My life in books

Heather Rose Jones's The Mystic Marriage is a sequel to the delightful Daughter of Mystery. Margerit and Barbara are key characters, and it is wonderful to see them further developing a unique and loving relationship throughout the events of this novel. The protagonists are Antuniet Chazillen, disgraced and self-exiled alchemical student and sister of executed traitor Estevan Chazillen, and Jeanne, Vicomtesse de Cherdillac, a wealthy and bored widow noted for her eccentricities, among them quiet affairs with other society women.

There are mysteries to solve and plots to unravel, and with all four women working to restore Antiniet's reputation and protect the royal family of Alpennia, an engaging story of intrigue and romance unfolds.

Now looking forward to the upcoming third volume in the annals of Alpennia.

In Dreaming the Hound, the third volume of Manda Scott's Boudica quartet, the focus of the narrative returns to Breaca and her brother Ban, also known as Julius Valerius.

Breaca has returned to her own people, the Eceni, with her children Cunomar and Graine, and her step-daughter Cynfa. Now married to the Eceni leader Prasutogas, a client-king of Rome, she hides in plain sight from the Romans, who would gladly kill her if they ever connected the new queen of the Eceni with the war leader Boudica. Her goal is to build up an army of rebellion among the eastern tribes that have fallen under the sway of Roman authority.

Ban too has come home, in a sense, after several years spent avoiding both Romans and Britons on the island of Hibernia. In bringing a wounded young man he loves to the healers on Mona for help no one else can give, he finds in himself the desire to at last fulfill his gifts as a dreamer - and on Mona a dreamer willing to teach a former traitor how to dream.

But the Roman drive to control all of Britain continues. In the lands of the Eceni, the Roman governor authorises the work of slavers, who carry an offer to the Eceni king to relieve all the tribal debts in return for Graine and Cynfa. Breaca and Prasutogas' responses to this insult set in motion the path to the inevitable resumption of war against Rome. And in the West, governor Suetonius Paulinus marches toward Mona.

Again, Manda Scott weaves another chapter in this powerful historical fantasy series around the few facts known about the Roman treatment of the tribes of Britain and the uprising of the Iceni under Queen Boudica.

Continuing to read books that deal with the fates of the princes in the tower, I turned to another book on my TBR shelf, Vanora Bennett's Portrait of an Unknown Woman - a complex novel based in part on the theories of amateur art historian Jack Leslau [1] about hidden meanings in a portrait of the family of Thomas More, painted by Hans Holbein (who was known for the use of multiple levels of symbolism in his mature work).

The theory here is that the two young princes were taken from the Tower, raised for some years by Sir Tyrell, and then given new names and identities through the intervention of Bishop John Morton - in whose household the young Thomas More served as a page. The elder prince, Edward V, is alleged to have been adopted into the noble Guildford family and to have quietly accepted his fate, perhaps due to a belief that the charge of illegitimacy made against him and his siblings was true. (In this context, it's interesting to note that one of his grandsons, Guildford Dudley, was married to Lady Jane Grey in a plot to usurp the throne of Mary Tudor, and another grandson, Robert Dudley, was the favourite of Queen Elizabeth I and is believed to have hoped to marry her.) This novel, however, focuses on the younger prince, Richard, who is sent to the mainland to become a scholar under the protection of his aunt, Margaret of Burgundy. Given the name John Clement, he eventually becomes part of the loose circle of humanists that included Erasmus and Thomas More, and on his return to England becomes part of More's large, loosely connected household, and later still, marries More's ward and relative Margaret Giggs.

Portrait of an Unknown Woman, told largely from the perspective of Margaret Giggs Clement, with some sections from the viewpoint of Hans Holbein, is largely the story of Margaret's relationships with three men: her adoptive father Thomas More, as he becomes less the humanist and more the defender of Catholicism against heresy in the face of the growing power of the reformist-minded Boleyns at court; painter Hans Holbein who comes to England with the support of More's friend Erasmus, seeking help from More in finding patrons at the English court; and her husband, John Clement, scholar and physician, a protégé of her father's despite being of an age with him, and secretly the lost prince of York.

Now it's important to note that all these people - not just Thomas More, Erasmus and Hans Holbein, but also Edward Guildford, John Clement and Margaret Giggs, were real people who, insofar as the historical record survives, did the things that they are shown as doing in this novel. The invention lies in the attribution of a secret identity to Clement and the knowledge of it to various of the characters, including More, Erasmus, and eventually Margaret.

