Form & Void

Form & Void the 14th phone book is actually the 2nd part of Going Home and begins with Cerebus and Jaka travelling north to visit Cerebus’ childhood home of Sand Hills Creek. In keeping with the way the cover of Going Home was presented, the cover of Form & Void is also a colour photograph, this time of a cold looking, rocky coastline.

The fact that the couple are actually going that far north would seem to indicate that Jaka has gotten over her insistence of never wearing the same clothes two days in a row. Maybe this was never true and Jaka only said it so that she wouldn’t have to go north, but the attempt on Cerebus life at the end of Going Home has convinced her that they have to head far north to keep him alive. Possibly it’s a continuity thing, the closer the book moves to the end the less continuity seems to matter. Apparently this far north the only alcohol available is a beer that they refer to as Grizz. A closer inspection of the label shows that the brewer is Lord Julius imbecilc cousin Duke Leonardi. I'm betting Julius pockets the profits, but uses his cousin's likeness to advertise and promote the drink.

They have hooked up with famous writer and adventurer Ham Ernestway. Dave had a new literary obsession, and this time it was Ernest Hemingway. Ernestway and his wife; Mary, agree to guide Cerebus and Jaka in the their trip north. I found it of interest that Cerebus was a huge Ernestway fan. Cerebus has never really been much of a reader, and his efforts at writing his memoirs showed that he wasn’t much of a writer either. In his notes at the back Dave Sim said he thought the idea of turning Cerebus into a Ham Ernestway fanboy was amusing. Oookay.

This is Hemingway late in life and he has regular blackouts due to electroshock treatment. Most of the talking is done by Mary, and the majority of the first 2 3rds of the book is a visual representation of Mary Hemingway’s accounts in her diaries of the African safaris she and the writer went on. It was beautifully drawn and an interesting idea, but I kept wondering why it was in the pages of Cerebus the Aardvark. It could have stood as a graphic novel of it’s own. Having it here is fairly self indulgent and an indication that at this stage Cerebus’ story was of secondary interest to it’s creator.

This particular part of the book and the journey itself comes to end when Jaka informs Cerebus that Mary killed Ham. Whether she did or not is left open to speculation, but it’s probably more likely that Ham took his own life as did the real life Ernest Hemingway. What happened to Mary or the African bearers that were with the couple I don’t know, they simply disappeared out of the story at this point. The setting in terms of clothing and implements seemed to be more mid 20th century than anything. The Ernestways had shotguns and they knew about airships. Cerebus explained his ignorance of these things by claiming that Sand Hills Creek was very off the beaten track. That was another interesting revelation. Part of the reason Cerebus is heading for Sand Hills Creek, quite apart from an apparent desire to see his parents again, is because it’s almost in Isshuria and is not under Cirinist control. This also seems to make it slightly more attractive to Jaka.

With the Ernestways out of the picture Cerebus and Jaka realise that Mary Ernestway has been leading them around in circles. They get caught in a blizzard and are snowed in. There’s a period where they believe that this is it and they will eventually starve to death. Cerebus has a vision involving Rick (the Cirinists killed him, although it’s a dream Rick, so maybe they didn’t really) and is told how to get he and Jaka out. He’s meant to leave everything, including Jaka behind, but he doesn’t and still gets out. In the rush to leave though they forget Missy. By the time Jaka realises this Cerebus claims it’s too late to turn back and he’s not risking his life for a doll.

To say that the relationship between Cerebus and Jaka has been strained ever since the boat trip would be understating it somewhat. They rarely speak and when they do they complain at each other. Cerebus is continually worried that Jaka’s behaviour will embarrass him in front of his parents and the good folk of Sand Hills Creek. When Cerebus started to give a damn what anyone thought of him or who he was with I don’t know. The old Cerebus would have simply beaten up or shouted anyone down. Cerebus’ attachment to his parents was also out. Readers had to wait until Church and State to get any meaningful data about his parents and even then it was in a dream sequence. I didn’t think he’d really given them a second thought after his father left him with Magus Doran as a kid.

