Book Review: Bitter Seeds

BITTER SEEDS
Ian Tregillis, Tor, 2010, $25.99/C$31, 352pp, 978-0-7653-2150-3

It is 1939 and the British are preparing for war – and against invasion by Nazi Germany. Raybould Marsh, a British secret agent, has learned that the Nazis have a secret weapon – a group of supermen and women who can do the impossible: walk through walls, fly, and seemingly predict the future. At the direction of his boss and longtime mentor John Stephenson, Marsh calls on the services of his old college friend Lord William Beauclerk, who also has strange powers of his own – the ability to call on, and corral the power of, potentially evil natural forces.

Both sides use their secret weapons to change the very nature of the war – the Germans, who have created their small cohort of human weapons using brain surgery, batteries, and willpower, and the British, using warlocks and increasingly horrifying blood oaths.

In this supernatural alternative history, the difference between "natural" and "unnatural" magic is suggested. And while at first the "natural" (British) is positioned as somehow more appropriate, the cost and the effect is more than they bargained for. The book is often very brutal, and the violence is matter-of-fact and unflinching. The "supermen" are absolutely gruesome – but then, so are the warlocks, and even more so, the leaders on both sides.

The pacing is good, and the plotting is excellent. The historical detail is well done and feels natural, and there are fantastic turns of phrase throughout. However, it felt like it wasn't quite sure where or how it wanted to close and stuttered to a stop. Given the increasing levels of violence, sacrifice, and Machiavellian scheming, the ending is unsurprisingly grim.

A very original idea, well executed. Recommended.

Book Review: The Undiscovered Island

Here's the first of my two reviews for the August Historical Novels Review.

THE UNDISCOVERED ISLAND
Darrell Kastin, Center for Portuguese Culture University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, 2009, $25, 410pp, 978-1-933227-23-8

Julia Castro has arrived in the Azores from her home in California, searching for her father Sebastião, an eccentric writer and historian, who has gone missing. The police and locals don't seem to be willing or able to help in the search for her father. In order to better understand and perhaps find him, Julia pores over his writings – and falls into his obsession with the history of Portugal, the Azores, and how the history of their own family intertwines – particularly with that of Inês de Castro, the famous mediaeval Queen Who Was Crowned After Death.

Coinciding with Julia's arrival, a local volcano's rumblings causes not only devastating earthquakes but also a new island to rise out of the ocean – an occurrence her father believed would come, and would spell the arrival of the mythic Enchanted Isle.

When her brother Antonio arrives to bring Julia back to California, they fall under the spell of Sebastião's writings and the mysteries of the Azores. They set out to search the dangerous seas for their father and for the Enchanted Isle.

I found this book frustrating. There are lovely scenes and interesting concepts (inheritance both national and personal, the importance of history, the influence of place) and yet the writing is maddeningly uneven. The first two-thirds is at turns rambling and jagged, and yet the final third is magical and beautiful. The dialog is terribly stilted, and yet the descriptions are beautifully poetic. I never felt connected to Julia - I never felt that she had any real concern about her father's disappearance – and yet the supporting characters are fascinating and well-drawn.

Had this story been tighter it would have had more impact – it would have made a fascinating novella or short story, but I don't know that it is quite as successful as a novel.

Book Review: The Kingdom of Ohio

Here's the second of my two reviews for the May 2010 Historical Novels Review.


THE KINGDOM OF OHIO
Matthew Flaming, Amy Einhorn Books/Putnam, $24.95/$31.00, 322pp, 978-0-399-15560-4

Peter Force abruptly leaves his home in Idaho, where he and his father made a living in the silver mines, arriving penniless and disoriented in New York City. He quickly finds work with the crews digging out the deep tunnels under Manhattan for the nascent subway system.

Cheri-Ann Toledo arrives, penniless and disoriented, in New York City, wandering exhausted and famished in Battery Park. When Peter's philanthropic urge brings them together, he learns Cheri-Ann's improbable story: she has traveled through time.

The narrator, whose story is surprisingly intertwined with that of Peter and Cheri-Ann, tells the tale from his place in 21st century Los Angeles, looking back across a century. We learn that Cheri-Ann is a princess, the last of the line of monarchs of the Kingdom of Ohio. Originally a land grant to French settlers during their revolution, the area around Toledo – Cheri-Ann claims – was an independent principality.

Peter agrees to help Cheri-Ann find her way home, struggling with his warring feelings – is she mad, or is she telling the truth? Either option is equally disturbing for him, and their journey takes a dangerous turn when the most powerful man of the age and the most brilliant minds of the time learn of their predicament.