Even without the lost princes theme, Portrait of an Unknown Woman works well both as a portrait of the family and inner circle of Thomas More, and, in later chapters, as an introduction to the symbolic complexities scholars have found in Holbein's art - though it must be pointed out that there is little support for Leslau's specific interpretation of the More family portrait. Bennett's portrayal of More as a man driven by deep inner conflicts between secular and spiritual desires, drawn into an almost fanatical persecution of heretics, and an ultimate longing for martyrdom, is a complex and fascinating one, and yet it never overshadows the voice of his adopted daughter Margaret Giggs, whose story of love, faith and the middle road between devout Catholicism and a healer's compassion is compelling.

The load of imagined secrets gives the later chapters of the book a tinge of melodrama that weakens the otherwise strong narrative, but overall, it's quite a good read.

[1] For more on Leslau's theories, this is a solid but not too exhaustively detailed overview: https://mattlewisauthor.wordpress.com/2014/07/26/leslau-holbein-more-and-clement/

Manda Scott, Dreaming the Bull

The blurb for this engaging sequel to Dreaming the Eagle describes the events of the second (of four) volumes of Scott's historical fantasy epic as follows:

Hailed as Boudica, the Bringer of Victory, Breaca now leads her people's resistance against the occupying legions of Rome. Opposing her is Julius Valerius, an auxilary cavalry officer whose increasing brutality in the service of his god and emperor cannot shield him from the ghosts of his past. Caught between them are two children, pawns in a game of unthinkable savagery, while in distant Rome the emperor Claudius holds the balance of lives in his hands.

For most of this book, the focus is on Breaca's brother Ban, now known as Julius Valerius, as he binds himself to Rome and the soldier's god, Mithras. The plot takes the reader through the years of the rebellion led by the man the Romans called Caratacus, here identified as Caradoc, lover of Breaca and father of her two children Cunomar and Grainne. In Scott's version of history, Caradoc is captured and taken to Rome along with his son Cunomar, his former lover Cwnfen, their warrior-daughter Cynfa, and another Eceni warrior (Roman sources record the captivity of Caratacus, his wife, brother and two children).

Accepted history says that Caratacus and his family lived in Rome for the rest of their lives, but does not record further details; the date of Caratacus' death and the fate of yhe rest of his family is unknown. Scott makes use of these lacunae to propose that Caradoc, Cwnfen, Cunomar, Cynfa and their compatriot Dubornos escape during the confusion surrounding the last days of the Emperor Claudius, escorted and protected, on Claudius' orders, by none other than Julius Valerius.

The more I read of it, the more these books appear as a sort of secret history - with mystical elements - of British resistance to the occupying Roman Empire. Rather presenting the various tribal rebellions as a series of separate incidents, Scott is weaving a story of multigenerational resistance among peoples linked by ties of kinship and other loyalties. The paucity of contemporary documents speaking to the history of the British tribes gives Scott the leeway to imagine this web of alliances, and to present a strong cast of characters to drive the story.

Looking forward to volume three, and hoping that in the long run, the mystery of the historical Boudica's end will give Scott's Breaca and Caradoc the bittersweet joy of a final meeting once the battles are over.

Marie Brennan returns to the world of the Onyx Court in this novella, Deeds of Men. Set between the events of Midnight Never Come and In Ashes Lie, it tells the story of how Michael Deven, human ally, lover, and eventually consort of Lune, the Elven Queen of the Onyx Court of London, comes to select his successor as Prince of the Stone and advisor to the Elven Queen.

Weaving the politics of the Elven Court into the real history of England is one of the most interesting and enjoyable things that Brennan does with this series, and the various Princes of the Stone play a crucial part in this, as the bridges between human and elven worlds. Deeds of Men is at once a character study of two of the humans to hold the title and an exciting adventure story with one murder to solve and another to prevent.

Unlike the other of George's biographical novels i've reaf, which are grounded in historical fact, well preserved in existing documents, this treatment of Mary of Magdala draws equally on what is known of the times from secular documents, and on Biblical and other religious sources, without any questions concerning the historicity of the latter. George tells a compelling story about the most well-known of Jesus' female disciples, but writes of prophetic dreams and visions, miracles, driving out demons and the death and resurrection of Jesus as literal truths, without the devices that, in her novel of Henry VIII for instance, allowed us to see where the subject of the novel may be an unreliable narrator with respect to their own motivations and beliefs.