Because the Cirinists don’t really want people leaving the lands under their control, especially someone as important as the Princess of Palnu, Cerebus and Jaka have to be careful about when and where they travel. There were flashes of how Cerebus and Jaka envisaged their life being all those years ago, but they’re only brief and fleeting. Sigh. The two uncover some long hidden tunnels, left by the Black Tower Empire, which allow them to get quickly and unseen to Sand Hills Creek. Jaka asks Cerebus to translate the runes in the tunnels for her and his translation is rather amusing, it’s all about how everything in the Black Tower Empire is bigger than anything else anywhere else. This hearkened back to the sort of joke that used to populate the book back in the early days. Cerebus tells Jaka that she can’t let on to anyone she’s been in the tunnels, it’s forbidden for women to be in them.

Sand Hills Creek appears to be deserted, although it soon becomes apparent that everyone is shutting their doors to Cerebus. He eventually reaches his parents house, which is also closed. Peering in, all Jaka and Cerebus can see is one empty chair. Cerebus knows his parents are dead, but wants it confirmed. They see an old man in the field next door and manage to catch him before he can get inside.

He tells Cerebus that his father died not long ago and that the village has shunned him because he couldn’t even come home to be with his father in his dying moments, too busy down south with his ‘harlot’. Cerebus blames Jaka for keeping him down south. She was why he missed his father’s death. This is unfair, but Cerebus often is unfair and irrational. He sends Jaka away from him. She stumbles back, crying, then a carriage appears and an austere gentleman steps out, holding something in his hand. It’s Missy. Jaka accepts it from him and lets him escort her into the carriage which rattles away.

Overcome with grief and rage Cerebus tears his clothes and falls to his knees screaming his pain out. Alone, unmourned and unloved.

Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence

I’ll begin this review by stating that I didn’t much care for Prince of Thorns, so this particular review isn’t going to join the many glowing reviews Mark Lawrence has received for his debut novel.

There was a lot of buzz surrounding Prince of Thorns and Mark Lawrence seems to have become the ‘next big thing’ in the subgenre of gritty fantasy, joining the likes of Joe Abercrombie.

Prince of Thorns most definitely fits neatly into the gritty subgenre. The book was so gritty in fact that I had to have a glass of water after finishing it to wash the dirt out of my throat.

The Prince of the title is Jorg Ancrath; a seriously damaged, highly ambitious, vengeance seeking, 14 year old psychopath. When Jorg was 9 years old he was forced to watch his mother and younger brother murdered by the forces of the powerful and vicious Count Renar, Jorg was trapped in the embraces of a thorn bush at the time (hence the book’s rather lyrical title). As his father does not appear to be motivated to move against Renar, Jorg strikes out on his own (at the age of 10, mind you), gathers a band of brutal mercenaries around him and determines to make Renar pay for what he did.

After finishing the book and thinking about it the word that sprang to mind most often was basic. I’ll try to explain why. Prince of Thorns ticks off most of the boxes of epic fantasy, but does so in a very spare way. Compared to many of it’s competitors Prince of Thorns is quite a short work, very tightly edited, it’s one of the few instances where the writer could have afforded to be a bit more expansive. In his defence there, Prince of Thorns is the first of a trilogy and the author wrote it as one work (the sequel King of Thorns is due out in August of 2012).

The need to world build was neatly circumvented by not really bothering to build a new world. Prince of Thorns is set in a post apocalyptic earth in which society has managed to advance to the medieval stage, in the 1100 years since the downfall of the previous civilisation. I had some problems with this setting. Firstly I was over half way through the book before the reveal about the apocalypse came about, and this was done to me in a rather out of the blue fashion. References to ancient philosophers such as Plato and Sun Tzu are scattered throughout the book, I started to wonder about the setting when a character quoted Nietzsche. I found it stretched credibility for me that works from ancient times survived, but nothing later than the 19th century did. There was a distinct lack of history about the setting. The civilisation in which Jorg lives has been around for 1100 years, yet they don’t seem to have any history about them, beyond starting a huge civil war that has fractured the continent into a number of small kingdoms.

