The Witch who came in from the Cold Created by Lindsay Smith and Max Gladstone Also written by Cassandra Rose Clarke, Michael Swanwick and Ian Tregillis

The Witch who came in from the Cold

Created by Lindsay Smith and Max Gladstone

Also written by Cassandra Rose Clarke, Michael Swanwick and Ian Tregillis

No man can serve two masters: for either he. will hate the one, and love the other; or else. he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Book of Matthew 6:24

In this review series I have often defended the internet and pointed out it's positive effect on the writing world and I will continue to do so. If nothing else I am old enough to remember being told as a child that when I reached adulthood I could very well be in a minority for being literate. The internet has made that idea laughable, but there are also a wide range of stories and writers who could only have been possible because of the internet. Authors like DaVaun Sanders, Dr. Bruce Davis, and KB Spangler have arisen because the internet provided them a medium to reach an audience without having to go through the publishing houses. The Witch Who Came in from the Cold, provides an example of another idea that has come back to the fore because of the internet. That being written serial fiction.

The idea of a larger story being printed in smaller parts is not new of course, it reached its greatest level of popularity in the 19th century; Sherlock Holmes was born in serialized fiction, the Three Musketeers and the Count of Monte Cristo were originally released as serialized fiction. In Russia such works as Anna Karenina were serialized, even Qing China had serialized stories going to print. In the US, stories like the Princess of Mars and the adventurers of Conan the Barbarian were serialized stories as late as the 1930s. However, as radios and televisions became cheaper, more and more the niche of serialized fiction was taken over by episodic television shows. By the mid 20th century serialized print fiction, outside of comic books, was rare and in many ways a dying art. Then the internet happened. In the early 2000s the first web serial novels began to appear in the English Web while in Japan the light novel evolved and became amazingly popular (see my Log Horizon reviews for more information on that) with the most popular web novel at this time most likely being Worm, by the writer known as Wildbow. Enter the service known as Serial box founded by Justin Yap and Molly Barton bringing together teams of writers to write books the same way you write a TV season with chapters serving as episodes written by a different writer or part of the team tying together into a single book. Let me briefly touch on those writers.

Lindsay Smith lives in Washington D.C her works include the young adult novels Sekret, A Darkly Beating, and Dreamstrider. She's the lead writer in this series. Max Gladstone is the author of the Craft series, which starts with Three Parts Dead and continues to the current installment of Ruin of Angels. Ian Tregillis, who wrote the Milkweed Triptych and Something More Than Night. Cassandra Rose Clarke, who won the Yalsa best fiction for young adults and the Romantic Times Reviewers Choice award, she's written many novels including Our Lady of the Ice, and Magic of Blood and Sea. Michael Swanwick, has written 9 novels and for his sins has received the Nebula, the World Fantasy award, and a Hugo; his latest book is Chasing the Phoenix. I honestly wish I could go into detail on each of these writers, they all deserve it,  but we're here to talk about The Witch Who Came in from the Cold and if I spend the time to give you a detailed look over each of the writers, we won't get to the book. Speaking of that, let's jump into that.

It's 1970 Prague, Czechoslovakia. The Prague Spring, an attempt by Czech Socialist leaders to moderate away from hard-line Soviet Communism, has been crushed under Soviet tanks. The grip of “normalization” lies heavy on the city and the nation and the act has caused cracks in relations between the Soviet bloc and the western communist parties. The United States is still shuddering from the effects of Vietnam and spreading social ills sap at it's strength as the Nixon administration works frantically to address this and hold off a USSR which is increasingly becoming moored in it's own domestic problems. Despite all of this the Cold War grinds on and seems only able to end in nuclear exchange. The covert organizations of the Warsaw Pact and NATO grimly duel in the shadows of this war, each side seeking any secret, person, or resource that will give them the advantage... Or at least stave off nuclear Armageddon for one more day. That's just the shadowy struggle that the people of the world are aware of however. Hidden even under the secrets of state is another world where sorcery and magical ritual are the weapons of war. Ice, an alliance of traditionalist magic users, mostly tracing their ancestry from long lines of sorcerers and witches seeks to maintain the world. Meanwhile it's opponent the Flame seeks to destroy everything in a blaze of magical power in order to build a newer, better world from the ashes. Unbeknownst to the world at large both the Flame and Ice grapple for resources and position across the world, one side to lock the world into it's present state, the other to destroy it.