I enjoyed the book, but as a non-Christian, I read it more as historical fantasy than straight historical fiction. It was much like reading a novel of King Arthur where the writer has done detailed research into the historical period and presents that faithfully, but includes all of the supernatural tales of Merlin and Morgana's magic, the tale of the Green Knight who, beheaded, returns to life, and other such elements of the mythos as if they too were undisputed historical fact.

I avidly read the first five volumes of Naomi Novik's wonderful alternate Earth/historical fantasy series featuring the unforgettable Imperial dragon Temeraire, but for some reason (possibly a combination of illness and the "too many books, too little tine" syndrome, I did not continue reading the rest of Novik's Temeraire books as they were published - an oversight I now wish to remedy. So since the events were a bit clouded in my memory, I decided to reread the last volume I had completed - Victory of Eagles, which I read when it was published in 2008 - before continuing.

The storyline of Victory of Eagles - of the defense of England against the invading French and their eventual expulsion from that scepter'd isle - was a good read, of course, but what continues to interest me most about the series is the growth of both Laurence and Temeraire as characters. Maturing both emotionally and ethically, Laurence is more and more becoming his own moral compass, and questioning the assumptions of his culture, while Temeraire learns empathy and understanding of the complexities of living with humans and dragons in a complex society. With my memory refreshed, and my curiosity about the next developments revived, I dove into the next three books of the series.

Sadly, I gather from reading Novik's website that there is only one book remaining in the Temeraire series, to be published sometime next year. It's going to be interesting to see how she ends the Napoleonic Wars... And also to see just where Laurence and Temeraire end up after all their journeys.


Tongues of Serpents

The ethical education of Laurence continues apace - and we as readers are seeing more and more of the ugliest side of colonialism and imperialism as Temeraire and Laurence, exiled to New South Wales as punishment for foiling the British plan to infect all continental European dragons with plague, undertake an exploration of the Australian interior, where they discover diverse difficulties from bunyips, wildfires and thunderstorms to smugglers who steal one of the dragon eggs intended to be the foundation of a colonial dragon-borne military corps. Following the trail of the stolen egg, they cross the continent and arrive on the north coast, where they find a thriving seaport where Chinese merchants, working harmoniously with the indigenous people of the region, are conducting trade via ship and accommodating sea serpents with just about anyone with a presence in the Indian Ocean or China Sea - to the considerable annoyance of the British, who want to control trade in every corner of the earth. There's also mention of an arrangement between Napoleon and the dragon-led empires of Africa to invade the New World and end the slave trade, repatriating all Africans kidnapped and taken overseas.


Crucible of Gold

With this novel, Novik continues to expand the geopolitical borders of her variation on the high period of European imperialism, and prepares us for further examinations of the ways that two sentient peoples can live together. The international relationships of Temeraire's world are getting increasingly interesting, and Laurence and Temeraire are becoming increasingly important to what shape the global alliances will take. Equally important is the moral development of the main characters, as Temeraire's sense of justice becomes more clearly defined and Laurence becomes more and more the owner of his own conscience.

The action in this novel is driven by the declaration of war by the Tswana - supported by Napoleon - against the Portuguese in South America in a bid to liberate Africans stolen from their homelands and sold into slavery. Laurence is offered full reinstatement of rank if he agrees to travel from Australia to Rio to negotiate in the conflict.

A mutiny on the ship carrying them to Rio leaves Laurence, Temeraire and their companions cast off on an island near the west coast of South America; making their way to the continent, they encounter an isolationist Incan Empire which was able to resist early Spanish adventurers and maintain its sovereignty. Here we encounter yet another form of relationship between human and dragon - among the Inca, dragons are the property owners and humans live for the most part as serfs in the fiefdoms of their dragon masters. The situations in both the Inca lands and the portuguese colonies on the eastern part of the continent bring the on-going themes of freedom and equality which have been woven into the story of Temeraire from the beginning into greater prominence.