The inclusion of Nicolas Tesla, Thomas Edison, and J.P. Morgan were interesting, but felt somewhat forced. The philosophical questions and drama at the center of Peter and Cheri-Ann's struggle did not necessarily require the inclusion of these Gilded Age giants. Flaming's rendering of turn-of-the-century Idaho and New York City is believable, almost seamless, the details interesting and never shoe-horned in.

The mix of tenses and points of view is a bit disorienting at first, but the story picks up as the mystery deepens. This is not only a mystery, however. It's a rumination on memory, history, love, and Self. Overall, this is a very well written, thoughtful, and interesting book. Recommended.

Book Review: Under Heaven

Here's the first of my two reviews in the May 2010 Historical Novels Review. This review was selected as an Editor's Choice for May 2010.


UNDER HEAVEN
Guy Gavriel Kay, Roc, 2010, $25.95, 559pp, 978-0-451-46330-2

Under Heaven is a "variation upon themes of the Tang", a sweeping look at China during the 8th century, seen through the fictional world of Kitai. Kay alerts readers up front that his stories are inspired by real people, places, and events, which gives him freedom – "if I base a book on a slightly altered past, the reader who knows what happened in that time and place does not know with any certainty what will happen in my story."

And though the world of Kitai itself is not real per se, the combination of inspiration and imagination is absolutely convincing. This is the story of Shen Tai, second son of a famous general, whose selfless act of respect and mourning unwittingly attracts the attention of a foreign court – and earns him a mighty gift that will change the course of his life, and the fate of the empire. "The world could bring you poison in a jeweled cup, or surprising gifts," he muses. "Sometimes you didn’t know which of them it was."

The world of the Ninth Dynasty is delicate, ornate, elegant, and complex, but also full-blooded and sweeping, and the breadth and depth of the story reflect this sensibility. The writing style can sometimes difficult to get past, as it can be rather jagged; that said, the pace picks up significantly halfway through, and by the end you don't want to put the book down. The story is well plotted, with a broad mix of interesting characters that you grow to care about, along with outstanding world-building.

Richly imagined, this is an epic story of a complex and advanced civilization, an intimate look at the life of one man, and a fascinating meditation on free will, destiny and fate, coincidence and consequence. Highly recommended.

Book Review: A Cold Season in Shanghai

Here's the third of my three reviews for the February 2010 Historical Novels Review.

A COLD SEASON IN SHANGHAI
S.P. Hozy, Rendezvous Press, 2009, $19.95, pb 254pp, 978-1-894917-79-7

Shanghai, in the years before World War One. Tatiana and her family have escaped Tsarist Russia after the peasant revolt of 1905 and are making a new life in the international section of China's most glamorous city. Making friends among the Chinese elite and the international community, Tatiana and her sister Olga take converging paths – Olga toward the conventional, Tatiana toward Shanghai's decadent nightlife. When her unconventional choices lead her to an agonizing moral decision, Tatiana makes a choice which leads to the death of a promising and brilliant young musician, and changes the life of her friends, and her fate, forever.

This is a promising story with interesting characters and good historical detail, but it is marred by uneven pacing, head-jumping points of view, and telling rather than showing. Hozy does a good job evoking the world of Shanghai from 1905-1925, but the story did not flow, which is a shame, because the premise and the characters are so promising.

Book Review: Ice Land

Here's the second of my three reviews for the February 2010 Historical Novels Review.

ICE LAND
Betsy Tobin, Plume Original, pb $15, 374pp, 978-0-452-29569-8

Iceland, at the dawn of a new millennium. King Olaf's Christian missionaries are attempting to convert the fiercely independent landholders and laborers of the island, but many still cling to the old ways, their reverence for the Aesir, the gods and goddesses of Scandinavia. The Aesir live among them, (mostly) unbeknownst to the people, as well as in their enclave in the far heights of Iceland, known as Asgard. The story follows the intertwining tales of Freya, goddess of love and fertility, and her quest for the Brisingamen, and Fulla, granddaughter of a wealthy landowner and her quest for love and independence. Their stories play out against the very real landscape of Iceland, itself a strong personality throughout the book.

Tobin introduces us to winning, well-drawn characters (Dvalin in particular) with personalities and stories that make you care deeply about their fates. The stories are told in the present tense like the Norse sagas – as Freya explains at the start, "My tale starts and ends with Hekla, and I will tell it as it happens, in the manner of the bards." This gives the book a sense of intimacy, and urgency, that works very well.

Beautifully plotted, the stories weave together in surprising and very satisfying ways, supported by excellent pacing and lovely language. The author calls it her love letter to Iceland and her people, and you can feel it in every chapter.

