The word of mouth I'd gotten about this series had been so overwhelmingly positive that I was really excited to experience it for myself. It took me two weeks to get through all four volumes--over 1500 pages--and the only reason it took that long is because of all of those pesky "responsibility" things that keep getting in the way of my reading time. Now, I can't honestly say that it lived up to all of the most hyperbolically superlative instances of hype that I heard, but it was one of the best thought-out and most enjoyable fantasy series I've read in a long time.

What really grabbed me about this series was how well the author managed to come up with a fresh, unique setting. It's not often that you find a fantasy novel where the setting doesn't feel familiar--the genre tropes are pretty firmly entrenched at this point. Abraham's Khaiem, though, felt new and exotic to me to a degree I can't remember last encountering. That might sound a little inaccessible, but it wasn't at all, because even though the customs and structures of the culture of the Khaiem were new, the characters are still recognizably human and very relatable.

But even more than just being fresh, I loved that Abraham took the time to really think through the implications of the world he'd created. He invented a new and interesting system of magic and then created a setting in which only a small number of people in one country in the whole world have access to that magic. What would such a world look like? How would life be affected for both the people inside and outside that country? Abraham addresses these questions in ways that I found interesting and the conclusions were immensely satisfying.

The series has four volumes: A Shadow in Summer, A Betrayal in Winter, An Autumn War, and The Price of Spring. Each one is self-contained, with a beginning, middle, and satisfying conclusion--no cliffhangers here. I'm so used to fantasy series that are really one long novel split into parts that I often refuse to even start a series until it's been completed. (It's for that exact reason that Patrick Rothfuss's The Name of the Wind is still sitting on my nightstand, despite the excellent reviews my friends have given it.) So being presented with a series in which each volume feels complete (or nearly complete) in itself while still contributing to a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts--well, I appreciated it.

If you're at all interested in epic fantasy, you should definitely check this one out. It's well worth your time.

Started: 9/15/2009 | Finished: 9/29/2009

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If I had to come up with one word to describe my experience of reading this book it would be "dirty." And I don't mean that in the sense of "erotic" or "immoral" or "forbidden"--though perhaps I should mention that there are several scenes that could easily be described as perverse. But, no, I literally mean it as "covered in filth." China Miéville has created a setting--the city of New Crobuzon--that is squalid and grimy. His vision of urban life in this fantastic world is bleak and alienating. New Crobuzon is full of downtrodden poor, corrupt politicians, self-serving criminals, all grubbing in the muck of their environment. Reading Perdido Street Station I felt like I was crawling through sewage much of the time.

Nonetheless, it was compelling. Despite the setting and the prose that was, at times, overblown and almost cheesy, I had trouble putting this book down.

But perhaps I should back up a bit and explain the book some. I had a hard time getting my arms around Perdido Street Station at first--the entry is a little jarring and there weren't the usual genre pointers to help me get my bearings. To give you a little start there, Perdido Street Station is part horror and part fantasy, set in a world where magic mixes with steampunk technology. It's weird. Of course I mean "weird" in the way we normally use the word these days, but also in the older sense, the kind that invokes that eerie feeling you get where you know something is wrong, but can't quite figure out what. The story centers around a brilliant but sloppy scientist named Isaac, who, at the beginning of the book, is approached by a half-man, half-bird creature that has lost its wings and wants to fly again. About the first third to half of the book is spent showing you the city and its denizens, and setting up the action that explodes in the rest of the book. You meet Isaac's part-insect artist girlfriend, Lin, and several of his friends and associates--things move a little slowly, but everything steadily and kind of creepily builds before terror explodes into the plot about halfway through. The climax and the action leading to it is harrowing, and the eventual resolution is well done, even if it also leaves a taste like ashes in your mouth.

I think my problem with this book is its negativity, its darkness. Mind you, I'm not looking for sunshine and rainbows in my fiction--I loved Glen Cook's Black Company novels, for example--but Miéville's story is willfully, even oppressively dark, like he's throwing it in your face. Reading a bit about him, I learned that he's in Michael Moorcock's philosophical camp of fantasy writers, disdaining the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien for comforting his readers instead of challenging them. Yet, for all that reading this book made me want to take a shower, I didn't find it challenging, exactly. It didn't present any new ideas or push me to see familiar things in new ways. Rather, it reminded me of a high school kid from the suburbs with piercings, painted nails, and all-black clothes, rebellious for rebellion's sake.

