Book Review: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? by Paul Cornell
From Football through Jack the Ripper, Paul Cornell’s first two Shadow Police novels, London Falling and The Severed Streets, have winningly married the police procedural with events in a secret supernatural world in London that impinge on the ordinary world, in tones of horror and urban fantasy. The Urban Fantasy trope of someone discovering the secret supernatural world is old hat, especially in a city like London. However, it took Paul Cornell to get the idea of not only having police officers make the accidental discovery, but to then have them launch full bore into that world with the tools that made and make them effective in our world — the tools of police investigation. The third Shadow Police novel, tells you all you need to know with the title: Who Killed Sherlock Holmes? Sherlock Holmes, or worse, his ghost has been murdered.
Book Review: Spear of Light by Brenda Cooper
Transhumanity, ecological engineering, cultural clashes and strong characterization mark Spear of Light, the second novel in The Glittering Edge sequence from from Brenda Cooper, sequel to Edge of Night (previously reviewed here at S&F). Shaun and I also talked to Brenda on episode 262 of the podcast. If the first novel in the Glittering Edge sequence was fish-out-of-water stories, as humans learn to deal with transhumanity, and environments alien to them, the second novel is a story of full-on cultural collision. In the wake of the events of the first novel, the transhuman colony of Nexity on the planet Lym, an uncomfortable but necessary compromise created at the end of the first novel, is a source of constant tension. Under that tension between humanity and transhumanity, on Lym, is the dramatic engine that drives Spear of Light. Transhumans, humans and an ecologically fragile planet make for a potent environment for that dramatic engine to flourish and run in. And that doesn’t even mention the offworld events. While the first novel was relatively balanced between offworld and onworld events, and this novel is much more Lym focused, the events in space are crucial to the unfolding of the plot.
Book Review: Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott
Second in the Court of Fives series, following Court of Fives, Poisoned Blade by Kate Elliott continues the epic YA fantasy story of Jessamy, as she struggles to preserve herself and her family. Her expertise and skill at the Fives has put her into the intrigue and machinations of Garon Palace, as factions within the court struggle to influence, if not outright control, the throne. But what can the daughter of a General, struggling to keep herself and her family above water, do against that? She has a game to master, and in the mastery of that game, and protecting her family, young Jessamy is going to be catapulted out of the capital, and into the countryside. There, away from all she has known, treachery, betrayal, loyalty and the struggle for the future of her country irrevocably change her own quest.
Book Review: Too Like the Lightning by Ada Palmer
It’s the 25th century, but William Buck Rogers is not emerging from several hundred years of sleep. Earth, however, is very different than the 21st century we know. Political changes, several rounds, have radically altered the geopolitics. People are affiliated with global political entities, physical borders being a thing of the past. So, too, technological abundance has not made a utopia, but definitely a society whose problems and issues and weaknesses are extremely different than our own. And people’s values, taboos and concerns have changed, to make a fascinating landscape alien to our own. And a young boy may bring it all down because he can do the literally impossible. Bridger, a young boy secreted away in the House of one of the crucial clans of this 25th-century world, is kept hidden for very good reason. His wishes, you see, come true. He can animate things, and perhaps do more, things nigh inexplicable even by the science of the day.
Book Review: Spiderlight by Adrian Tchaikovsky
A band of heroes, a priestess determined to defeat the evil that threatens the land, and a prophecy that is the necessary fulfillment of conditions to defeat the Dark Lord all sounds like your bog-standard epic fantasy. The typical sort of epic fantasy that has been around since the 1980s and probably written in three or more volumes. Perhaps even one of those interminable series that just keeps going on and on. Almost certainly there would be your typical map, maybe a glossary, or a dramatis personae. In the hands of Adrian Tchaikovsky, however, Spiderlight is a lean short novel. It takes the epic fantasy formula template and in the midst of executing that formula, ruthlessly and entertainingly interrogates and examines it.
Book Review: Awakenings by Edward Lazellari
Two denizens of New York City, both with a mysterious amnesia, turn out to be connected to each other and to interdimensional intrigue with the fantasy realm of Aandor in Edward Lazellari’s debut novel Awakenings. Given that the other realms and the greater universe are offscreen and only referred to, what the novel comes out to be is an unusual take on urban fantasy, where the fantastic intrusion is from a fantasy realm rather than from, say, Faerie. The novel’s point of view primarily alternates between the two amnesiac characters. Cal MacDonell is a model NYPD cop with a wife and a young daughter. Straitlaced, straight-up family man who does his job and holds to his word. He’s the archetype of the stalwart, respectable police officer who takes “to protect and serve” seriously. This icon of order, and he does feel like an archetype, might even take that to extremes. As we learn more about him and his past, the revelations slot in perfectly with the character as he currently exists.
