Normally fan fiction is an attempt by amateur authors to extend the universe that they love by telling the stories that they imagine happen outside thNormally fan fiction is an attempt by amateur authors to extend the universe that they love by telling the stories that they imagine happen outside the confines of the original authors work. A relevant example of this might be the 'Mary Russell' series by Laurie R. King, which deftly uses another author's character to create original stories.
This is not that sort of fan fiction. This is simple plagiarism. Even though Katherine Addison continues to demonstrate that she can write good prose, I'm not sure that there is anything in this book to justify it being published. Only the professionalism of the writing saves this from being a one star review.
For some reason, Addison felt it necessary to plot point by plot point simply retell the most famous Author Conan Dole 'Sherlock Holmes' stories like 'A Study in Scarlett', 'Hound of the Baskervilles', 'The Speckled Band', and so forth only with Holmes as some sort of Angel and Dr. Watson as some sort of transgender werewolf who just might be one of the most egregious Not Like Other Girls trope abuses of all time - she's a girl but not like other girls, who is a werewolf that is not like other werewolves, who is friends with an angel who is not like other angels.
Over the course of the story "Holmes" becomes increasingly useless, invisible, and turns into the John Nash character in 'A Beautiful Mind' feverishly collecting paper clippings but solving nothing, leaving all the heavy lifting and useful work to be done by "Dr. Watson" - because of course she does.
All of this might be tolerable if only there was anything original going on here. If you've read the original stories, there will be pretty much zero mystery here with these pale but winged imitations.
Ms. Addison's publisher: "You really need to publish something." Ms. Addison: "But I have writers block. Can I maybe just get you to edit this pile of Sherlock Holmes/Angel fan fic I wrote when I was 17?" Ms. Addison's publisher: "Sure. Just as long as it has your name on it. Your fans will buy anything." ...more
There is no book I've read recently that I wanted a sequel to more than I wanted a sequel to Katherine Addison's "The Goblin Emperor". This is becauseThere is no book I've read recently that I wanted a sequel to more than I wanted a sequel to Katherine Addison's "The Goblin Emperor". This is because the main character Maia is just so likeable that you badly want for him to receive a just reward of a happy life. But the book ends only with hints of "And he lived happily ever after." before we really get to see the fullness of that. Or to put it another way, since the story is a fairy tale that has a happy ending, it probably should have ended with a wedding and our satisfaction that Maia truly will be loved and cherished and that every thing will go right. Or, failing that, I would have felt the story had been complete, if Maia had been given one traditional shining moment of awesomeness amidst all his honorable mildness, gentleness, humility and kindness. Just once I would have like Maia to draw upon his well of strength to publicly triumph, in a story where it seemed so many of those around him did.
But we didn't get that. And, if you are looking for that in "The Witness for the Dead", prepare to be disappointed because Maia doesn't appear on stage at all.
Instead, the story follows Maia's spy master the disgraced, maudlin, self-deprecating cleric Celehar, who we last saw turning down Imperial favor to take a small post performing his duty and caring for people who have no one to care for them. As cleric and champion of the pyschopomp deity Ulis, it is Celehar's job to tend to the dead in their graves, and to the bereaved that they leave behind - and quite often in his case, to solve the murders that lead to their untimely deaths. In short, he's a priestly detective. This story picks up that story, following Celehar through the tangled paths of several cases that he's assigned.
Where "The Goblin Emperor" had as it's central theme forgiveness, and enforced the moral that those that least need forgiveness are the very ones that most often offer it, while those that most need it are most likely to think that they do not, the theme of "The Witness for the Dead" is the idea of listening. While we normally think of the main job of a witness is talking, Addison offers the perspective that the main job of a witness is listening. In fact, her thesis statement straight out of the mind of the main character may well be this, "I no longer cared whether [my god] listened to me; what was important was that I listened to [my god]". And Celehar follows this vocation by doing a lot of listening to everyone around him, and in turn finds a lot of people who need someone to listen to them.
And so once again, although the story has some flaws - most notably that it wraps itself up so neatly and quickly that the ending is rather unsatisfying - the author gets a lot of credit from me for dealing with really important timeless subject matter in a very sensitive and nuanced manner.
Still, if it is the author's intention to keep us hanging on waiting for another sequel, I think it is fair to say that she has successfully done that....more
I feel I have read the best Sci-Fi and Fantasy have to offer, and that new authors of great talent aren't appearinStarted out as a 4: ended up as a 2.