Then we have the characters themselves. It’s a very popular thing these days to people a f epic with ‘shades of grey’ characters (I regard George RR Martin as the master of this, and Mark Lawrence has confessed to enjoying Martin’s work), and Prince of Thorns is no exception. Lawrence has attempted to make the characters grey, but they’ve mostly turned out black or irrelevant. For me this made it hard to actually care about any of them. The only character I managed to make any sort of ‘give a damn’ connection with was Jorg’s zen master tutor Lundist; and he was dead by the start of the book.

The construction of the book itself was odd, and this may have been a publisher thing. It’s composed of very short choppy chapters. The chapter ends and it goes straight into the next one, making the reader wonder why it ended where it did. There are a few flashback chapters throughout, set four years before the current narrative, they explain Jorg’s situation and give him some sort of reason for his actions.

I don’t actually mind first person narration, but I didn’t like Jorg as a narrator. He was to the point and blunt, but gave the reader no real insight into his character. He didn’t seem to see beneath the superficiality of anyone else either. Maybe the characters were genuinely that two dimensional. Other reviewers have mentioned the beauty of Lawrence’s writing, there are a few poetical touches, but overall the writing is serviceable, rather than remarkable. The whole thing had the feeling of something written for a writing class or writers group and then workshopped into a full length novel.

The action was well done, although one of the big action set pieces; a fight with animated skeletons controlled by a necromancer/vampire, had the distinct feel of being lifted directly from a computer game. One of the few criticisms that people do direct at the book, and I’m going to touch on it too is to do with Jorg’s age. The belief is that Lawrence made him a little too young. I have to agree. I can’t buy that a 10 year old, no matter how ruthless can run with a bunch of badass mercenaries for three years and wind up running the crew and having them scared of him by the age of 14. There’s also the matter of how Jorg regularly beats bigger and better trained opponents. He does say that at 14 he’s six foot, which is a big kid, but he wins most of his fights by the virtue of being sneakier and more ruthless than his opponent. Sorry, didn’t work for me. Jean Tannen, he ain’t.

Throughout I kept feeling that there was something missing, and it eventually dawned on me that the missing ingredient was humour. I think I chuckled twice, once had to do with an exasperated Jorg cutting off a necromancer’s head before he could bring a spell to bear, and that’s an old joke that I’ve seen done many times in the past, and the other was his observation about another knight’s horse late in the book. People compare Prince of Thorns to Abercrombie's work, although Mark Lawrence has said that he did not read any Joe Abercrombie until after he’d written Prince of Thorns, but his story lacks the wit, charm, class and polish of his fellow fantasist.

Prince of Thorns does have the advantage of resolving most of it’s storyline in this volume, although the way is clearly open for the sequel. That was handy for me, because I was distinctly unimpressed by this and won’t be strapping in for the rest of the ride.

Heartless by Gail Carriger

Heartless is the fourth book featuring the adventures of the soulless Alexia Maccon (nee Tarabotti).

In the course of the 3 preceding books of the Parasol Protectorate Alexia has gotten married to a werewolf, been made Queen Victoria's supernatural liaison, gone to Scotland, become pregnant and travelled throughout the continent.

In Heartless Alexia is back in England and trying to deal with her pregnancy. Being without a soul, Alexia is not the most maternal of ladies, she in fact refers to her unborn offspring as the 'infant inconvenience'. The Countess Nadasdy; Queen of the London vampire hive, has concerns about Alexia's child, as they believe any child of a preternatural is dangerous to her kind. To this end they're trying to kill her and her werewolf husband; Lord Conall Maccon, Alpha of the Woolsey pack.

The couple come to the conclusion that the best thing for Alexia's child is to adopt it out. Matters are complicated when Lady Maccon decides the best father for the child is her flamboyant friend, vampire about town; Lord Akeldama. This necessitates moving into the townhouse next to Akeldama's residence. Things are complicated when a mad ghost warns of an attempt on Queen Victoria's life and Alexia, despite her condition just has to investigate.