In the early months of 1970, both wars will slam into each and find themselves hinging on the same conflict as the agents of the CIA and KGB stations in Prague square off against another as do the sorcerers of Ice and the acolytes of Flame. CIA Gabe Pritchard has the misfortune to be stuck in both worlds. He is not a sorcerer, nor has he been raised in the secret world of ritual and spell. Instead through sheer misfortune and unrelenting paranoia he has been pulled in when he stumbled into something dark and rare in a basement in Cairo Egypt. Since then he has been afflicted with headaches and worse and his job performance is slipping. Something noticed by his boss and station leader Frank, who while not unsympathetic is running a spy ring in enemy territory and has zero margin for screw ups. Gabe has few people he can turn to besides Jordan Rhemes, neutral witch and bar owner, who feels responsible for Gabe's condition but has her own problems. Her bar is set on a very nice location and every one wants it. He could also turn to Alistair Winthrop, British Spy, Ice Sorcerer and a closet gay man (Editor: Being gay in the clandestine services back then was no picnic, ladies and gentle beasts) who may or may not be romancing Gabe's magically unaware partner Josh but Alistair clearly wants Gabe to join Ice and Gabe's not going easily. Gabe's struggle is to try and grapple with these vast new forces in his life and get a handle on them before they destroy his future.

Meanwhile Tanya Morozova, KGB agent and sorceress of Ice finds herself in an increasingly difficult situation as she must not only try to penetrate the plots of the CIA but fight off the Flame as more and more of it's foot-soldiers arrive in Prague seeking a rare Host for an elemental spirit that could give them the power to start their world burning. On top of this her own station chief is clearly looking to either kill her or break her into working for him instead of Moscow (Porque no los dos?  This is the KGB after all). Her partner Nadia who is also in the KGB and an Ice sorceress is right along side her but as Tanya finds herself having having doubts in Ice's methods (in part due to the brash CIA agent Gabe) she finds herself wondering just who her friends are (You know, I can see this getting confusing.  One minute, you are trying to kill the british spy, the next minute, you have to work with them to prevent some anarchist from exploding the world…). Tanya has to sort out her loyalties and work out her relationship with her past before the web around her gets to close. I feel Tanya is a tragic character in a lot of ways, her disillusionment with Ice mirrors the lost of faith many of her countrymen would soon have in Communism. While I'll never mourn the fall of communism, I can't help but feel sympathetic to people like Tanya who are good, loyal people pouring out their blood, sweat and tears for a system that frankly doesn't deserve their sacrifice. I suppose all I can say is someday we will have a world worth their loyalty and when we do it will because of those people as much as because of the people who stand outside the system and push.

The story uses Tanya and Gabe as characters who bounce off of each other, sometimes helping one another, sometimes foiling one another and as characters whose struggles and troubles reflect the other. This is incredibly well done in my opinion, both of them have supporting characters whether it be their partners like Nadia and Josh who serve as aides and characters who serve as antagonists.  Their battles parallel each other but they are different enough that they not just duplicates of the other. For example Gabe has to constantly keep secrets from Josh, his CIA partner when it comes to magic. Nadia is completely aware of magic and might even be better at it then Tanya. Instead Tanya finds the distance coming from her doubts in Ice not from any secrets she has to keep. Tanya's station master Sasha is very much an antagonist to her constantly prying at her secrets with a goal to turn her into a personal minion or to kill her to prevent her from learning any of his secrets. Frank, Gabe's station master on the flip side is clearly a demanding boss but one who will back up any agent that he knows is giving 100% and doing good work and isn't planning on killing any of his employees. Which is always a big plus in a boss in my mind. There are characters that connect Tanya and Gabe as well, Jordan Rhemes who will aide both of them within reason. Alistair who as a fellow sorcerer in Ice is an ally to Tanya at times but as an agent of MI6 is an enemy at others. There's also Zerena, an ambassador's wife who’s clearly playing her own game, in which world and for what I'll leave to you to discover. Each of the supporting characters have their own goals and desires, Nadia and Josh don't feel like sidekicks but like people with their own stories and desires.The worlds of espionage and magic weave in and out of each other with breath stealing speed and intensity that pull you further and further into the story as secrets are slowly unspooled and operations both magical and mundanely covert are launched in the secret four-way grapple.  That said, for those of you wondering why I opened a review on Cold War magic-using spies with a Bible Verse?  Because as I read the story it comes more and more to mind.  Sooner or later Tanya and Gabe are going to be pushed up against the wall and will have to decide what loyalties have the most claim on them because no one can serve two causes forever.

If you like magic done in dark secret places, if you like mystery and underhanded dealings, if you like stories that acknowledge the banal side of espionage (another thing that ties Gabe and Tanya together is their dislike and despair at all the paperwork involved!)l or if you're interested in seeing what Urban Fantasy might have looked like at the height of the Cold War... Well this is the book for you! I honestly enjoyed this book, I expected to dislike at least some of the characters, as a good number of them are bloody KGB spies but the writers managed to humanize them and keep them from doing anything that would send them over the moral event horizon. I even dare hope that a Russian would find the CIA agents here worth sympathizing with. That said there's not a lot of direct action or violence this book, not that this book is bloodless or without a good fight or three, just this has more of thriller about it than an action movie. Because of this, I give The Witch Who Came In From the Cold by way too many people for me to list again an A. The sequel (aka season 2) is out on Serial Box as well as season 1 so you can get both in a single pop or if you feel like being cautious you can buy an episode for 1.99$. You can also do what I did and pick up season 1 in dead tree format at Amazon.

