’m happy I did. Even if the whole book seems to have written for the truly awful pun in the second to last line of the story…

Sexiled — Kaeruda Ameko

Published on November 10, 2019Leave a comment

Cover of Sexiled

Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress!
Kaeruda Ameko
Miya Kazutomo (illustrator)
Molly Lee (translator)
174 pages
published in 2019

About halfway through Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress!, our heroine has uncovered a conspiracy at the magical school she graduated top of the class from, a conspiracy to falsely lower the score of female applicants on the entrance exams to keep the number of women admitted artificially low. When I read that, I knew this must have been a reference to the scandal of several Japanese medical schools having been caught in 2018 doing exactly that. In her afterword, Kaeruda Ameko admitted that it was indeed this story that led her to write Sexiled. A female power/revenge fantasy, as opposed to the numerous male power fantasies that litter the genre.

Like most light novels, reading the full title is enough to get a sense of what Sexiled: My Sexist Party Leader Kicked Me Out, So I Teamed Up With a Mythical Sorceress! is about. Tanya Artemiciov is a talented mage and adventurer, who one day over breakfast is fired from her party by its leader, Ryan. She’s after all not getting any younger, must be thinking about getting married and having babies, right? So it would make sense for her to stop being an adventurer and do something more suited to women, like becoming a Healer, right? Needless to say, Tanya disagrees, storms off to the Western Wastelands to blow off some steam and as she attacks the innocent landscape, her magical attacks accidentally wake up a mythical evil sorceress. Oops.

Fortunately the Grand Sorceress Laplace’s is much nicer than her reputation — though she has a bit more self regard than normal — and after some …negotiating she and Tanya team up to take part in the upcoming Tournament, to take revenge on Tanya’s old team. However, because they’re both ridiculously overpowered, they need a third person to bring their average level down enough to be able to participate. They find her in Nadine Amaryllis, a clerk at the Adventurers Guild, who so happens to be a level 3 Healer. Normally nobody would be interested in such a low level adventurer, but thanks ot her their party’s level is lowered just enough to be able to meet the tournament’s requirements.

Nadine agrees to join, on one condition: Tanya and Laplace have to make sure her charge Alisa gets into the Imperial mage academy. Alisa is an orphan who has the sole care of her younger siblings, who needs to become a mage to be able to get a good job to provide for them. Tanya and Laplace are naturally touched by this story like the big softies they are and agree to it. It’s when Alisa takes the entrance exam that another candidate — a boy of course — spills the beans and Tanya and co learn of the conspiracy to limit the number of women passed. Which they quickly rectify.

This side quest to get Alisa in the academy is at the core of what Sexiled is about. It harkens back to what inspired Kaeruda to write the story in the first place, it shows the female solidarity that flows throughout it as well as the male fragility and sexism that Tanya and co are fighting against. Tanya, Laplace and Nadine naturally look out for each other, have each other’s back. Liberated from the expectations that the male dominated Adventurers society place on them, they can blossom to their fullest potential. With Laplace as the exemplar of what a woman can achieve if not stifled by archaic gender expectations, Tanya gets the chance to break free herself, from things like this:

“This style’s been in fashion ever since we found out that women have to expose as much skin as possible in order to boost their mana sensitivity.” Aha. That explained why it seemed as though every female adventurer was so ridiculously scantily clad: they were being lied to. Truly lamentable.

Yep, all woman adventurers have to wear Guild approved clothing, which mostly is skimpy and “sexy” rather than functional, with the excuse given as above, that it’s necessary. Here Sexiled neatly skewers fantasy convention, neither the first nor the last time it does so. All those stupid little ways in which fantasy can demean female characters are taken apart and rejected.

What Sexiled offers instead is solidarity. Laplace naturally sympathises with Tanya’s plights and helps her, while the both of them go out of their way to help Nadine and Alisa in turn, even though they could’ve found another low level adventurer for their party instead. And than there’s Katherine Foxxi.