Heartless is exactly what readers have come to expect from the Parasol Protectorate with all sorts of steampunk madness from Alexia and Co. Many of the crowd favourites return; Conall and his level headed Beta Professor Lyall, Alexia's horrible half sister Felcity, who seems to have developed a social conscience and joined the suffragettes, Alexia's tasteless friend Ivy Tunstell, who also indicates that she is pregnant and is inducted into the Parasol Protectorate (in fact this is something Alexia made up specifically for Ivy) and gains the code name Puff Bonnet, Lord Akeldama and his pack of drones and the former vampire drone made werewolf; Biffy.

Although there is one more book planned in the Parasol Protectorate (Timeless due out in March 2012) this one has the feel of a finale and wraps nearly everything up neatly. I thought that this was the best installment so far and had some real character development, readers saw just how devious Felicity truly is, Alexia in particular developed significantly in Heartless. It is often remarked how little affection she has for others, her lack of feeling for her baby being one example, yet she seemed to develop very maternal feelings towards Biffy and was greatly concerned at how his lycanthropy was affecting him.

I must make note of the ridiculous surnames that Gail Carriger gives the gentry, or the ton as they are often referred to, they'r a highlight for me and Lord Akeldama's habit of never calling Alexia the same endearment twice. I can see the author chortling over her keyboard as she dreams these up.

Going Home

The 13th phonebook; Going Home, is actually the first part of a larger arc which is called Going Home, the second part is contained in the 14th phonebook; Form and Void.

Before you crack the book open one thing strikes the reader as being different, the cover is in colour. All the other phonebooks have featured a black and white drawing. The cover of Going Home is also not a drawing, it’s a colour photograph of a green field on the edge of a dark forest. I believe all the individual issues at this point featured colour photographs.

It begins with Cerebus and Jaka travelling north together to Cerebus’ home of Sand Hills Creek. Since being separated from Cerebus at the end of Jaka’s Story, and being sent back to Palnu in disgrace, Jaka’s situation and her perception by the general populace and the Cirinists has changed. She’s called Princess Jaka, although she often asks to be called Jaka without the Princess honorific. The people, and even the Cirinists love her, and will seemingly do anything for her. I wondered if Oscar’s reads about her had anything to do with her celebrity status. No one says anything about her companion (Cerebus), and he’s treated with every kindness, although where possible he’s ignored.

On the surface of it their relationship seems happy, almost idyllic. They laugh and joke a lot. They certainly appear to be blissfully happy in public. In private Cerebus worries. He worries about the snail’s pace they’re travelling at, he doesn’t want to get snowed in on the wrong side of the Conniptin Mountains on the way to Sand Hills Creek. He worries about keeping Jaka happy. Someone at an inn told him that Jaka was ‘sad’, and the only way to maintain the relationship was to be happy enough for the both of them. Being happy is not Cerebus’ usual state of being, he does a pretty good job, though, despite the nagging internal doubts that plague him. His biggest concern regarding Jaka is what do they do when they get so far north that there are no more clothing huts. Jaka insists that she has to wear different clothes every day. Cerebus offers to ensure that her clothes are clean every day, but Jaka says they don’t have to be clean, they just have to be different. Eventually, faced with the possibility that the lack of clothing huts in the far north will mean losing Jaka, Cerebus agrees to go south. Everyone else went south, so why not?

Dave took time during Jaka and Cerebus’ tour of the northern inns to portray a few fellow comic book writers and artists. Greg Hyland, Rick Veitch (who had appeared previously in Guys) and Alan Moore, were all part of it. Alan Moore’s portrayal was particularly amusing, and I suspect very accurate.

To go south Cerebus and Jaka have to board a boat. The boat looks rather like a large barge crossed with a riverboat. It’s very well appointed and it’s passengers will travel in style. The boat seems entirely crewed and staffed by Cirinists, who are all referred to as Mother. Aside from the aardvark and his princess there only seems to be one other passenger, a notorious reads author by the name of F. Stop Kennedy. F. Stop Kennedy was Dave Sim’s version of popular 1920’s author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It reminded me of the way he had portrayed Oscar Wilde in Jaka’s Story and Melmoth.

