Note: On review lo these years later I have to admit that this is one of my less-coherent reviews. Which is too bad, because the book really is good.

I met Lane Robins a couple of years ago in a writing workshop. I was strongly encouraged by others there that I should read Maledicte, but someone else in the workshop bought the last copy from the university book store, so I had to wait. It’s been a while now but I finally got around to ordering the book through Amazon and reading it.

I’m not going to give this book a great review because I know the author; I’m going to give this book a great review because I genuinely liked it. Not everyone may be comfortable with this book, but it’s a really rewarding read. (My bias toward the author is manifested in that If I didn’t like the book I just wouldn’t review it.)

First, hats off for the publisher, who created a striking volume with great cover art and a substantial feel. I’ll be ordering a Kindle in the near future, but this book’s physical presence adds to the experience. It’s a pleasure to hold.

At the heart of this story is a love triangle. It’s a very complicated love triangle, between very dangerous people. Maledicte is a beautiful young man in blind pursuit of vengeance against one of the most powerful people in the land. Maledicte is also a young woman from the slums of the city who will do anything to be reunited with her childhood sweetheart. Toward both ends Maledicte has been granted power from a god long thought dead, manifested in a black-bladed rapier — ever sharp, ever quick to hand, ready to spill blood. When his vengeance is complete, Maledicte will have a price to pay.

In his pursuit of vengeance Maladicte finds a powerful ally, and the servant of the lecherous old man forms the second point on the triangle. For a while as their relationship developed I found it difficult to understand why Gilly put up with Maledicte at all. “Here we go again,” I thought to myself, “another petulant rage by Maledicte.” Gilly is thoroughly convinced that Maledicte is male, and he’s a damn unpleasant person to be around most of the time. There is a moment when that changes, a brief, candid conversation that provides a glimpse into the human being behind the horrible mask. After that things made a lot more sense. Just in time, too, because the body count is about to start climbing.

Gilly is troubled that he is attracted to a man, but there’s not much he can do about it, except run away to distant shores and start over. He’s not ready to resort to that, yet, though as time passes he finds himself getting drawn deeper into the web of death and intrigue, his own hands getting bloodied even as he recoils in horror.

The third point on the triangle is Janus, Maledicte’s old flame, also from the slums and every bit as dangerous as Maledicte. He is the bastard child of the man Maledicte wants to kill; Janus just wants to make sure that death furthers his own goals. Where Maledicte kills to further his plans for vengeance, Janus is driven by ambition. He is subtle, seemingly an easygoing young man, only slowly revealing the depths and intricacies of his plotting. Calling him evil would miss the point; his affection for Maledicte is genuine, and he will sacrifice for her. But if that sacrifice means killing people and becoming one of the most powerful men in the land, well, you have to break a few eggs to make an omelette.

In this story Robins asks us to like some pretty unlikeable folks. There are no angels between these pages, and good people die. Also, bad people die. I was unable to sympathize with Maledicte at all for a while; to the point where it started to get in the way. Once I got the glimmer of light from Maledicte’s soul, I was completely on board. Heinous acts and atrocities begin to pile up (the royal court is not a pleasant place), and because we can see Maledicte through Gilly’s eyes, and we see that the victims are rarely innocent themselves, we can still pull for our heroes.

All three of the characters are able to surprise us, and all are realistic — if in twisted ways — as are the supporting cast. The machinations of the court are laid out so naturally that thinking back I’m surprised to realize how complex it all was. There were a couple of background issues that didn’t help the story (Antimachinists, for instance), that are probably there to set up another story but got in the way here. That’s a quibble, though.

Love, hate, revenge, duty, despair, jealousy, and downright crazy all take their turns pulling on the strings of the characters, and what’s really great about this book is that you feel it – even the crazy. This book is both atmospheric and visceral, and doesn’t pull it’s punches. You are right there with everyone else. It’s a good ride.

Note: if you use the above link to buy this excellent book (or a Kindle, or a new car), I get a kickback.

1

Sweet!

Thanks!

This was another in the pile of freebies I got at the World Fantasy Convention last fall. I pulled it out of the ‘to read’ pile when I was in the mood for some light reading, and light reading is what I got. That said, just because you don’t plan to win the Nobel Prize for Literature doesn’t mean you can abandon sense when writing a story. Even a story called Jailbait Zombie.