Katherine is the Healer Ryan replaced Tanya with, the epitome of the Cool Girl, fawning over men and bitchy about any woman but herself. She hang’s on Ryan’s arms and constantly flatters him, but as Tanya notices, she doesn’t seem to mean any of it. The opposite of Tanya, who earnestly worked hard to become a great mage, Katherine is perfectly happy stoking the ego of men like Ryan to get what she wants, aiming to use him to look good in the tournament and get herself a better man. Yet once the tournament begins and Tanya’s party fights her, it turns out that she is actually a talented Mage in her own right, that had they met under other circumstances they could’ve been friends. And in the end, after Tanya and co’s inevitable win, that’s what they become, as Katherine wises up and changes her ways.

Sexiled was a quick read; you could finish this in an hour. Apart from its feminist message, it’s very much what you’d expect from a fantasy light novel, with a straight forward plot and a RPG based world, complete with Adventure Guilds and character classes and all that good stuff. As per usual, there’s a bit more exposition than you’d expect in a ‘proper’ novel, some mild confusion in point of view every now and again, but in all it’s very moreish. Luckily the next volume comes out in December 2019. Translation wise there’s the occasional hiccup where a sentence doesn’t quite make sense in English, but on the whole Molly Lee has done a good job, in as far as I can judge.

Example of one of the illustrations, as done by Miya Kazutomo.

The last thing that needs mentioning are the illustrations. They’re cute, sexy when needed, but no broken spines and I like the character designs. They whet the appetite for a manga or anime adaptation.

All in all this was a glorious romp and I’m looking forward to the next volume.

Bone Gap — Laura Ruby

Published on May 25, 2015Leave a comment

Cover of Bone Gap

Bone Gap
Laura Ruby
345 pages
published in 2015

This is a book I wouldn’t have read if not for Tiemen tweet offering it as a review copy from ABC. I put my hand up because the cover looked interesting and I’m happy I did so. It’s always a risk committing to a book when you neither known what the book will about nor the author herself. I didn’t even realise this was supposed to be a Young Adult book, not that you could tell from the cover unless you already knew Balzer + Bray is a HarperCollins YA imprint.

Bone Gap is an old story, of a girl coming in the life of two brothers, then disappearing again. Kidnapped, according to the younger brother. Left just like their mother left them, according to everybody else in Bone Gap, a small town in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by corn fields and not much else. That Finn thinks Roza was kidnapped, yet couldn’t even give a good description of what her kidnapper looked like, well, he’s always been a dreamer, a moon gazer, sidetracked easily, not even able or willing to look people in the eyes. Not even his brother Sean believes him; easier to believe she left just like their mother left them. But of course Finn is right. Roza was abducted, by a man who wants her to love him and promises he won’t touch her until she wants to.

Squint a bit and Roza’s rich, powerful and mysterious kidnapper looks a lot like a fairy tale prince, riding out on a white horse to kiss strange girls awake from their coma without being asked. He takes her away from her humble home and installs her in a castle where her every whim can be catered too, gives her the best food to eat, the best dresses to wear, servants to clothe her and as he constantly assures her, his absolute conviction that she is the most beautiful woman in the world. In a fairy tale that sort of behaviour may be charming; here it’s creepy, even without the whole kidnapping aspect to things. The assumption that he knows what’s best for her while refusing to even consider her own desires, that’s the mark of the abuser.. Her kidnapper treats Roza like a thing, a possession, rather than a human being.

Because Bone Gap opens with Flynn as the viewpoint character, wandering around town being angry at not being believed about Roza’s kidnapping, I feared Roza herself would be only present as victim. Fortunately, this isn’t the case. Kept prisoner in a series of increasingly strange “homes”, she attempts to escape and fight back. She seems to be aware she’s in a fairy tale situation, as she’s careful not to eat or drink from the sumptuous food her kidnapper provides for her, consisting on bread and water. It’s also Roza who, in the climax to the story, comes up with the way to finally free herself, without making Flynn’s efforts unnecessary.