In his extensive notes at the end of the book Sim says that drawing Fitzgerald accurately was not an easy task, as not a lot of photographic material featuring the writer was available. He confesses that of Fitzgerald’s work he preferred Tender is the Night and The Beautiful and the Damned to the work for which he is best remembered; The Great Gatsby. It seems that a lot of the way he saw the writer was drawn from those two novels, rather than Gatsby.

Jaka didn’t care for Oscar, in fact she despised the man, and she doesn’t hold Kennedy in much higher regard. As they travel down the river Kennedy works on a read, excerpts from which he occasionally reads out to the other two passengers, and are also often shown between pages. At one stage a few lines of handwriting appeared in the book. Dave Sim says in his notes that this was his attempt at recreating Fitzgerald’s handwriting, and although he says it may not pass muster with some of the better biographers, he thought he did a pretty good job. Being an artist Dave probably has an eye for this sort of thing. The presented story presumably done in the style of F. Scott Fitzgerald (I’ve never read any of the man’s works, so I can’t judge) is a written version of the story that readers are seeing also in drawn form. Dave Sim pushes the envelope again. Kennedy’s descent into alcoholism and his failing health were handled subtly and sensitively.

What hit me most was when the boat passed through Iest, or where Iest used to be. While Cerebus was floating around in space talking to Dave, Cirin returned to Estarcion, and was there during the ‘Iestan Tragedy’. Iest was destroyed. Of all of the settings for Cerebus Iest was my favourite. It’s why I called the blog Travels Through Iest (even though being a city state there wasn’t a lot of travelling to be done in Iest itself), so seeing it being completely obliterated and deserted was quite moving for me. These days people only came there to hear Cirin’s priestesses recite her version of events. A sort of religious pilgrimage.

There’s quite a bit of tension when Cerebus and Jaka decide to leave the boat. The Cirinists seem to have decided to take Cerebus out of the picture, armed troops are lined up on the waterfront and want to separate Jaka and Cerebus. Jaka works out what is happening and narrowly averts disaster. Their travels will continue in the second part of Going Home; Form and Void.

I’ve always been interested in the way Dave Sim seems to change the times in which Cerebus takes place to suit his material. The early issues took place in a Robert E. Howardesque setting to suit the barbarian warrior parody of the book. With High Society it shifted to a setting that was more reminiscent of the late 18th and 19th centuries. Most of Going Home, especially the boat trip seems to be in a 1920’s influenced setting, which fits with F. Stop Kennedy. The main anachronism there is the Cirinist’s uniforms, which have altered subtly to resemble nuns habits more than anything else.

I liked the first part with Cerebus and Jaka doing what they’d always talked about, travelling through Estarcion together, but I really didn’t see the need for a lot of the boat trip. Okay, I know that Dave Sim seemed to have developed a fascination for F. Scott Fitzgerald, the way he had for Oscar Wilde, but I do question the detail into which the writer was examined. At times it seems like Sim just filled in material for issue upon issue so he could reach the magical 300 mark. The Fitzgerald stuff wasn’t without interest, the same as the Wilde works, especially Melmoth, but I kind of felt they belonged in publications of their own rather than in Cerebus story, a story in which they only played peripheral roles, despite the amount of space devoted to lovingly portraying them.

With the exception of Cerebus himself, who always looks like a cartoon, the artwork is very realistic, almost photolike in quality. The mixture of artwork and slabs of prose is now familiar, and even other books by this stage were starting to experiment with this style of work.

The Iron Jackal

In 2009 British fantasy author Chris Wooding (The Braided Path and The Fade) started a new series with Retribution Falls. As Retribution Falls was referred to as A Tale of The Ketty Jay, it was reasonable to assume that there would be further books in the future. Retribution Falls was a steampunk inspired, audience pleasing swashbuckler and it’s success and enjoyability was repeated in 2010 with the sequel Black Lung Captain. I’ve enjoyed and reviewed both books here. I was eager to get my hands on and read The Iron Jackal. The annual Tale of The Ketty Jay has become one of the highlights of my reading year.