What do you expect from a book with a title like that, combined with a cover that has a silhouette of a slender female in a graveyard, carrying handcuffs? You expect a pulpy romp with some racy bits, a tongue-in-cheek attitude, a feeling that you’re on an amusement park ride and the conductor is having a wonderful time. There’s some of that here, but I get the feeling that our guide in this weird world, Mario Acevedo, pulled his punches. This is not the sort of narrative that benefits from subtlety.

The protagonist, Felix Gomez, is a vampire. He’s a newbie, quite naïve about many elements in the vampire world, yet for some reason he’s an enforcer – it’s like hiring a 12-year-old on a bike to be a sheriff’s deputy. Anyway, we join Felix as he’s being treated for a zombie bite. Apparently he and his buddy have already cornered the zombie in a construction site; we were not treated to that action. Another vampire comes along, is an asshole, burns himself to death, and that’s it for that character. Huh.

Gomez is charged with finding out who is behind the zombies, and while he’s at it, find the source of some crazy psychic disturbances in rural Colorado. There are some interesting parts as he does his detective work — strange things happen, he gets mixed up with some unsavory characters, some of those characters disappear, and he winds up in the company of a young, distraught, dying girl who wants to become a vampire, and who also happens to have some amazing psychic mojo.

There is chasing, vampire mayhem, zombie dismemberment, tough scrapes, old friendships renewed, and quite a bit of good storytelling. It just seems that at key moments the author could go a little farther. Like with the sex. There’s sex in there, but it’s not visceral. It seems wedged in to allow the publisher to check off ‘racy’ on the marketing form. There’s not enough passion to it, no sweat and desperation and futility and hope. It’s just mechanics. Pulp fiction can’t be afraid of making a mess.

How would you react to watching someone you really don’t like burn to death? Probably a really weird mix of conflicting emotions, right? His screams making your hair stand on end even as some dark thing inside you prevents you from helping? The stench of his flesh turning your stomach. The reminder that even if you’re a vampire you’re not immortal. Seems like a great chance to really get inside the head of the main character. Only, in Jailbait Zombie this scene seems to be constructed only to demonstrate that our main man has no feelings at all — which makes him a lot less interesting. We learn soon after — and several times after that — that Gomez is guilt-ridden over something he did in the past, and that’s a start, but the author flashes back to that one event over and over, while passing up fresh opportunities right in the narrative flow.

There is, however, one totally awesome plot twist. “Wow!” I said when I read it. “Never saw that coming!” I’m willing to forgive a lot for a good surprise like that.

My biggest gripe from a storytelling standpoint is the complete idiocy of the mysterious organization that sent Gomez on his mission. Am I to believe that they simply forgot to tell him the crucial information that made his job harder and led to disaster, or is it that they chose to withhold that information? Either way, Gomez’s bosses (I forget what their mysterious cabal was named) are repeatedly guilty of being really bad at their jobs. Bad enough that I simply couldn’t accept that they would ever be bosses.

Maybe that becomes clearer as the series progresses.

Ah, yes, the series. The main reason I’m writing this review is so I can discuss series with all of you. You don’t have to thank me, it’s what I do.

Remember how I said it seemed like a significant chunk of action had already happened when I started the story? That’s because for all practical purposes, this book began on chapter two. Whither the erstwhile chapter one? At the end of the previous book. And guess what happens at the end of this book? Yep, Everything is wrapped up, Gomez relaxes, and then we are treated to chapter one of the next book. It’s like they dropped the proofs at the printer’s and got the covers in the wrong places when they put everything back together.

Sure, the cliffhanger has been a staple of series since the dawn of time (I imagine Homer wrapping up an evening of oration with Odysseus in some terrible bind), but if you’re going to put chapter one in the previous book, at least have the decency to mark it as such and also put it in the next book, as chapter one, where it belongs. There were enough flashbacks in this thing without also having to explain what had just happened before the story started. (Homer’s hypothetical cliffhangers would have occurred within a story told over episodes; no one in the audience thought they were going to hear the end of the Odyssey that night, and he could count on people being up to speed when he began his next performance.)

This is not to be confused with the honest “here’s the first chapter of the next book” sections that many series use. Those pages come after the current episode has been wrapped up and the reader already knows that what they are reading belongs to the next story. And if anyone picks up the second book without reading the first, they get to read the whole thing. The last two books I read that were parts of series did an excellent job making sure the covers of each volume contained an entire story. I consider it a contract with the publisher that I will get an entire story between the covers of a book unless otherwise noted.