Flynn meanwhile doesn’t know he’s in a fairy tale. Angry as he is at not being believed about Roza’s kidnapping, there isn’t anything constructive he can let out his anger on, so instead he gets into fights with the Rudes, Bone Gap’s resident bullies, which isn’t helped by his inability to tell them apart. What also doesn’t help Flynn is the refusal of his brother to talk about Roza’s disappearance and the general disbelief of the people of Bone Gap, their view of him as nice but dimwitted, distracted, a dreamer.

Petey, the daughter of a local bee keeper, is somebody else who’s hemmed in by people’s perceptions of her. They call her strange, ugly and of course, as inevitable with every girl like that, “easy”. She’s abrasive and defensive, but despite this Flynn has always found her interesting and attractive. Over the course of the story they get drawn together, especially after strange things start happening to Flynn. Things like finding a strange horse in their barn, a horse that’s more than it seems to be. A horse that might hold the key to rescuing Roza. Petey is another viewpoint character, not just there to become Flynn’s girlfriend or prize, but somebody who helps solve one part of the puzzle, by realising what might cause Flynn’s inability to recognise people.

What I like about Bone Gap is that this is a fantastical story deeply embedded in, not standing outside of the overwhelming mundanity of life in Bone Gap. Roza’s kidnapper fore example is a fairy tale villain but also not that much different from other creeps she’s had had to deal with back home in Poland as well as in America and the story explicitly makes this connection. Just like Flynn’s “weirdness” and difference from everybody else in Bone Gap has a thoroughly mundane explanation as well as a more mystical one, without the one being the excuse for the other. What I also like is how Flynn, Roza and Petey all have their role to play in resolving the mystery of Roza’s kidnapping, that it isn’t just Flynn’s story, but theirs as well.

Bone Gap is a novel about love, both romantic and otherwise, about growing up, about changing your own view of who you are, forcing yourself to grow beyond other people’s views of you. It’s not just the villain who attempts to force Roza into his view of her, who has to be defeated for her and flynn and Petey to be free. It’s a fantasy novel in mundane drag, with echoes of some very old myths running through it. It may have been published by a YA publisher, but there’s plenty of things for an adult reader to find interesting too.

The Goblin Emperor — Katherine Addison

Published on April 14, 20155 Comments

Cover of The Goblin Emperor

The Goblin Emperor
Katherine Addison
502 pages
published in 2014

One of the dirty little secrets of book reviewing is that the circumstances under which you read any given book can massively influence how you feel about it. Since I read the first half of The Goblin Emperor on a sunny Thursday afternoon while drinking a nice IPA sitting at an Amsterdam terrace and the other half sitting in my garden on the Friday afternoon following, drinking an even nicer IPA, it’s no wonder I feel quite mellow about it. But in this case I would’ve enjoyed it even had I read it during one of the grey, dull, wet afternoons that you normally get in Amsterdam in early April. This is a great novel and well deserves its Hugo nomination. It’s also the sort of novel you can’t help but read fast, a true page turner.

The Goblin Emperor at heart is a very traditional power fantasy, about the boy of humble origins who becomes emperor by happenstance and now has to very quickly learn how to survive in a world of political intrigue he’s completely unprepared for, filled with people who either want to manipulate him or replace him with a better figurehead. It’s one of those fantasy scenarios other writers can write multiple trilogies about to get to that point, but Katherine Addison has her goblin hero confirmed as the emperor within five pages, the rest of the novel being about him getting to grips with his new job, woefully inadequate though he feels.

Maia Drazhar is the youngest child of the ruling emperor of Elfland, the half goblin son of his fourth wife, who fell from disgrace almost immediately after Maia had been done, exiled to one of the emperor’s hunting lodges. After his mother died, Maia had been left in the tender cares of a disgraced aristocrat, Setheris, who has given him some of the education needed for an emperor’s child, but not nearly enough to prepare him properly for his role, even had he not been exiled far from court. Setheris has also been abusive at times, strengthening Maia’s natural diffidence. In normal circumstances this wouldn’t matter, as four older half brothers and a healthy and hale father meant he’s nowhere near the throne — until they all die in an airship accident that is.