Next week a look at the soft reboot of the Rat Queens! Keep reading!
This review edited by Dr. Ben Allen.

Stoneskin by KB Spangler

Stoneskin

By KB Spangler

KG Spangler is an independent author, who is not only the creator of the web comic “A Girl and Her Fed” but has written a number of books that we've covered in this review series; such as Digital Divide, Maker Space, State Machine and so on. She is honestly one of my favorite writers for her ability to make interesting characters that manage to be very different from each other and using them to tackle some very relevant themes while examining parts of civilization most of us take for granted. In Stoneskin she keeps to form and does both. She also mixes science with complete fantasy, which is another common element of her style. Unlike all her other books, this is not set in the modern day with Cyborg federal agents but instead is set 3000 years in our future. As humanity ventured out into the galaxy we ran into an energy field with the characteristics of a living creature... Or a living creature with the characteristics of an energy field? I'm not entirely sure to be honest, which is okay because no one in the story is entirely sure of the nature of the being they call the Deep. The Deep is a friendly and caring creature, as evidenced by its tendency to not just adopt humans but provide unending favors for humanity. The Deep is the main transportation system for the entire galaxy, upon the request of humans it will move objects, people, entire ships across the light years instantly without so much as a “screw you physics”. The Deep also plays favorites: it chooses humans it likes to provide not only these favors, but others like immortality. The witches--as these humans are called--run the transportation and logistic networks of the entire galaxy, stationed throughout the Milky Way they are the backbone of a galactic civilization. Our main character Tembi Stoneskin has been chosen to be one of them by the Deep. Most people are chosen in their late teens to their late 20s, usually after a terrible break up or other event that leaves them heartbroken. Tembi has no such event. Tembi is also 8 years old when she is chosen.

Tembi Stoneskin (born Tembi Moon) is from the planet Adhama which suffers from high speed winds and terrible storms. To survive this, the people of Adhama have genetically modified themselves with thicker, stronger skin, and more mobile ears to pick up the wind. Tembi's people aren't the only ones to have done this, but I'll come back to this. Tembi in a lot of ways is what we expect from a young character that has been selected to join a magical world. She's from a poor household, having grown up in a home converted from metal shipping container in the bad part of town. What makes her different from characters like say... Old Harry Potter is that Tembi is no innocent, having already engaged in pick-pocketing and other petty theft as well as fighting with other kids in her home area. Additionally for a good part of the book, she is actively hiding her witch status with the help of Matindi. Matindi is an interesting character in her own right, a gene-modded person from a world that is overrun in fast growing plants. She serves as both an early mentor and a bit of mother figure for Tembi as her ability and relationship with the Deep sets her apart from her biological family. In the first part of the book she does this by coming to Tembi's homeworld and assuming the role of Tembi's teacher as well as mentoring her outside of school through more, arcane means. Later she serves as Tembi's guardian and local mother figure. Matindi is also something of a rebel witch hiding Tembi because she wants her to have time to grow outside of the Witch's system and away from their ideology, which is a sprawling and self serving thing.

Like all groups, the witches have come up with traditions, rules and an ideology that not only punishes bad behavior and rewards good but justifies their beliefs, hierarchy, and power. Interestingly enough a good amount of it revolves around protecting the Deep's credibility and hiding just how intelligent it is from other human beings. They are constantly taught the refrain that the Deep doesn't make mistakes, witches make mistakes. Given that the Deep clearly has a will of it's own and can get distracted, bored, or even upset, this means that Witches are being trained to take the blame for anything that goes wrong; the justification being that better that people lose faith in individuals rather than the system. The Witches also tend to take the Deep for granted to be frank. I mean, they have at their disposal a being who loves them enough to grant them immortality free of old age and transport whatever they want across the galaxy and they use it for everything ranging from laundry transport to garbage disposal. Here's where another difference between Tembi and other comparable characters emerges; to keep picking on Mr. Potter, he believes that magical society is just fine and needs some reform around the edges. There's nothing inherently wrong about magical society, it just needs to deal with bad eggs like those Malfoys he would say. Tembi's position is that the Witches society is inherently wrong in how it treats the Deep (and frankly it's hard to disagree with her) and that it needs to change or God help her she will make it change. Of course the issue is that it's not only the Witches' society that has issues.

Gene-modded humans are all over the galaxy and unfortunately humanity hasn't learned from it's own mistakes as some base form humans (called Earth Normal in the story) are prejudiced against those who are Gene-modded. This isn't a major concern for Tembi at first because as a Witch she's shield from most of it. Nor is Tembi unusual in being a gene-modded witch. Her friends, like Bayle who is a human modified for life on an oceanic planet named, not so imaginatively Atlantis; and Steven, whose ancestors chose to have scales for some reason, are also gene-modded. The prejudice also seems to vary from place to place, with Lancaster, the home system of the witches being rather devoid of it and other systems... Well other systems are suffering an embarrassment of riches when it comes to bigotry. In the Sagittarius system a movement among the Earth Normal population has risen up declaring that the Gene-modded are using planets and stealing resources best used for the Earth Normal so of course they must go and this movement isn't suggesting that they move. Since the Gene-Modded people of Sagittarius aren't in a mood to peacefully lay down and die, a massive war is ripping through the local systems complete with the bigots setting up death camps to clear their lebensraum (or maybe I should use the Serbian term?) of undesirables. If you paid any attention in history class this likely sounds depressingly familiar to you.