You don't need to have any knowledge of Norse myths or of the sagas, but I expect it would make this book even more compelling. All around, a thoroughly enjoyable book. Highly recommended.

Book Review: Grinding of the Soul

Here's the first of my three reviews for the February 2010 Historical Novels Review.


GRINDING OF THE SOUL
Naum Prifti, East European Monographs/Columbia University Press, $55, hb, 306pp, 978-0-88033-641-3

Prifti's book is a collection of short stories about life under strict Marxist-Leninist communism in the twentieth century. The stories have a casual quality, like a relative or old neighbor telling you stories of their life. The tone underscores the absurdity of life under a totalitarian regime, and how easily the soul can be ground down into pettiness, greed, hopelessness. The collection of characters are drawn very well in a few short sentences, and the emotional impact of each story is immediate.

Though set in Enver Hoxha's Albania from World War II through the 1980s, the stories have a timeless quality, modern folktales about all the ways people can lose their moral center. The translation did not do this book service, however. One gets the sense that reading these stories in the original language would have increased both the sense of immediacy and the feeling of folktale. Unfortunately, as it is, the translation is clunky and inelegant.

Grinding of the Soul is definitely not a comfortable book to read, but worthwhile nonetheless.

The February 2010 Historical Novels Review Online is now live, and Heather Domin's The Soldier of Raetia is reviewed, and gets a "wholehearted" recommendation. Hooray Heather!

Contest!

Thanks to a really lovely historical fiction blogger who shall go unnamed, I have in my hot little hands a brand new hardback copy of R.J. Ellory's A Quiet Belief in Angels. As you might recall from my review, I really liked this book, and definitely recommend it.

And since I have my own ARC, and it is the holidays, I'd love to give you my copy of this gripping historical mystery! What do you have to do? It's easy: leave me a comment here by 11:59 p.m. (Pacific!) on Monday, December 21. And it's not any old comment - I'd like to know your favorite historical fiction book of 2009.

I'll pick a random comment and announce the winner on Tuesday, December 22!

Book Review: The Secret War

Here's the third of my three reviews for the November Historical Novels Review.


The Secret War, M.F.W. Curran

In the aftermath of the battle of Waterloo, Captain William Saxon and Lieutenant Kieran Harte are wounded and battle-weary – but the end of the war with Napoleon is the beginning of another war for these life-long friends. When a powerful evil object is found and comes into William's possession, he and Kieran are set on a path filled with danger, political intrigue – and daemons.

I wanted very much to like this book. The concept – a hidden war between Heaven and Hell, played out against the backdrop of the end of the Napoleonic era – has a great deal to recommend it to a fan of fantasy and history alike. Unfortunately, it does not live up to the promise. The book could have used a stronger editing hand – while Curran renders the time and place fairly well, the story suffers from telling rather than showing, jumping-head point of view shifts, stilted dialog, and slow pacing (especially for the subject matter). The lack of polish made it very difficult for me to engage with the story, and though filled with potentially interesting twists and monsters, overall it fell flat for me.

Book Review: A Quiet Belief in Angels

Here's the second of my three reviews for the November Historical Novels Review.

A Quiet Belief in Angels, R.J. Ellory

A Quiet Belief in Angels follows narrator Joseph Vaughan, an author, who recounts the story of his life, from his time as a child in rural Georgia in the early 1940s to a hot, dark hotel room in 1960s New York City, where we learn that Joseph has just shot a man.

Previously published in over 20 languages and a bestseller in the U.K., A Quiet Belief in Angels is the first of Ellory's books to be available in the U.S. In a series of flashbacks and flash forwards, Joseph tells the story of his life, wreathed in heartache and tragedy, defined by a series of child mutilations and murders in his own hometown. When he finally escapes Georgia and moves to New York City to chase his dream of becoming a writer, he finds that has not escaped, and that tragedy and death itself has followed him.

Ellory renders mid-century America convincingly, with a good sense of place and time, through both description and realistic dialogue. That said, while the Georgia sections ring particularly true, the Manhattan passages suffer from too many historical details shoe-horned in. However, those quibbles are minor. This is a gripping mystery, beautifully written. Recommended.

Book Review: The Good Doctor Guillotin

Here's the first of my three reviews for the November Historical Novels Review.

The Good Doctor Guillotin, Marc Estrin

The lives of five men converge on one epochal event – the first use of the guillotine as a method of capital punishment in Revolutionary France. The book follows the paths of each of these men – the first customer of the device, his priest, the executioner, the builder of the device, and its designer (the good doctor) as they come together on that lovely spring day in 1792.