Maia is shaken awake in the first sentence of the first page; by the second page he knows he’s the new emperor and by page ten he’s on his way to the court to deal with his Lord Chancellor somewhat obvious attempt to put him in his place by trying to pressure him into arranging his father’s funeral before his own coronation. That’s only the first crisis he has to deal with. Once he arrives at court he not only has to enforce his will on his Lord Chancellor, he also has to deal with the seemingly more low stake problems of setting up his own household, having come with nothing but the clothes on his back. All this on his first day at court, part of which he also feels obliged to spent at the funeral for the other victims of the crash, its crew.

It’s a bruising introduction to the responsibilities of being an emperor, yet most of these problems were relatively easy to solve. From the second part of the novel, Addison quickly ramps up both the scale and complexity of the challenges Maia finds himself dealing with, including potential coup attempts, the relationship between the emperor and his parliament, as well as the other power centres, not to mention just finding his way through the daily life at the court when he has been educated in etiquette, but has never had the chance to participate in court life itself.

Now I’m a sucker for this sort of court intrigue fantasy and the pace Addison sets and the hurdles she puts in Maia’s way make for tense, gripping reading. The Elfland Maia rules about has a sort of steampunky, 19th century technology level, with magic and the politics ruling Elfland are of roughly the same era. The emperor isn’t all powerful, kept in check both by the old aristocracy and some form of parliament and limited representation. There are tensions between the conservative, land owning east and a more mercantile, outward looking east, as well as racial tensions between elves and goblins, the latter mostly concentrated in the lower classes, but there’s also a goblin kingdom neighbouring Elfland powerful enough that his father felt compelled to enter in the marriage with to Maia’s goblin mother. Now that his half goblin son is on the throne, the relationships with that goblin country are bound to change. There’s a lot of realpolitics going on, which Maia needs to learn to master.

But at the same time and this is what makes it a power fantasy, there remains this idealistic core to Maia’s character, as shown in his attendance at the funeral of the crew killed in the airship accident that made him emperor. He’s desperate not to let his powers as emperor go to his head, to not revenge himself on Setharis for how he treated him during his childhood frex. Maia sometimes does seem too good to be true, is for the most part able to keep to his ideals while also keeping his throne and you may disagree on how realistic this is. But it is a better fantasy than the more common one of the humble peasant boy who becomes emperor who does revenge himself on his enemies.

It’s of course also a conservative sort of fantasy, as it assumes that the difference between an oppressive empire and an benevolent one depends on the character of the emperor, rather than on the system as a whole. One does wonder how Maia’s reign looks like from the point of view of the lower classes, those not represented in court, or whether common goblins profit much from having a half goblin emperor. The Goblin Emperor accepts the system that can propel a half educated, ill prepared outcast to the position of ultimate power, but that’s why it’s a fantasy.

And certainly it’s frank about the realities of this system even for the man at the top. In fact, it reminded me of nothing so much as two videogames that tackle the same subject, the incomparable Crusader Kings II, the game of medieval realpolitics and dynasty building and the deceptively simple but hard to master Long Live the Queen, in which you roleplay a young princess in an attempt to make it safely to her coronation, but in which mastery of court etiquette or animal husbandry may turn out to be just as crucial in saving your reign as being a military strategy genius. Both games have that same in over your head feeling as Addison makes Maia suffer through.

In case you didn’t know, Katherine Addison isn’t an entirely new author, but a new pen name of Sarah Monette, who has been writing fantasy for some time now. She’s one of those authors I’ve know of, but never read anything by, until the buzz for this book got too strong to ignore. I’m not quite sure why she’s taken a new name, but it’s probably because her earlier work has put her in a niche this new identity is an attempt to break out of. For me, she has succeeded. I’m curious to read more of her work, wouldn’t say no to a sequel to The Goblin Emperor, because this was one of the best, most addictive novels I’ve read in a long time. It’s just a pity that this year’s Hugo Awards have been tarred by the Sad Puppy brush, making a potential win by Addison, even though she would deserve it, somewhat less …glorious… than it could’ve been.