The Witches do not intervene in wars, nor will they use the Deep to move military forces. In the past, this principled stance limited the damage of wars, but humanity--never to be deterred in its quest for a better way to set the neighbors on fire-- invented FTL that doesn't depend on the Deep. It's nowhere near as fast, accurate, or cheap but when you're fighting off a genocidal army, money is something you spend in whatever amount you have to. Even in the face of this conflict, the Witches are holding to their no intervention line afraid that if they intervene even slightly that they will have started the process for taking sides in every war and fatally compromising their ability to keep human civilization going. I can see their position here; I mean if witches start taking sides in wars as a group, they become a military asset to be deployed, used, and targeted. Worse, what if a war comes along and the witches find themselves split and fighting on different sides? Such an event could mean the collapse of the supply chain for the entire galaxy. I'm not just talking about the mail not being delivered in such an event. I'm talking about entire star systems starving to death as their vital logistical link to the rest of humanity disappears. The counterpoint to that is, when does such an argument become an excuse to ignore the suffering and dying of billions and possibly trillions? How many evils must you let pass because of your fear of an evil that might happen, someday, in the far future? When does a stand of principled non-intervention into the affairs of others become rank cowardice as you let innocent people you could have saved die? That said, there's is something else to consider, in all the arguments that the Witches are having amongst themselves and with outsiders, no one ever really thought to ask ‘ hey what does the Deep, the being who actually does all the work around here think we should do?’. Well almost no one thinks to ask I should say. Faced with a society that has forgotten perhaps it's most important member, Tembi is going to have to grow up quick and learn to think on her feet.

Stoneskin does suffer from the fact that it's a prequel, also I kind of feel that Ms. Spangler is holding back in this story for the sake of the sequels and not giving us the full experience of the galaxy she maybe could be. There are also side characters like Moto, an older witch from Adhama that I really feel should have been given more screen time. As it is he just kinda pops in and out of the story making him feel like a plot device while Tembi acts like there is a long and deep relationship between the two of them. That said this is an interesting science fantasy of sorts and it's driven by Tembi's character which is fully explored in the story and given free reign to be an imperfect child trying to grow into a better adult than those who came before her. I enjoyed reading it and it was interesting to see what Ms. Spangler can do when not writing in the setting of a “Girl and Her Fed”, I hope to see the sequels soonish. I'm giving Stoneskin by KB Spangler a B.

Next week, the Cold War goes strange as we look at The Witch that Came In From the Cold. Keep reading!

This review edited by Dr. Ben Allen

The Shadow of What Was Lost By James Islington

The Shadow of What Was Lost

By James Islington

I almost walked past this book, the fact that it had a tag declaring that ‘If you love Wheel of Time, you'll love this book.’ didn't help. While I have a lot respect for the late Robert Jordan, I feel that Wheel of Time was full of filler material and could have been done in half the books. I also feel that he contributed to the current trend of books that are 6 to 700 pages long without an improvement in quality over older books with maybe half the page count. But the blurb on the back and the inherent promise that this series would be limited to 3 books sold me. Let's take a look and see if my faith was rewarded or punished.

James Islington is an Australian born in southern Victoria about 36 years ago. A fan of Raymond Feist (there's a name I haven't heard in a long time...) and Robert Jordan, he was finally inspired by Brandon Sanderson and Patrick Rothfuss to start writing. This actually makes him the 2nd writer in this series to be inspired by Mr. Rothfuss, which is interesting in and of itself. He currently lives with his wife Sonja and their young daughter on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. The Shadow of What was Lost is his first book and was published by Orbit Books in 2016 in the United States and 2014 in Australia. Orbit books is an imprint launched in 2007 by the Hachette Book Group, which in turn was founded in 2006 by Hachetter Livre, the largest publishing company in France. But enough chasing descending turtles (No Frigid, you have to go deeper*Inception Sound*), let's turn to the book!

Mighty Andarra, the largest and strongest nation on the continent was once ruled by the Augurs, men and women who had the power to read and control people's mind, foresee the future, and even more. They were directly served by the Gifted, people who could use essence; the basic life force of the universe to do a number of great things, like heal injuries, physically empower themselves and strike their enemies down with that same energy. Guided by the oracle foresight of the Augurs they ruled Andarra for generations until over 20 years ago the visions of the Augurs... Stopped. At first the Augurs were able to hide this from everyone, but sooner than anyone thought people began to realize that the Augurs could no longer see the future and their claim to power grew weaker.  Then a rebellion of people who had no magical talents rose up and killed every last Augur who could be found. The Gifted were spared but were forced through magical rituals to live under the 4 Tenets. That the gifted may not use their powers to kill, harm, or intimidate the non-gifted; and that they will obey the commands of the Administers.  In exchange the Administers will not use their powers to harm or harass the Gifted. The Administers are non-magical men and women who took an oath and went through a ritual which grants them the power to order and control the Gifted. Their job is to protect the non-magical men and women of Andarra from the Gifted and to protect the Gifted from them.