Blood of Tyrants

Their mission to South America completed, Temeraire and Laurence are on their way to China when Laurence is swept overboard during a storm off the coast of Japan. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Temeraire refuses to believe that Laurence is dead, and demands that the British dragon transport they were travelling on make port in make enquiries in Nagasaki - the only city in Japan currently open to foreigners - to start inquiries into Laurence's fate. While in the harbour, he meets an American dragon - a merchant trader in his own right - who gives us - and the British dragons - a glimpse of another society where dragons are integrated into society and enjoy the rewards of engaging in free enterprise. As it turns out, Laurence is alive, but is on the run through enemy territory, as it is forbidden for any foreigner to set foot in any part of Japan outside of the controlled trade port, and his life has been judged forfeit by the local dragon aristocracy. Worse, he has lost his memory and has no idea how he came to Japan. Worst of all, he no longer remembers Temeraire or any of what he has learned since becoming Temeraire's captain.

In an interview found on the Suduvu website, Novik says:

As the book opens with it, I won’t be spoiling too much to say that at the opening of the book, Laurence has been separated from Temeraire, shipwrecked in a hostile country, and to make matters worse has suffered amnesia. I am always looking for ways to make my characters struggle, as I think that’s what makes them fun to read about. But also, this is the second to last volume in the series, and I really wanted to have a moment where I looked back at the distance Laurence has traveled. He’s come a long way from the person he was when the series began, not just in a practical but in an emotional sense, but it’s been a journey of a thousand small steps, not any single moment. I also am conscious that it’s a long series, and I wanted to give new and old readers both a place to refresh their memory and rejoin the story before we head down the final blaze of the rollercoaster to the end of the Napoleonic Wars. (http://sf-fantasy.suvudu.com/2013/08/new-release-interview-blood-of-tyrants-by-naomi-novik.html)

Reunited, and with Laurence very slowly regaining his memories (to the great distress of Temeraire), their next port-of-call is China. There, they become involved in palace politics thanks to Laurence's position as an adopted son of the Imperial family, and hear that news that Napoleon is invading Russia. The Emperor offers military aid, and the small British contingent set off across Asia, escorted by several companies of the highly disciplined and organised Chinese military force.

With part of this book set in Japan and China - both countries where dragons are fully integrated into society along with humans - and the rest in Russia, where dragons are treated as slaves, with those who will not serve hobbled by cruel hooks and chains embedded in their flesh that prevent them from flying, we see in one volume the best and the worst of relations between humans and dragonkind - but we see as well the beginning of an end to that treatment.

As one character in this volume notes, Temeraire and Laurence are, as a result of their own changes, changing things the world over, catalysts for shifting alliances between nations and changing relationships between dragon and human. Given that there is only one remaining volume in this series, I hope that Novik gives us at least some glimpses into the future of her alternate Earth - or perhaps comes back to it some day to tell new stories about dragons and the humans they share their world with.

Judith Tarr, Bring Down the Sun

Judith Tarr writes wonderful historical fantasy. She takes real characters, places and times, and tells a story that builds on is known about them, imbuing the tale with the mystery of gods and magic.

In Bring Down the Sun, Tarr tells a story about Olympias (also known as Polyxena and Myrtale), the mother of Alexander the Great, following the outlines of her life as recorded by Plutarch, several centuries after her death. The magic enters the tale from the beginning, with the young Polyxena being raised to be a priestess in a Triple Goddess cult and the hints we gather from the elder Priestesses that Polyxena carries within her some powerful but unexplained gifts. Polyxena later is initiated into the Dionysian mysteries (taking the name Myrtale at this point) where she meets and forms a bond – part sexual, part magical – with the young Philip of Macedonia, who seeks her for his (fourth) wife. The story continues up to the birth of the young Alexander, with Myrtale facing intrigue from Philip’s other wives and from various magical sources, including the cult she served as a young girl and a cult of “Thessalonian witches” – priestesses of yet another ancient mystical tradition who are aware of Myrtale’s hidden power and seek to bring make her one of their own.

What I found frustrating about this book, despite my enjoyment of the story, the magic, and the strong women characters, is that it seems unfinished. I had hoped it was the first in a series, but it has been three years and there’s no sign of a sequel on the horizon. There is still so much of the past that Tarr has imagined for Myrtale that remains hidden, and so much more that is known of Olympias’ life past the birth of Alexander, that the book does not address. I will just have to keep looking to see if Tarr returns to this story.

So ,to get back in the groove, some light writing about some light but enjoyable reading.


The Gates of Sleep, Mercedes Lackey

Another in the Elemental Masters series, and quite obviously a recasting of the basic situation of the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, this was an enjoyable read, although I did not like it quite as much as the other book I've read in this series, The Serpent's Shadow. Aside from the basic plot in which the princess, er, young sorceress must be hidden away in an attempt to save her from a curse and later on must call on both her own powers and her friends to escape the evil plans of her wicked stepmother, er, aunt. I particularly liked Lackey's social critique of the conditions of child factory workers.