Following the events of Black Lung Captain, smuggler Darian Frey and his rag tag crew have become minor celebrities. While being recognised for their efforts is nice the notoriety doesn’t put food on the table or aerium in the tanks of the Ketty Jay, so Frey takes on a retrieval job from his rival and occasional lover bounty hunter Trinica Dracken. The capturing of the item in question; a much wanted relic of a lost Vardian civilisation is dangerous enough, but it’s what happens when Frey is unwise enough to play around with the relic that really sets the explosive events of the book off and gives it the title.

Frey’s hand becomes infected with a daemon, a daemon that plagues the smuggler’s mind and will take his life if he can’t restore the relic to it’s original keeping place by a certain time. First Frey has to get the relic back, and he’ll need all his crew and their talents to do that. Then he has to get the one person in the world who can take him to the relic's origin, that individual is heavily guarded and his captors aren’t about to let him go without a fight. It’s about then that things really become dangerous…

Although I had a lot of fun reading The Iron Jackal I’ve come to expect that from this series and at times I had a bit of ‘I’ve seen this before’ air about the events. Chris Wooding has revealed so much about the crew that he didn’t have a lot left to tell us about them, although the former slave and mechanic, the taciturn Silo remained a bit of a closed book, so we got his background this time. I appreciated the story and it gave the character a lot more depth, he actually communicates in words now, not grunts and facial expressions, but his story didn’t have the same impact on me as navigator Jez’s secret, and the daemonist Grayther Crake’s tragic past did in Black Lung Captain. Wooding is gradually fleshing out the world, readers got to find out more about the Samarlans and their Arabian/North African influenced culture, plus a little bit about the almost mythical former dominant race of the planet.

I’m still trying to figure out exactly what the Manes are. I had thought they were something like zombies previously, but Jez’s actions and interactions with another member of that strange and powerful undead race made me think they’re more closely related to vampires.

Some of the action set pieces were fantastic and edge of the seat stuff. The hijacking of the train carrying the relic, twitchy pilot Harkins’ star turn in an insane flying race reminiscent of The Phantom Menace’s pod race and the explosive finale in the stronghold of a lost civilisation.

Darian Frey himself gained some more depth and readers saw other sides to him. It would appear that where Trinica is concerned he’s a bit of a hopeless romantic, plus he has affection for his crew that transcends his usual amorality. The interaction between Crake and his indestructible golem Bess were again highlights for me and it’s a testament to Chris Wooding’s skill that he can evoke such emotion using a character that has no voice and no facial expression. From the ending it also appears that the Ketty Jay has gained a crew member, but it will take the next book to see if this is a permanent addition to the roster.

Readers were reunited with old friends aside from the Ketty Jay’s crew in Trinica Dracken and the Century Knights Samandra Bree and Colden Grudge. I’m not certain we’ll see Grudge again, and he talks about as much as Bess, but I think Samandra will definitely return.

If anyone has enjoyed the first two Tales of the Ketty Jay, then they will also like The Iron Jackal, but to continue the strong start I think Chris Wooding will need to add a new string or two to his bow in forthcoming books.

Elfquest - Journey to Sorrow's End

I’d always been interested in the concept of Elfquest as a graphic novel, but could never find the early issues to follow the story properly, so when I happened to see a cheap 2nd hand copy of the novel, which I believe is a prose version of some of the earlier issues, I decided to give it a try.

With things like Peter & Max (based on Bill Willingham’s Fables comic) and Agatha H. and the Airship City (the novelisation of the 1st 3 volumes of Phil and Kaja Foglio’s webcomic; Agatha Heterodyne Girl Genius) I’d been shown that successful comic concepts could make the jump into novels, and do it with class. I was hoping for similar story quality with Elfquest – Journey to Sorrow's End.