The Gifted for their part have withdrawn to fortress communities called Tol's and scattered outposts that serve as schools and collection points for Gifted born into non-magical families. Their movements are regulated, their access to food and other materials controlled and they are always, always watched by the Administers and their soldiers. Those same soldiers are armed with magical devices that allow them to track rogue Gifted, capture and control them or even kill them. The Gifted are trained in the permitted uses of their powers until their late teens, where they undergo a series of trials.  If they pass, they become adults and are welcomed into the Gifted community. If they fail, their ability to use Essence are stripped from them and they become Shadows. Shadows are marked by black marks on their face and are the lowest of the low. They are used for grunt labor within the Gifted community if they’re lucky or exiled to the outside world otherwise. The non-magical portion of humanity has no mercy for Shadows, who have no protection under the law and as such are free game for all manner of abuse and degradation. Additionally any Gifted who breaks the Tenets or disobeys the regulations of the Administration can be turned into a Shadow.

This is actually a fairly interesting social set up. One question I've often found myself asking is, if magic allows a fairly decent number of people to be so powerful that a non-magical person is no match for them in a fight, why aren't they in charge? While there are variations on the theme, in a lot of ancient and medieval societies political power was based on military strength and the guys who can call lightning from the very sky kinda of have an advantage in that respect. In the past fantasy series have come up with ideological or practical reasons why magic users weren't running everything but what Mr. Islington has done is declared that they did run things, but the source of their legitimacy was undercut and those they ruled found a way to counter their powers and turned them into a despised minority. With the creation of Shadows however he provides an outlet for the Gifted, people can put up with a lot as long as they believe there is someone else who has it worse. In my own country's history poor whites in the south put up with quite a bit because among other things they could always tell themselves that blacks had it worse for example (That’s actually being charitable. It isn’t like they thought “well it’s not so bad, black people have it worse” it’s more like “At least I’m better than the <insert racial slur>”). It also provides a threat: “as bad as you have it now, it'll be much worse for you if we turn you into a Shadow”. Which continuing my examples from the American South “Yeah it's bad for you as a black slave but it'll be worse if I sell you down the river to the deep south where the cattle often have more rights”. This threat is brought into focus with our main characters here. Let me discuss them.

Davian is a Gifted youth of unknown parentage, unfortunately when going out on a supply run for his school he was attacked by a number of non-magical men and grievously injured. He is as such unable to access Essence despite all his best efforts and constant studying. Although he has developed a few tricks such as always being able to tell when someone is lying to him. The Trials will be soon and if he doesn't break through his block, he will fail and become a Shadow and likely cast out of his home. This is incredibly disturbing to him and his two best friends Wirr and Ashalia (who is mostly called Asha). Wirr, who transferred to the school years ago is incredibly talented in the gift and highly intelligent, having received training in politics and law, along with other things. Ashalia in her own turn is very talented, charismatic, and fairly brave. When Davian is given an option that might keep him out of the trials but put him at terrible risk, he and his friends find themselves making decisions that may have an impact on a lot more then their lives because the history of Andarra didn't start a few decades ago.

Long ago in the misty past, a gifted man Aarkein Devaed led an army of monsters and worse against Andarra in service to an ancient evil. Many battles were fought against him and many heroic deeds done to undo him. He was not defeated however, only sealed away by the Boundary. The Boundary is a massive magical barrier that stretches across the north of the continent, it has stood for thousands of years and now, because what fantasy series would be complete without the following phrase, the boundary holding back the armies of darkness is weakening and may soon fail. I'll be honest this part of the plot was the part I liked least because we've seen it enough times that I have to ask what's the point of revisiting it. Plus I'm of the opinion that fantasy doesn't need Dark Lords or imprisoned evils to tell a good or epic story (Look at Grace of Kings for example). Still it's not like the presence of a great dark evil is in and of itself a bad thing. Scott Bakker’s books have them, as does Tolkien and many others. Mr. Islington at least doesn't make the ancient evil of yore the focus of the story, although it is not a small part of the story. Rather the weakening of the boundary serves to place emphasize on the weakness and division of Andarra society that may no longer be able to maintain the barrier separating them from their enemies or have the tools and abilities to meaningfully combat those enemies. Perhaps a reminder that internal division and infighting have brought about the end of as many civilizations and societies as external enemies. Because while Andarra is in great danger from its external enemies, it will be the inability of the non-magical and Gifted community to come together, get over their past conflict, and put their shared survival over their disagreements that gets them killed here (Gonna take this opportunity to point out that the Gifted don’t have the cultural or political power here.  The peace overtures kinda have to come from the non-gifted… I hope the author doesn’t the oppressed underclass make joyous peace with the status quo for the greater good, but that’s just me.).