I feel I have read the best Sci-Fi and Fantasy have to offer, and that new authors of great talent aren't appearing in those genres. Further, both genres have been watered down by mainstream acceptance, and the introduction of a lot of writers writing using the trappings and drapes of Sci-Fi or Fantasy, but without any of the philosophical, scientific, or intellectual heft the genre once boasted. So I've been trying to read outside my favored genre.
And it really hasn't worked out. The spare, gritty, Noire style writing was rather nice, but about halfway into the book it just turned boring, nihilistic, and predictable. I saw where it was going, and where it was going was ugly, and I was wondering, "Why do I want to read this ugly story?"
Since this is the third book of the series that I've read, and they've stay at 3 stars, that should tell you something.
This is above average. (No, reaSince this is the third book of the series that I've read, and they've stay at 3 stars, that should tell you something.
This is above average. (No, really, look at my average. Three stars is pretty good.)
I'd even go so far as to say some of these books should be 3.5 stars.
It's hard to explain the books, except to say that it is like if Terry Pratchett didn't write humor books, but instead wrote grim and gritty works about corporate espionage in the style of Le Carre - only infused with Pratchett's ultimate optimism so that good generally triumphs in the end. While Gladstone has yet to hit Pratchett's depth or relevance to the real world, I feel like the subject matter might eventually allow for that. In the mean time, this is the best and most original potato chip fantasy I've read in a while. Well crafted, solid characters, good sense of plot, few or no stupid hoops, gritty without being nihilist or grimdark, and not nearly as long winded as say Brandon Sanderson. Well recommended if you need a book to entertain you while you are passing time social distancing or on a beach....more
I struggled with rating this 2 stars or 3, owing to problems like the protagonist not being especially likable and the structure not being as tight orI struggled with rating this 2 stars or 3, owing to problems like the protagonist not being especially likable and the structure not being as tight or compelling as the previous novel. But I think I have settled on 3 stars because at some level, even if he's not doing a particularly great job at the moment, the author is wrestling with problems of significance. He may in fact be hitting the mat hard as the problems prove beyond his capacity to grapple, but if he is then there is no particular shame in that. The things he is wrestling with have defeated better men and are perhaps beyond mere mortals. The only shame would be in choosing not to grapple with them....more
The first 2/3rds or so are such pure military pastiche that I was sure there was a manuscript somewhere of the exactWell, that was all over the place.
The first 2/3rds or so are such pure military pastiche that I was sure there was a manuscript somewhere of the exact same novel set in the real world in some Asian country, and that it had been converted in to a science fiction novel using the must straight forward substitutions - pulse energy weapons for machine guns, hovercraft for Humvees, silver for oil, aliens with yellow skin and funny shaped eyes for... well, you get the idea. I figured he'd taken a military police procedural and turned into a science fiction novel to make it more publishable and broaden its appeal. Certainly the setting was a lot more credible as a US operation on foreign soil than it ever was on a space station orbiting an alien world.
Most of the novel was over before the setting and the speculative technology started playing any role in the plot. When it finally did start playing a role in the plot, it did so in a big way, but not nearly in the way that I'd guessed. I mean sure, I'd figured out the important clues but I thought that the clues when pieced together would solve a mystery and we've have some sort of ending suitable to a mystery novel.
Spoilers. Nothing is really going to be explained to you. I mean, you will figure out what is going on, but at no point will any of it make the slightest bit of sense. It exists as a fait d'accompli, but exactly why anyone in the setup is or was behaving in the way that they did will never make the slightest bit of sense. No one behaves in the remotest rational manner with the possible exception of the mastermind character that is off stage almost the whole book, and even then, it doesn't explain why the situation got to where it did, only the inevitable logic of the book's conclusion. But, as that was so obviously the inevitable conclusion, you have to wonder what anyone was thinking.
So the last bit of the story ends with the logic of a horror story, and concludes with all the ambiguity - and fridge logic - of an average episode of 'The Twilight Zone'.
Two and a half stars, simply for not being completely boring. But no more than that, because there are way too many pages that go on and on like this:
Butler "I have a question." "Sorry, I have no answers." Butler: "Oh my headache. I need a drink." "Sir? About that earlier question. I have an answer now." Butler: "I don't understand what that means. I have more questions." "I have no answers." Butler: "I can't think of anything to do but barge in to where I'm not wanted unexpectedly."...more
I just don't much like the books she is in. Too many reasons to list. I'm still reading because I'm hoping that I'll enjoy a book thatI adore Flavia.