Wendy and Richard Pini were pioneers when it comes to independent publishing, and Elfquest was definitely an interesting and revolutionary concept in a market dominated by powerfully muscled guys in colourful costumes. They melded science fiction and fantasy to create a comic book version of an epic fantasy. Unfortunately for me it didn’t translate on this occasion.

The story is fairly simple. Some years ago a spacecraft landed on a planet with two moons. The local human inhabitants attack the craft and it’s pilots. Those that escape become the elves of the title.

The tribe that the story follows is that of the Wolfriders, they’ve dwelled in the nearby forests, which they call the Holt, and have bonded with a local wolf pack, hence the tribal name, they also use the wolves as steeds. They regularly fight with the humans, and in retaliation for a recent battle the humans set fire to the Holt. Forced from their home, and led by their chief Cutter, the Wolfriders initially seek refuge with the trolls. The trolls, wanting to be rid of the Wolfriders (I can’t actually say I blame them, the Wolfriders are a fairly obnoxious bunch), the trolls offer to lead them to a sanctuary they call Sorrow's End. They dupe the elves and instead leave them in a trackless desert.

With characteristic perseverance, and using their finely honed survival skills, the Wolfriders manage to make it through the desert and arrive at Sun Village. Sun Village is also inhabited by elves. They call themselves the Sun Folk, and they’re peaceful, they raise crops and farm, although they do have one designated hunter. Because the Wolfriders seem to exist for conflict they attack Sun Village, and Cutter carries off their healer and daughter of the chief; Leetah. They are pursued by the Sun Folk’s hunter; Rayek, who surprise, surprise is carrying a torch for Leetah.

The Sun Folk and the Wolfriders come to an agreement of sorts brokered by a first generation descendant of the original elves; a woman called Savah. The matter of who should have the right to court Leetah, Cutter or Rayek, is settled by a test of skills. There are some mildly tense moments during the trials, but Cutter was always going to win.

Humiliated, Rayek exiles himself, and with the Wolfriders the Sun Folk don’t require a hunter now in any case. The Wolfriders make themselves useful to the Sun Folk in the great zwoot (a sort of wild horse that the Sun Folk ride and use as a beast of burden, they also seem to eat them at times) round up. Leetah falls for Cutter and bonds to him. Fade to black.

I wanted to like this, but I just couldn’t. The idea of an elf society being similar to a native American tribe was a good one, but the book failed in so many other ways. What works in a comic using drawings doesn’t necessarily work in a prose novel. The characters were very two dimensional. The fact that the Wolfriders all had these wildly alliterative names: Dewshine, Skywise, Strongbow, I felt like I was reading roll call in a hippy commune, didn’t help me differentiate between them. Of the three leads I took an instant dislike to the boastful Cutter and the stiff necked intolerant Rayek. I liked Leetah a little more, but even her attraction to Cutter, while continually referring to him as a barbarian was totally unbelievable and rather tiresome. The idea, while it was original as a comic, and maybe slightly less hackneyed in the early 80’s when the book was originally published, was very trite and has been done over and over since, often a lot better. Then there is the prose itself. Oh my God! Overblown, too alliterative, overly descriptive, again what you can convey in a few strokes of a brush (Wendy Pini is quite a talented artist) is a very different thing when you’re trying to write it down and describe it in words, and the writing talents of Wendy Pini and husband Richard simply weren’t up to it in this book.

To be totally honest I only managed to finish this because I hate to give up on a book. If I hadn’t bought it very cheaply I’d feel ripped off. The original comics may be quite entertaining, everything I’ve heard says that they are, so if you’re at all interested in Elfquest you may want to track them down, but avoid this novel at all costs.

Blameless

Blameless is the 3rd book in Gail Carriger’s Parasol Protectorate series.

When readers last saw the soulless heroine Alexia Maccon at the end of Changeless she had just discovered she was pregnant and been cast out by her werewolf husband Lord Conall Maccon on the grounds that being for all intensive purposes dead werewolves cannot reproduce, so therefore the child that Alexia is carrying (dubbed the ‘infant inconvenience’ by Alexia) is not his.