The strength of The Shadow of What was Lost is it's ability to take old themes and cliches and combine them with new ones, as well as give us another angle to look at those old stories. It also provides some pretty good characters to follow along with, which leads me to it's weaknesses. This book has about 4 or 5 main characters, each with very separate but intersecting arcs and a large number of supporting and minor characters, with a chunk of them only really appearing in a single plot line until they are all brought together. As you might imagine this can led to a lot of jumping back and forth as the characters split up into different groups and switch around at times. Additionally there's a lot of setup that clearly won't pay off until the 2nd or 3rd book. That said to the book actually does tell a complete story in and of itself. Which I have to admit was a relief for me. I liked the book and enjoyed reading it but I cannot tell you in good faith that this is a great book. Still it's a good first book and an entertaining read. I'm giving The Shadow of What Was Lost a B-.

Next week, Stoneskin by K.B. Spangler.  Keep reading!

This review edited by Dr. Ben Allen.

Keeping It Real by Justina Robson

Keeping It Real

by Justina Robson

Say you're a Shadowrun fan and you'll get two reactions: ‘what the hell is Shadowrun?’ is the most common, and ‘you should try this it's like Shadowrun, but…’ is the other. For those of you asking the first question, Shadowrun is a fantasy cyberpunk RPG game, which basically means you can play a Cyborg Elf trying to kill Corporate Wizards while your Troll Hacker buddy breaks the internet to steal the paydata. When done right, it's as awesome as it sounds, when done wrong... Well, at least these days you have smartphones while waiting for your turn kids (Manaball! Wait I am editing instead of playing my angry mercenary rabbi-wizard in Shadowun. You are talking about Shadowrun in your book review.  Focus on the task at hand Frigid!)

Right, let's start with our author; Justina Robson was born in Leeds England in the year 1968 AD. She studied philosophy and linguistics at the University of York. In her own words it took seven years of working as a secretary and over 2 million words before she finally published her first novel. Her first published work was in the small press magazine The Alternative in 1994, with her first novel, Silver Screen following in 1999. It was well received and nominated for the Arthur C Clarke award and the BSFA award in 2000. Since then she has published a number of novels and short stories. When she started the Quantum Gravity series, she had 3 novels under her belt and a number of short stories. The first book Keeping it Real was published in 2006, it is the first in a 5 book series. The Quantum Gravity was recommended to me as 'you should try this it's like Shadowrun but...' so let's dive in, shall we?

The background to the Quantum Gravity series goes as such. In the year 2015 AD, there was an explosion in the superconducting supercollider in Texas (if you're saying to yourself. wait there's no such thing in Texas, you're right! In our world it was canceled in 1993 because we are not allowed nice things{An eternal pox be upon congress and all their vile works}). This explosion caused a hole in space-time because quantum. This hole in spacetime caused a number of things to happen backwards and forwards in time (Are there angels what weep? Is Steven Weinberg’s office a TARDIS now?) and odd things resulted. Fast forward to the present year of our story and people refer to Earth as Otopia for some reason (It means ‘local’ in greek) and are aware of five other “realms” of existence and in contact with 4 of them. The first one is Zoomenon, the realm of elementals, where every element on the periodic table is present in abundance but the place is incredibly hostile to human life. The Elementals appear to humans as personifications of Earth, Wind, Water, Fire and Wood (Wait wait… it is both the periodic table of elements Elemental Chaos and D&D style Elemental Chaos?  Is there a Fluorine Chemistry elemental whose special ability to is steal ALL the electrons and then violently explode?). The second is Alfheim, which many of you will have likely guess means elves and the snobbiest elves of course. While Alfheim has diplomatic relations with Otopia, it has otherwise closed its borders firmly shut and tried to keep its people in and everyone else out. It's a Eden like place otherwise, since human technology for the most part doesn't work there's been no industrialization. Instead of technology the elves have magic, which I'll get to a bit. The 3rd realm is Demonia, which is the home of the Demons. Demons are of course much more welcoming of humans than Elves but you do travel at your own risk. That said Demon scientists have been very eager to share information (*sings to tune of Flash Gordon* FAUST!  WOOAAAAAH!  He’s doomed ev’ry of us!) Next up is Faery, home to well... Faeries. Faery has been extremely welcoming and even adopted human bureaucracy, issuing tourist visas and passports and what have you. The last realm is one no human can really discuss, Thanatopia is the realm of the dead and with the exception of necromancers, you have to die to get there. No one comes from Thanatopia and only necromancers visit and come back.