I just don't much like the books she is in. Too many reasons to list. I'm still reading because I'm hoping that I'll enjoy a book that has Flavia in it, but I'm not sure that the author is quite up to the task of creating a book worthy of the character he's created.
This problem last observed reading Laurie R. King....more
Five pages introducing a crime. Forty pages introducing the stories improbable conceit. Forty pages explaining how the crime was done. The other 230 oFive pages introducing a crime. Forty pages introducing the stories improbable conceit. Forty pages explaining how the crime was done. The other 230 or so pages are devoted to explaining in endless detail how the most improbable conceit is maintained. But all that detail for me just made the conceit all the more improbable, highlighting problems I probably never would have thought about if he'd just asked me to accept the conceit and go with it.
One of the most interesting things about this book for me is that it is almost impossible to classify. It's not realistic fiction. It's not historical fiction. It's some sort of speculative fiction but not easily classified as science fiction, as the situation that it describes involves no intentional aliens nor any futuristic technology. I want to classify the story as fantasy because of its sheer improbability, but it involves no overt magic either and more to the point it's very clear that the author does not want you to see any of the invents as requiring a mystical explanation. It might best be classified with that branch of science fiction that involves alternate history, but the nation and setting is entirely imaginary. Nonetheless, there is something alternative here perhaps best described as an alternative humanity, but then the author clear does not want us to see the inhabitants of The City and The City as being otherwise unusual in any fashion or categorically different than you or I. So perhaps its just best to classify the story as a mystery, because its a mystery to me how the author wants me to see the work.
China Mieville has always struck me as a smart talented young man who is always wasting his and the reader's time. Still, he manages to avoid his worst excesses of pretension, arrogance, and self-indulgence that mark some of his other works in this book, and writes a tidy little short story in just 300 odd pages. It's by far his best work since King Rat and his arc as a maturing writer was ruined by an excess of praise.
Normally, it isn't really important how you classify the story, but here whether it is science fiction or fantasy matters a rather great deal to the intended meaning of the work. It's obvious that Mieville wants to make some commentary on the fiction and myths that make a political system and a political entity exist. The lines we draw on a map that demark say Canada from the United States exist because we invent them and maintain them both as physical entities and as metaphysical entities about the identities that we assign to ourselves and which are assigned to us. All well and good and pretty standard stuff, but exactly what further commentary about the human race does Mieville intend by this most exaggerated example? Are we meant to see the system described as absurd, rendering this a satirical attack on our political pretenses, or are we meant to see this myth making power as an abundantly good, necessary and creative thing and accept it as the characters of the story do?
For my part, while I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge the power of creating identities from pieces of cloth, names, and lines on a map, the story carries this power far beyond what I believe the power of national identities, government, laws, and culture is capable of into a realm that might as well be Wonderland or Through the Looking Glass. This ability to make an identity for ourselves that unites us in common purpose is far from unlimited, and is as function of our biology always wholly subordinate to our biology. The reason you don't see societies existing according to the conceits described in the book is that these fictions about belonging to a nation are not infinitely powerful, and smash like glass when they are asked to overrule biology and reality. These fictions have some real power, but they lack the nigh infinite power Mieville allows them to have within the story.
So the most interesting question for me becomes, to what extent does Mieville really believe in the power of the fictions he is exploring. Does he see this story as a work of science fiction or a work of fantasy? Does he believe that if we just told ourselves the right fictions regarding the nation or nations, or stopped telling ourselves the wrong fictions regarding nations, that just as improbable results could be obtained as what are observed in this story? Or does he want us to see any of these fictions as being ridiculous, and this story ought to properly be classified along side satires like Gulliver's Travels? Is the story meant as an attack on the reality of secret police states such as East Germany, or is it meant to subtly justify them? None of the depth I would expect when dealing with such a serious subject is to be found here, nor is there here any of the insight in to what its like to be forced to live a lie found in some writers who actually lived behind the iron curtain or who others who today still live in a real world while being forced to heed to a fictional state created one. Nor can we from the exaggeration of the story draw much insight into the parallels we have living in our own political myths.