Foundation, Mercedes Lackey

Back to the beginning in Valdemar! Set well before the first Valdemar novel, Arrows of the Queen, the protagonist is (of course) an abused and unloved child who is saved from a miserable life and possible untimely death by one of the Companions, the magical white horses who select the incorruptible Heralds of Valdemar. Off to the newly founded Colliegium they go, for training, lots of intrigues, and hints that the littlest Herald-trainee may be more than he seems. A standard Valdemar tale, but that hasn't stopped me from reading the last couple dozen, and it probably won't stop me from reading as many more as Lackey writes in my lifetime.



And Less than Kind, Mercedes Lackey and Roberta Geillis

Alas, the last volume in the series that fulfilled two of my reading fetishes at once - Elizabeth Tudor, and elves, all in one. Darker than the previous volumes, in the series, this follows Elizabeth and her elven lover/protector through the bloody reign of Queen Mary, while Underhill, the forces of the Dark Court are resurgent. Of course, we all know that it ends in the Glory that was Elizabethan England, but seeing how we get there in this faerie-filled version of history is engaging.



The Phoenix Endangered, Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

The middle volume in the Enduring Flame trilogy, it is, like many middle volumes, all about getting from the early exposition of the situation and the initiation of the protagonists to the final crisis and resolution. The main protagonists in this case, two young mages of very different traditions (one with a dragon companion and the other being assisted by a unicorn), do a great deal of travelling, learning, being tested, and finding allies, while the antagonist gathers forces, becomes a major threat, and causes a great deal of injury and death. Solid work, a decent read, builds well toward the conclusion.

The Serpent’s Shadow, Mercedes Lackey

The first volume of her Elemental Masters series, The Serpent’s Shadow represents another venture into historical fantasy by Mercedes Lackey – set in Edwardian England this time, instead of the Elizabethan England of the series she’s co-writing with Roberta Geillis – and one that is successful on a number of levels.

First, Lackey’s protagonist, Maya Witherspoon, is one of her most complex and interesting characters to date. Maya is the daughter of an English physician who settled in in India and an Indian woman of the Brahmin caste, who gave up her position as priestess (and mage) to marry her lover. Maya has inherited her mother’s magical gifts, but has had no training – her mother has always told her that her path lies with the magical traditions of her father’s people, not her mother’s. Maya has also inherited her father’s gifts as a healer, and following her graduation from medical school in India, she worked with her father as his associate. When double tragedy befalls her with the death of both parents in suspicious circumstances, Maya has reason to believe that she herself is the next victim of the unknown mage who has brought about her parents’ deaths and decides to move to her father’s homeland.

The early part of the book touches on Maya’s struggles, as a woman and a person of mixed race, to establish herself in England as a practising physician at the same time as it lays the foundation for a more-or-less standard plot about evil mage determined to destroy good mage for reason not entirely reasonable. And that’s part of what makes this a more interesting book than Lackey’s usual offerings.

In addition to addressing Maya’s fight against blatant racism in imperial England and her personal quest to find balance in her own life between her two heritages, the book also has a strong feminist and anti-domestic violence stance, and a refreshingly positive perspective on sex work. Once certified as a physician, Maya sets up a practice in one of the less affluent areas of London. Her business plan is to offer both general and reproductive medical services to the elite of London’s courtesans and entertainers – including contraception and abortion – in order to subsidise her practice among poor women and men – where she also advocates family planning and champions abused women. Oh, and she’s also a suffragette.

It’s hardly surprising that I was sold on this book, and its heroine, before the mage vs. mage plot had even got rolling. There are some potentially problematic issues in that plot, but Lackey treads carefully when she pits Maya, newly-trained by English mages, against the Indian mage responsible for her parents’ deaths who has followed her to London with murderous intent. Maya receives assistance from figures out of her mother’s traditions, as well as support from English mages, in her magical battles, and it is made all too clear that the goddess in whose name her opponent has acted repudiates her servant’s excesses.

Lackey has always made an effort to be socially conscious in her writing, particularly in her use of powerful female characters, and positive queer characters. She’s often used her novels to further awareness of child abuse, and there tends to be a feminist slant to her work. I think she’s taken another step forward in this book, and I hope to see more of this kind of complexity in her characters.