Magic of course exists and is used by, well everyone except humans from what I can tell (have we just not figured it out yet?). Granted Elementals are to alien for any real relationships between the two groups but when a being shows up as nothing but fire, I think it safe to say some magic is being used. That said the most dominant magic users are Demons and Elves, using what they call the aetherstream (or Ispace as humans insist on calling it for some reason) to cast spells and conduct rituals. Another type of magic is that of games, games are magical contests between two people. They have rules with dictate the behavior of those people until the victory conditions of the game are met. Every game has a prize and a forfeit, which can be anything from a song to a life. As you might have guessed this has caused a fair bit of upheaval in human society as humans who can't sense or interact with magic (but can be acted on by magic) are at a harsh disadvantage when it comes to games. However, whenever anti-games laws are enforced, the cops, lawyers, and judges find themselves locked into a game with the accused person and it usually goes poorly from there. I'm honestly impressed by this because it gives people who are leery of contact with non-humans a pretty good reason for their fear. If you're not careful around these people you could end up under a magical compulsion to give them everything you've ever had for a literal song and there's nothing anyone can do about it. So as you can guess relationships between the different peoples of the multi-verse are somewhat fractious and hazardous. Enter our main characters.

Lila Black is a special agent with the NSA, due to injuries she suffered in the field, she is officially dead and has been remade into a top of the line cyborg (Aren’t the NSA basically just SIGNIT spooks, not field spooks?{Yes, but this is a universe where Texas had a supercollider, clearly things are different}). The kind of cyborg that makes Robocop look like the ultra cheap basement bargain model. She has on-board internet connections and AI, weapons, armor, and an internal nuclear reactor to keep her going forever. Lila could only be turned into the kind of weapon that could face off an armored company due to the fact that she was practically killed by Elvish Magic and turning her into this was the only way to keep her alive. The price is that she is left a wreck of a person with a horde of mental and emotional injuries and a body that is still adapting to it's new metal extensions when she is sent off into the field. Which is a problem for me honestly. At this point Lila is a one of a kind agent, no one else in the entire multiverse is like her. So what you do for her first solo mission and as far as I can tell her first mission in the field? Toss her into a massively complex situation (to be fair her commanders couldn't have known how complex) with loads of Elves involved! I mean I figured out by chapter 3, that Lila shouldn't be on this mission and given how much time and resources have been devoted to turn her into an agent and weapon at the cutting edge of technology... An agency, with a limited budget and personal would frankly be more careful. I wouldn't have risked her breaking down on her first mission and wrecking herself over a bloody rock star even if he is an Elf with secrets.

That Elf is Zal, lead vocalist of the No Shows, the hottest new band tearing up North America. Now traditionally Elves do not rock, nor do they run around hobnobbing with humans and demons, getting drunk and more. As you can imagine this has the various purity factions on all sides of all the divides in a snit. Because of this Zal has gotten a vast number of threatening letters and snarling death threats in all manner of media. Including some from the Elvish Covert Service and this is what caught the NSA's interest. Zal himself is a bit of mystery as he seems to have a rather deep relationship with the demons (who are suppose to be forbidden to elves) and able to break a large number of Elvish taboos, which are suppose to be magically enforced. Lila's job is to keep Zal alive and find out just why the Elvish version of the KGB wants him dead. While dealing with all the past trauma that dealing with the same group of people that burnt her limbs off invokes, and finding herself pulled deep into a game with Zal and Elvish royal politics. She may have been thrown into the deep end of sink or swim territory but at least they gave her rocket boots.

Now I found Lila interesting even if I thought she shouldn't be here, Zal I found less so for most of the book. When his motivations were revealed, I found myself rolling my eyes as I don't think his actions match his words. To be fair, that's actually realistic as most of us will say we want one thing or to accomplish one goal while doing everything we can to take ourselves the other way. So I don't count this against the story but do consider it as another reason as to why I find Zal a bit annoying. That said his goals are interesting and the story does explore them a bit. Which is a good thing because it's Zal's goals and the goals of his family that make the main conflict of the story. Here, Lila is the protagonist but her goals are largely on the sidelines (beyond the usual of don't die and win) as she gets pulled into Zal's and other people's problems. What Lila brings to the table is her emotional/mental tangle that she has to work through because Zal's family unknown to her or to him are very much a part of her near death and it's their goals and the means they're willing to use to get to those goals that are causing the conflict here.

The novel is fairly short at about 330 pages with most of the plot happening in the last 200 pages or so. Once the plot gets moving and we start meeting the antagonists the book is rather interesting and a good read, however the first third of the book is rather rough and a good part of it feels disconnected from the last 2/3rds. This is a book that takes some time to actually get going but unfortunately the slow start doesn't give us any additional insight into the characters other than to show us repeatedly that Lila is very damaged. We do get a bit of a look into Elvish society and how games between elves help uphold that society for better or worse and how it drives some of the differences between Elves and Humans and I found that interesting. The Elves have a Caste Society and like most Caste societies, it's held up with a mixture of political ideology, religious belief, power, and the pushing of a crisis that can only be overcome by maintaining purity at all cost. I kind of wish that some of the 100 pages spent on the setup had instead be given over to looking at Elvish culture instead. I'm giving Keeping It Real by Justina Robson a C. It's certainly good once it gets going but the rough start holds it back.