Wolfhound Century — Peter Higgins

Published on March 20, 2015Leave a comment

Cover of Wolfhound Century

Wolfhound Century
Peter Higgins
303 pages
published in 2013

Despite buying more books than’s probably good for me, I still keep a library membership and thanks to that I still end up finding science fiction or fantasy writers and books I wouldn’t encounter otherwise. Case in point: Peter Higgins Wolfhound Century, which I saw lying on the pile of new fiction books near the entrance and whose cover drew my attention. Reading the back cover blurb and the first few pages was enough to take a punt on it. They confirmed what the cover artwork seemed to suggest, that this was a fantasy novel inspired by Soviet Russia, not a setting you see much in fantasy.

The protagonist, investigator Vissation Lom, is the classic honest cop in a totalitarian system and his honesty has of course made him enemies. Nevertheless he’s one of the best investigators in Vlast, which is why he has been summoned to the capital Mirgorod by the head of the secret police. He is to stop and catch Josef Kantor, a terrorist protected by powerful forces from within the Vlast security apparatus itself. Without ties to any of the political factions in the capital or the security services, Lom is hoped to have a better chance at getting Kantor.

So far Wolfhound Century could’ve just as well been set in historical Russia, rather than in a fantasy version of it, but before long it becomes clear more is going on than just some sort of power play within the ruling elites. Kantor hears the voice of a fallen angel, one of the mysterious beings that occassionally rain down on the earth, which centuries ago broke the moon and made possible the very rise of Vlast as a totalitarian empire. Normally those “angels” are dead before they reach the ground, but not this one. This one is imprisoned within the wild forest beyond Vlast’s borders, captured within the earth and making plans to set himself free, plans which Kantor is an essential part of.

Vlast is not a static fantasy empire, though it does portray itself as unchanging, but remnants of its past, both pre- and post founding can be found even in Mirgorod. Within living memory frex the state turned on its own aristocracy. It’s also a state in crisis, losing a war abroad and suffering dissent and resistance at home. Its elites are divided about the need to end the war, while the seemingly senseless violence of Kantor is driving it to a breaking point.

Meanwhile there’s also the matter of Kantor’s supposed daughter Maroussia, whose mother is a forest witch, somebody with ties to the old forest magic, driven mad by it. Maroussia seems to have inherited this talent, much against her will and through it we get glimpses of the Pollandore, “world within a world” and possible key to a different future than the course the fallen angel is setting for Vlast. And not just a different future, but an alternate present and past are hinted at too, in the photographs Lom’s artist friend Vishnik makes of non-existant buildings and streets in the capital.

There is than, at the heart of Wolfhound Century, the outline of a struggle visible, between the totalitarian, Orwellian vision of the Angel, a glorious, fixed future (and past?) in which the earth becomes a launching pad for an universe wide crusade and that of the Pollandore, multiple, flexible pasts, presents and futures, available in essence if not in reality. Yet.

For the most part this vision however is hidden behind the familiar mechanics of the thriller, as Lom and Maroussia have to escape from Kantor’s attentions and the villains make their moves. This all moves along nicely, but isn’t much different from a dozen similar books. What makes it is Higgins’ obvious love for the setting and his writing, as well as those glimpses of the meta plot. I can forgive a writer a lot when he has such pleasure in the journey as well as the destination.

With regards to the setting, there is the problem that, if like Nina Allan at Strange Horizons, you’re familiar with Russian history and literature, you may find Higgins wears his influences on his sleeve, perhaps a tad too much so. For me, though some things were obvious, this wasn’t a problem.

All in all this is an intriguing novel by a writer I wouldn’t mind reading more off. A good case for visiting my library more.