Still, don't get me wrong, it's a well-crafted story. It took a little while, but I did connect with the characters, and the bittersweet ending definitely affected me. I think I'd even say I liked it. This sounds like pretty thin praise, I suppose, but given how unpleasant the setting was, I think the fact that I'd say I liked it at all speaks to how good it was. If you like your fantasy dark, I'd say this book very well may be for you.

Started: 5/12/2009 | Finished: 5/22/2009

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It seems like usually when an author continues to write story after story set in the same world, things get stale after a while. Steven Brust appears to be an exception to that rule, though. I've read ten of his Vlad Taltos books, two of the Khaavren Romances, and now this one, and the more I read about Dragaera, the more I want to read.

Unlike most of the rest of Brust's novels set in this world, Brokedown Palace isn't set in the Empire--the focus is on one of the Eastern Kingdoms. (Familiar readers will recognize the setting as Vlad Taltos's ancestral homeland.) The tone is also markedly different from both of the other series. The original series is told in a straightforward, sometimes sarcastic voice. The Khaavren books are modeled after Dumas. This one reads more like a fairy tale--in fact, it appears to be explicitly modeled after a certain oral tradition, which I can only assume is Hungarian as that is Brust's background. As fables go, I found this one to be quite well-written--tight, well-paced, and with a really nice overall structure. I was reminded a little bit of Tolkien's Silmarillion, except this was more fun to read.

The only thing that detracted from the experience for me was the title, which was taken from a Grateful Dead song and is shared with a movie that starred Claire Danes and Kate Beckinsale, neither of which have anything to do with this book. But, anyway, overall I have to say I very much enjoyed this one.

Started: 3/9/2009 | Finished: 3/12/2009

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As you may know from my previous reviews, I loved the first two books in this series, Inda and The Fox. As luck would have it, my copy of King's Shield arrived in the mail the very same day that I finished The Fox, and I was very excited to dive into the next book. Unfortunately, something changed between the two books and I found myself not liking this one quite as much. Don't get me wrong, King's Shield is still pretty good. But I just wasn't captivated by it in the same way that I was by the first two installments.

I'm not sure exactly what it was about this one that didn't do it for me. The characters are still complex and they've grown in ways that make sense. The writing hasn't changed, and the pacing is still good, with action happening in all the right places. Maybe it was the change in focus. The first two books are very much about the principal characters growing up. This one is much more about political intrigue and war. I guess I also didn't really like the way the character Sponge changed--the changes are plausible, but I found that I didn't really care for the adult he became.

Whatever it was that rubbed me the wrong way about book three, I'm still very much looking forward to Treason's Shore, the fourth and, I believe, final episode of the series.

Started: 1/31/2009 | Finished: 2/11/2009

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Whew. Seven hundred seventy-four pages in four days should tell you something about how much I liked this book. Picking up right where the first book left off, The Fox had everything I liked about Inda but moreso.

The first book gave us a glimpse at a very rich and interesting world, but most of the major characters are all from the same country, and even when we later get introduced to the wider world through Inda's sea travels, most of his time is spent aboard ship, so all we get of the rest of the world is through bits of dialogue here and there. By contrast, in The Fox, Smith brings us to all kinds of new places, each one with a strongly developed history and flavor, each with plausible national interests and goals. Smith presents them in such a way that you get an idea of the individual culture of each place, but she does it without resorting to the kind of flat stereotyping you so often see in big fantasy worlds.  (You know, where everybody from this country is a greedy merchant and everybody from that country is a strong, savage warrior.) The characters and personal relationships introduced at every new place seem genuine and relatable.

The strong character development in the first novel continues in the second, especially in the protagonist. His transition to adulthood is handled very skillfully--you recognize both the child you first met and the ways in which his life has shaped him in the man he becomes. And, as before, you get to see so much of the inner workings of even relatively minor characters that they all come to life in a really compelling way.

Further, for a relatively long book, it's very well paced. Events are neither drawn out nor rushed, but everything seems to happen right when it should. I was certainly never bored--I could hardly put the book down!

In fact, the only problem I had was that I was so into this book that I had trouble keeping up with the other stuff I wanted to do--the hard drive on my Tivo, for example, is getting pretty full. I thought I might get a little break after this book, but, to both my delight and chagrin, the Amazon shipment containing the next installment, King's Shield, arrived on the same day I finished The Fox. So, it looks like I'm going to stay busy for a while. The fourth book isn't scheduled to come out until August, so on the one hand I'll have a little time to catch up on the rest of my life, but on the other hand I know the waiting is going to bug me.