This idiotic action by her equally idiotic husband forces Alexia to move back in with her family. This wouldn’t be so bad if the Loontwill’s, excepting the hen pecked patriarch Squire Loontwill, had a brain between them, but they don’t. Alexia’s half sisters; Felicity and Evylin are insufferably silly, and her mother is totally witless. They can’t bare to live with the scandal that Alexia brings with her, in fact Evylin blames the cessation of her engagement with Captain Featherstonehaugh on Alexia’s predicament. There’s no mention of the fact that Captain Featherstonehaugh also broke off an engagement with Alexia’s friend Miss Ivy Hisselpenny (this didn’t really bother Ivy, because it left her free to marry Conall Maccon’s former claviger Tunstell and become Mrs Ivy Tunstell), by the end of the book the fickle Captain Featherstonehaugh was engaged to the younger Miss Wibley (I’m betting he’ll have another fiancé by the start of book 4; Heartless). The Loontwill’s also toss Alexia out. The scandal has made it’s way through the ton like wildfire and poor Alexia can’t even take refuge in a teashop.

She goes to the one person who the scandal won’t bother; in fact it may even make her more attractive to him, the flamboyant vampire Lord Akeldama. The only problem with this is that Akeldama is not in residence, neither he or his army of dandified drones are anywhere to be seen. Something is most definitely not right. Then when Alexia is attacked by a horde of mechanised ladybugs en route to Madame Lefoux’s hat shop, she knows that she has to leave England.

With Conall indisposed, he’s managed to get himself horrendously drunk on the formaldehyde his Beta; Professor Lyall, keeps his sheep embryo specimens in (Maccon actually thought they were a ‘crunchy pickled snack’) Madame Lefoux elects to accompany Alexia to the continent, leaving Ivy (there was no one else) in charge of her shop. Ivy advises against Alexia visiting Italy as that is where they ‘keep’ all the Italians, she does however make Alexia a going away present of a box of tea. Heaven forbid she should have to drink coffee!

What follows is a madcap dash through France and Italy to Florence where Alexia, Madame Lefoux and Alexia’s butler/bodyguard Floote, are attacked nearly every step of the way. Floote showed surprising depth and resourcefulness during this adventure. Before he’d just been a frighteningly efficient butler, he’s also a frighteningly efficient bodyguard, managing to handily despatch pursuers without getting a speck of mud in his highly polished shoes or neatly pressed trousers.

While Alexia is trying to escape assassination attempts by vampire drones and imprisonment by the Templars in Florence, Lyall and Maccon are trying to discover what happened to Lord Akeldama and who murdered the Crown’s former vampire potentate and tried to do the same to Akeldama’s favourite drone; Biffy. Maccon does come to his senses and realises that Alexia has not been unfaithful to him and perhaps her soulless state has to do with her ability to conceive, when they’re touching he’s not a werewolf, and therefore alive. Readers know Conall can produce children, because we met his many times great granddaughter in Changeless.

Soulless and Changeless were fun, but Miss Carriger kicks it up a notch in Blameless. It’s great fun seeing Maccon make a drunken fool of himself and having Lyall take charge, he’s also the first one to realise that there’s more to Ivy Tunstell than the front she shows to the world at large. Seeing the alternate steampunk world that Gail Carriger has created in more depth with the trip to the continent was also fantastic. It’s not really that much different to our world, if you can ignore the vampires, werewolves and ghosts, not to mention that the Templars are still running around in Florence late in the 19th century! I like Akeldama, so his absence for a large part of the book was a bit of a blow, but more than made up with for SuperFloote, the very rude German inventor Lange-Wilsdorf and his ill fated, bad tempered little dog Pouche, and Alexia’s experiences with new things like pesto.

Alexia herself best sums up Blameless with this quote late in the book: ‘You mean while I’ve been running across Europe pregnant, escaping ladybugs, flying in ornithopters, landing in mud, and drinking coffee, you have been inebriated?’

The maglc Gail Carriger can perform with words simply needs to be read. I can’t wait to see how Alexia deals with pregnancy in Heartless.