None of those gimmicks are going to work anyway, unless we’re already nearly sold on reading the second volume based on the power of the first.

You may have already heard me rant about books marketed as a series when in fact there’s only one story that spans all the volumes. It is a series of one, split into many pieces. This is especially common in high fantasy, where “epic” now means “no pretense whatsoever at putting a complete story between the covers of each volume.” To me it also means “wait until all the volumes are published before you start reading.” Only then can you read a full, satisfying story from beginning to end (and you know ahead of time what you’re getting into).

Done properly a series is a good thing, giving a skilled writer an easy sell on subsequent books, and giving a reader a chance to explore more deeply characters that develop over an extended time. Everybody wins. Just make sure that within the series each episode can stand on its own.

Back, then, to Jailbait Zombie. It wasn’t bad, misplaced covers aside. It could have been better. It needs to more fully embrace what it is to really shine, and it needs fewer really stupid people in it.

Note: if you use the above link to buy this book (or a Kindle, or a new car), I get a kickback.

2

Sweet!

Thanks!

One of the cool things about attending a writing convention is the big pile of free reading material one comes away with. Writers and publishers pay to put their work in the hands of influential readers, hoping to generate buzz. Some are worthy of notice, others… not so much. Amazon Ink by Lori Devoti was in my pile of goodies from last Autumn’s World Fantasy Convention, and it looked promising. My sweetie got to it before I did, and enjoyed it. So, with expectations high, I picked it up.

The Amazons in question are straight from the Ancient Greeks, a tribe of fierce and magically adept women. They have lived among humanity since the ancient times, secreting themselves in out-of-the-way places (like Wisconsin). They live a long, long time, and perhaps that’s why they’re still using swords while the rest of the world has moved on to more lethal technology. They keep to themselves and while they have a lot of rules, there is one that tops all the others: No boys allowed.

Melanippe’s first child was a son, but that was a long time ago. She has not forgotten what happened to him. She no longer lives with the rest of the Amazons. She has gone into de facto exile in the city.

Mel has a reasonably comfortable life there, raising her teenage daughter — who knows nothing of her heritage. Mel’s not looking forward to that discussion. Melanippe herself is an artisan, a skilled tattoo artist, able to apply the traditional markings to young amazons. These markings are more than decoration, they are deeply personal and bind power and kinship among the clans. Mel’s also been dabbling in sorcery on the side, and she’s been getting pretty good at it.

She’s going to need all her skill now. Someone’s killing young Amazons and leaving them on her doorstep, with their tattoos carefully cut off. Whoever is doing it knows who they are. Melanippe must juggle a teenage daughter who is a ticking time bomb, cops who think she knows more about the deaths of the young women than she’s letting on, a mother and grandmother who are not shy about providing their opinions, and on top of everything else she must deal with a lot of very angry women with swords.

In a way this story is thematically kindred to The Delicate Dependency — a superspecies of humanity, a tiny minority, has been living among us for thousands of years, but now they are coming to realize that technology is fundamentally upsetting the balance between the races. Mere mortals can use machines and science to undermine the innate superiority of the few. In the case of the vampire story, they were dependent on humanity for sustenance; in Amazon Ink the main thing they need from mortals is sperm. Melanippe’s position as an exile has allowed her to straddle the two societies and see clearly that the time has come for change, even while most of her peers are content to live tucked away from prying eyes.

There’s romance (single mom, not even 100 years old yet, very fit, seeks…), plenty of mystery, and some great plots twists, all hung on a well-drafted framework of Amazon society. Some obstacles succumb to brute force, while others require wit and craft. As the story progresses you begin to sense that something else is going on, something no one has recognized. Some people don’t quite fit in the world as it’s being painted by the narrator. Some twists I saw coming from far away, while others snuck up on me. Overall it was a lot of fun to read. My expectations were high going in, and I was not disappointed.

This book is set up to the the first in a series, but Ms. Devoti went about it the right way — putting a full and complete story between the covers. There are still unresolved issues at the end, but that’s how real life works. I’m interested to find what comes next for this four-generation all-female family and the odd assortment of characters that have become attached to it.

Note: if you use the above link to buy this book (or a Kindle, or a new car), I get a kickback. You really should. It’s a good book.

1

Sweet!

Thanks!