I don't entirely feel I wasted my time, but I do wonder what a more mature thinker might have made of this conceit. I keep waiting for China to just grow up a bit. I mean, he's my age, and he still reads like he's 19. He strikes me as the sort of guy that I'd enjoy sharing an RPG table with, and who might be fun to discuss the latest Star Wars movie with, but whose insight into the real world is still filtered entirely through fantasy creations and worse, that he doesn't even realize it. Get married. Have some kids. Try to make a family or a business work, or really anything work. Go actually fight a war if you must. Knock off a bit of that teenage smugness about having all the answers. Your craft will only improve for it....more
It's absurd considering how well written this book is, that it's author is not better known.
The best work of original children's fantasy since Harry It's absurd considering how well written this book is, that it's author is not better known.
The best work of original children's fantasy since Harry Potter. This book is the sort of weird almost surreal but engrossing story China Miéville always wants to but inevitably fails to write, and she manages to do with no intention to shock and no reliance on archaic words. The plot structure is impeccable. Nothing exists in the story but what serves to further the story, and despite the high imagination on display the writing remains as tight as a drum and never indulges itself in flights of fantasy without purpose. Writers of fantasy, take note: this is how you write a story. Whatever age you are aiming at, however serious or leisurely your purpose, write more stories like this.
It's a bit hard to be critical of this story, and on pure enjoyment I can't find much in the way of flaws. It starts off just a little bit slow, but once it gets rolling it stays in motion and gathers speed and new power on practically every page. I wavered on whether to give it the 5th star, and settled on four only because the story seemed to lack high ambition and be content to be just a rollicking good tale. Maybe I missed it in all the fun, but just a touch of the didactic might have given this story a more complex palette. It's evident that the author is of the greatest intellect, imagination, and craftsmanship as a writer, so just a little more often being able to see into that mind would have been fun. I'm going with the 4 stars on a first rating, but before you take that as a slight against this book, check out my 2.9ish average rating for a book which is probably among the lowest on Goodreads. I don't give out even 4 stars profligately. My four is most people's five, and do not doubt that I was seriously impressed by this novel just because its missing its 5th star.
The reason I wavered still is that so many stories with so much more ambition are written by authors that seem to despise that one most essential ambition of being a good storyteller. I'll take a tightly written tale filled with fun and wonder over a novel of the highest intellectual ambition, but not the slightest sense of having a plot and no element of craftsmanship larger than an apt metaphor, a pretty sentence or a snarky self-aware paragraph. If I had my way, I'd award Pulitzer and Noble prizes for literature to authors like Hardinge showing this skill of craftsmanship over self-important deliberately obscurant prose every single time. It takes more skill to write a book like this than any number rambling of 2000 page post-modernist tomes that exist mainly to show off or shock, or for readers to impress on other readers just how serious they are as readers for having clamored through such glutinous prose. Frances Hardinge deserves better accolades than she is receiving.
I like this book well enough, but can't really recommend it. It has numerous flaws that I found myself overlooking simply because it was pushing so maI like this book well enough, but can't really recommend it. It has numerous flaws that I found myself overlooking simply because it was pushing so many geek buttons. To begin with, the novel fails utterly to set the right tone for a horror story, and after page 50 or so its more like a slapstick comedy with an occasional gruesome murder. Also, the book has more techno-babble than an entire season of Star Trek: TNG. It's the worst case I've ever encountered in all of my years reading science fiction. Also, there are numerous references that can only be appreciated by someone with an intimate knowledge of Lovecraft's works, but all too often these references seem to be little more than random name dropping. In some cases, the reference didn't even fit. So, on one hand, if you haven't read the collected works of H.P. Lovecraft, then the amount of what will appear to be random techno-babble you have to wade through doubles. And on the other hand, if you have, then you'll be wondering why the cultist invokes the name of his god's most hated enemy when making a metaphor about contacting his god. Also, the more you think about the plot (and, not to give too much away but the meta-plot as well), the less the story makes sense. Ultimately, the twist comes from such far left field and is so poorly executed that it simply seems to be a bad trick by the author on the reader who has been in good faith reading the story. In the best plotted novels, when the twist comes, it makes scenes in the story make more sense and you get the sense you missed things. In this case, it made the story make less sense and muddled more prior scenes than it clarified.
Still, for all that, I found I couldn't help but enjoy a story about a guy whose job is to hack into the mainframes of necromancers with his shoelaces and cast spells of contagious data corruption on thier operating systems....more
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