The book is an interesting mix of fiction, essay, and authorial intrusion, a blend of philosophy, modern political commentary, and historical fiction. The dialog is mannered – more a vehicle for philosophical concepts than human interaction – and the writing overall is not easy, but certainly interesting and at times even elegant.

As a polemic against the death penalty, it is effective; as an historical novel, somewhat less so. While the details of life under the Ancien Régime, and then under the Revolution, were graphic and convincing, I felt held somewhat at a distance – as though I was being read a report or a philosophical treatise about the Revolution, and not brought into the story itself. That said, I would still recommend this book for readers with an interest in Revolutionary France, and those looking for a more challenging philosophical read.

Important revised FTC guidelines for book bloggers

Via Publisher's Lunch, revised FTC guidelines for reviewers

"In other words, bloggers as well as 'reviewers' posting to sites like Amazon and LibraryThing who are writing about a book after receiving a free reviewer's copy are expected to disclose that information. And publishers who 'sponsor these endorsers (either by providing free products - directly or through a middleman - or otherwise) in order to generate positive word of mouth and spur sales should establish procedures to advise endorsers that they should make the necessary disclosures and to monitor the conduct of those endorsers.'"

It's not clear what the consequences are if you don't disclose.

Onlinecollege.org has created a list of the 100 Best Blogs for Book Reviews, and have kindly included this here Word-Hoard under the History and Historical Fiction category, along with the lovely Steven Till. Check out the link for other Book Review blogs in a variety of categories.

Book Review: A Monster's Notes

Here is the second of my two reviews for August 2009's Historical Novels Review.


A Monster's Notes, Laurie Sheck

What would it mean if Mary Shelly’s monster had been real? What implications would there be for her story, what clues about her story could we find in the people she lived with and loved? That is the premise of this ambitious book.

Sheck, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in poetry, poses answers to these questions in a series of stories and flashbacks, all connected by the monster who was created by an unknown hand and interacted with Mary when she was a child, sitting together, reading at her mother’s graveside. The stories are told through the monster’s own ponderings, letters written by Mary Shelley, her sister Claire, and Clerval, who in this universe was an intimate of the monster’s maker, as well as a character in Mary’s book.

As is to be expected, the book is well written – more of a free-form 540-page poem than a novel. There is little plot, and it is difficult to connect with the characters and their plights – even the monster.

It is a meditation on mind, what it means to think, what it means to be a person, what it means to be an individual – what it means to dream, think, see, to know someone, to know yourself. It’s heady, ambitious stuff, quite thought-provoking, though not at all an easy read.

Book Review: When Fortune Frowns

Here is the first of my two reviews for August 2009's Historical Novels Review.

When Fortune Frowns
, William H. White

October, 1790. Captain Edward Edwards of the Pandora is directed by the Admiralty to seek out the infamous mutineers, late of the Bounty, and return them to England to face justice. The journey around the world to find and capture the missing mutineers mirrors the journeys of Captain Bligh, the Royal Navy winning through at last, but not without hardship and hard work.

This is a serviceable Age of Sail story, with plenty of scrupulously accurate details. Unfortunately, the pacing is as slow as a frigate in the calms around the equator, and the dialog as stiff as a captain’s neck stock. The characters, including the protagonist, third lieutenant Edward Ballantyne, are one-dimensional and I’m afraid I was never really interested in them or their journey. What pulled me along to the end was the historical detail and the inherent mystery and adventure of searching for the missing mutineers.

The sudden shifts of point of view were hard to digest and the overuse of exclamation marks and random quotation marks distracting. Recommended for Age of Sail die-hards looking for a quick, historically accurate read.

Book Review: Rifling Paradise

Here's the second of my reviews in this month's Historical Novels Review.

Rifling Paradise, Jem Poster

Charles Redbourne, a minor middle-aged English landholder, is forced by a series of unsavory circumstances to flee to Australia in order to make his name as a naturalist. Living with his uncle’s business protégé Vane on his grand estate just outside Sydney, Redbourne meets Vane’s artistic and headstrong daughter Eleanor, and the boorish Bullen, his guide for his specimen-seeking journeys.

Just as Redbourne and Eleanor begin to understand each other’s strange creative impulses and dark secrets, he is encouraged by her father to depart for his pre-arranged expedition. Bullen and Redbourne venture into the Blue Mountains to seek more rare and valuable specimens for Redbourne’s collection, and Bullen’s sadistic pleasure. Their guide, the half-Aboriginal boy Billy, leads them far into the wilderness where both men are faced with the dark and wild places in their own hearts – with disastrous results.

Poster does an excellent job of conveying the codes of Victorian social mores and the ways each of the characters adapted – or not – to the very real restrictions. His descriptions, both of the strange new landscape and the people in it, are vivid and elegant.