Started: 1/26/2009 | Finished: 1/30/2009

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I have to say, I'm a little surprised by how much I liked Inda. The story is fairly commonplace--a talented young man trains to become a military commander, and in the process he gets swept up into the world-shaking events of his time, destined to become a hero. I've certainly read that one several times before, and I'm sure I will again. What's more, the writing isn't all that great. The author, Sherwood Smith, has this strange tendency to shift perspectives from one character to another abruptly and without warning, which is often jarring.

Despite that, though, I was absolutely riveted, and when the book came to its abrupt ending I was upset that I didn't already have the sequels. (Indeed, the fourth book isn't even coming out until August.) I have, of course, always been a sucker for a coming-of-age story, but, more than that, the world and characters of Inda were quite compelling. The cavalry-based military culture of the Marlovans combined with their language (several words of which you're introduced to throughout the book) evoke images of the Mongols and the Germanic tribes of medieval Europe. But there's more than that. Much of the history of this world is lost to the characters, but a huge backstory is hinted at that seems really interesting--magic, other races, fallen kingdoms, and so on--and perhaps important in later books.

I mentioned changes in point-of-view before, which are odd and often annoying. But they are also a big part of what make the characters so interesting. By seeing so much of each character's internal thoughts, each one is invested with a depth you don't normally see in minor characters. The only problem is that I wound up getting attached to a few characters who didn't end up making it through the book.

It's rare that I read two books in a row that I enjoy so thoroughly, and since I have a good chunk left in both this series and the Black Company series, it looks like I may have a hard time deciding what to read next. Which, when you come down to it, isn't such a bad problem to have.

Started: 1/13/2009 | Finished: 1/20/2009

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I heard about Glen Cook's Black Company books via a discussion in the forum, wherein Raja (of Strobelight Review fame) thanked another member for recommending it to him. Now I, in turn, have to thank him for turning me on to this series, because it's the best fantasy I've read in quite some time.

Chronicles of the Black Company is a collection of the first three of Glen Cook's Black Company novels, which follows the exploits of the titular mercenary company over the course of a war between the forces of good and evil. That description makes this seem like just another standard fantasy series, though, which couldn't be further from the truth. To begin with, the Black Company is on the wrong side of the war--they work for the bad guys. But there's more to it than that, because the sharply defined morality that you're used to seeing in fantasy worlds isn't present. There sometimes seems to be little distinguishing the two sides in the conflict, other than that they are fighting each other. The whole thing is presented from a ground-level view with a gritty realism that has more in common with Vietnam War fiction than Tolkien.

I can't recommend this series highly enough. The collection containing the next three books is already out, with the following collection coming soon, and I can't wait to get my hands on them.

Started: 12/12/2008 | Finished: 1/8/2009

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I'm not sure that any book could really live up to the kind of expectations that some people put on this one but, personally, I really liked it. In fact, I might even go so far as to say it was the best one of the series. Maybe not. Inevitably, some of the sense of wonder that you had in the early books has been lost along the way. But by now it's been replaced with familiarity, which really mirrors the development of the central characters as they progress from childhood to adulthood. I can't say how you'll feel about this book, but as far as I'm concerned, it did everything I wanted it to, weaving in parts that were appropriately epic with parts that were more intimate, and tying it all up in a way that I found very satisfying.

Started: 7/21/2007 | Finished: 7/23/2007

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I was a little apprehensive about this one, both because of an inherent distrust of popularity and because I'd gotten a somewhat bad review from a friend, but I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. The first two parts of the novel were witty and fun--somewhat like what I imagine a Jane Austen novel would be if I had ever been able to laugh at a Jane Austen novel. (Mind you, I haven't read any Austen since high school--maybe I'd like her work better if I revisited it today.) The third part was darker but no less engaging. I think it's quite an accomplishment that Clarke was able to write a novel in over a thousand pages that never felt slow or boring to me. In fairness, though, I must admit the possibility of some bias--since I first started the Hornblower series I've been becoming more and more enamored of fiction set in Napoleonic-era England.

Started: 6/18/2007 | Finished: 7/11/2007

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I first read this book the summer before my freshman year of high school--it was our summer reading assignment. I ended up waiting until the last week before school started because, well, it was summer and I wanted to have fun, not do homework. Fortunately, I liked it so much that I tore through the book in about two days and was prepared for the test when I got to class on the first day. Coming back to it as an adult, I have to say that it holds up pretty well, although it does now feel strongly like a children's book. That's what it is, of course--the only reason I bring it up is that Watership Down is so often compared to The Lord of the Rings and while I can see the similarities, The Lord of the Rings brings me something new every time I read it, whereas this one is appealing more for the childlike point of view and the associated feelings of nostalgia.

Started: 2/3/2007 | Finished: 3/12/2007

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