This book is beautifully paced and the characters, for the most part, well realized, particularly Redbourne. His personal journey as he comes into contact with the beautiful, vast, unknowable wildness of Australia – and Eleanor – is believable, frustrating, and moving. Poster deftly weaves in themes of environmentalism, love, and the psychological effects of upbringing and family with interesting action and characters.

Thoughtful, vivid, and well-written, this is a very engaging read. Recommended.

Review: Shaman Winter

Here's the first of my two reviews in the May 2009 Historical Novels Review.

Shaman Winter, Rudolfo Anaya

In the late 1990s, Albuquerque resident and private investigator Sonny Baca is recovering from his latest run-in with his nemesis, a sadistic nihilist who goes by the name Raven. When Raven returns and begins kidnapping young girls around New Mexico – while at the same time invading Sonny’s dreams and kidnapping his grandmothers throughout history – the very fabric of Sonny’s past and present is threatened.

The third in the series of Sonny Baca’s adventures, Anaya’s story is rich with the culture of New Mexico past and present, but the book overall is marred by substandard writing. From the head-jumping point-of-view shifts, to stilted dialog, to the frankly silly plot points in the late-1990s sections, this is a very promising story with fascinating mystical and spiritual elements undone by its awkward writing. A stronger editing hand would have been very welcome. The quality is surprising, given his many awards for his books, including Albuquerque and Bless Me Ultima.

Originally published in 1999, this paperback reissue has some truly fascinating things to say about New Mexico and its peoples throughout history, but only if you can overlook some eyeroll-inducing plotting and surprisingly bad dialog.

Book Review: The Mystery of the Fool and the Vanisher

Here's the second of my two reviews in this month's Historical Novels Review

THE MYSTERY OF THE FOOL AND THE VANISHER
David and Ruth Ellwand, Candlewick Press, $18.99/C$21.00, hb, 103pp, 978-0-7636-2096-7

This gorgeously designed book is a journal-within-a-journal, the story of a modern-day photographer who finds the papers and photographs of a Victorian faerie researcher. It is also a meditation on the uses of history and photography, and the enduring power of folklore.

David Ellwand, photographing the Downs one day, comes across a mysterious locked box near a crumbling ruin. He finds that the box contains the effects of Isaac Wilde, the official photographer on a Victorian archaeological dig, and collector of faerie artifacts. Included in the box is a series of wax phonograph recordings, the transcription of which forms the middle section of the book, Isaac’s daily journal of his work on the barrow Downs dig.

Isaac comes to believe, as the locals do, that disturbing the great barrow will disturb the pixies, and attempts to photograph the fae in their environment in order to show evidence of the destruction to the arrogant scientist in charge, in order to stop the dig. When the scientist mysteriously disappears, Isaac is forced to flee and leave the evidence of the fae hidden…until Ellwand finds the evidence and shares it with us.

Ellwand’s photographs of the Downs and the twisting trees of the forest are moving and ethereally beautiful, and the photos “taken” by Wilde are clever and lovely in their own right. The book is beautifully designed with charming surprises throughout. This is a clever, enchanting book that would be a welcome addition to any history, photography, or folklore buff’s coffee table.

Book Review: The United States of Atlantis

Here's the first of my two reviews in this month's Historical Novels Review.

UNITED STATES OF ATLANTIS
Harry Turtledove, ROC, 2008, $23.95/C$28.50, pb, 438 pp, 978-0-451-46236-7

Atlantis has been settled by the English and the French for over 300 years. Now, at the end of the 18th century, and following a bloody war for dominance of the island in which the French were vanquished, the English Atlanteans are beginning to rankle under the heavy hand of George III. When tensions over taxation bubble over and the garrisoned redcoats on the island are attacked, England decides to put the upstart colony in its place. Victor Radcliff, descendant of the man who discovered Atlantis and hero of the war against France, is again pressed into service and the United States of Atlantis are born.

The story is an alternate history, imagining what would have happened if Atlantis was discovered and colonized first, rather than North America (“Terranova” in the world of the book). It is the latest in a series, though it is not necessary to have read the previous books.

While the concept is interesting, I found the writing choppy and the book hard to get into. There was little character development (in fact, many of the Atlanteans were simply stand-ins for Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, and Howe and Cornwallis are included as they were). I found I did not care for the protagonist, Victor or his struggles.

While the world building is convincing, and the concept is interesting, the book overall is dry. I would have expected that the book would have taken the idea of colonies and revolution in a new direction – it is Atlantis, after all – but it is simply a retelling of the American revolution in a new geographical setting. I was hoping for more invention and creativity and, sadly, did not find it in this book.