Next week, I veer off into fantasy for a bit with The Shadow of What was Lost. Keep reading!

This review edited by Dr. Ben Allen.

Log Horizon 7: Gold of the Kunie by Mamare Touno

Log Horizon 7: Gold of the Kunie

by Mamare Touno

Here we are in the world of Elder Tales again! Now just in case you've skipped the last 5 or so reviews... I will briefly explain. Once upon a time in 21st century Earth there was a super popular MMO called Elder Tales that had a massive player base across the entire planet. Upon the release of a new expansion, people found themselves trapped in the game, and the game world became more and more real. NPCs, who called themselves People of the Earth, were now real people with real emotions, hopes, and goals. Monsters now display tactical planning and react to situations like living, thinking beings who don't want to die to provide you experience points and gold. The players found themselves inhabiting the bodies of their game characters and able to use their abilities. However combat became terrifyingly real and while you would come back when you died (unlike the natives) dying still hurt and costs you memories. In the city of Akihba the player base fell into disarray and apathy. Hither came Shiroe: enchanter, master plotter, and strategist who decided to pull the whole city and the players within kicking and screaming into a working society whether they liked it or not. We have seen him so far establish city governments out of whole cloth, revitalize an economy and engineer a peaceful and productive relationship with the local native state. Of course he was utterly unable to do this alone and it was only with Shiroe working with the people around him and often just explaining his objectives and letting them determine the best use of their own talents and gifts to achieve those objectives that he was able to pull off such dizzying achievements. A lot of people would be content to call it a day and put their feet up, maybe have a nice drink after all that. Not our boy in glasses though, in this book, Shiroe goes raiding.

Now some of you may be asking what a raid is. In the context of a MMO game, a raid is an adventure where a group of players will combine forces to achieve a goal. This is typically an attack by a large group of players into a dungeon to clear it, kill the dungeon boss (usually a boss monster with a frightening amount of hit points and enough special abilities to make you sick) and gain the loot. These boss monsters often take several tries to defeat because you need to learn their combat routine and abilities along with their weaknesses before you'll have a real shot at victory. Raid players are usually happy to take these tries however as these types of raids are well known for the special items that can only be gained by defeating the raid adventure. Most groups will have a system worked out to determine who gets what gear and believe me, this can be hotly contested. The raid in this book is no different, as Shiroe is here to get the kind of epic loot that would make anyone jealous.  You see, there is a primitive banking system in the world of Elder Tales, run by a group of people known as the Kunie clan.  Now the Kunie clan will hold your cash and store items for you but they don’t do loans.  Which is strange for a bank.  When Shiroe meets them to talk about a loan, he’s told to take a walk.  His response?  Sure, he’ll take a walk, right to the dungeon where the source of all money is, but he'll have to overcome some personale difficulties first.

In this book we have the reappearance of the Silver Swords, led by William aka Mithral Eyes. Now the Silver Swords were a powerful raid group that Shiroe invited to join the Round Table government in Akihba but they turned him down (the only guild to do so). Afterward they moved to Susukino, took over the town from the misbehaving adventurers there and started raiding, but then they found themselves falling on hard times. According to William this was because while you still come back from death, you are forced to... well kinda confront yourself and see the flaws within you. Realizing that you're not that great a person is never fun and violently dying and then having your face rubbed in all your flaws sounds like the kind of thing that would get real old, real fast. Especially since not only is dying still really painful but you get to pay for this wonderful privilege by losing some of your memories. Which honestly leaves me wondering: under such a system would it be possible to die so often that you come out the other side a completely different person? I mean who we are if often fundamentally shaped by our experiences and our environment. If you take away those experiences aren't you left with a completely different person? Now the memory loses told to us in the story are fairly minor, Shiroe forgets the name of a ramen restaurant in his home town. Krusty in an earlier book mentioned that he couldn't remember the name of his pet cat from his childhood but this sounds like it would add up. Sure Krusty can still remember having a cat but how long before he loses that? Or the name of his mother? Or if he had any siblings? How much would this change him? The story elects not to answer this question and leave it to the reader to consider.

Another return is the mad monk Demikas, who used to be the bandit king of Susukino, until Shiroe wrecked him in public and William moved in and started enforcing decent behavior. The conflict between Demikas and Shiroe is a petty one in scope but is still interesting as it's two people who hate each other having to learn to acknowledge the other person's humanity and work together. Honestly, Demikas is a horrible person who in my mind wasn't punished enough for his crimes of tormenting and even enslaving the People of the Earth in his area before being stopped. Shiroe's willingness to try and be empathic to Demikas is more than I think I could pull here. I honestly liked the fact that the writer did reform Demikas' behavior but left his basic personality as a violent thug intact and instead of trying to dramatically alter it, just showed us how in specific circumstance even violent thugs can do the right thing and maybe even learn to be a little less thuggish.

This book gives us a look at the consequences of Elder Tales becoming a real place and at the same time shows us how resurrection from death might not be that big a favor. It also lets us see the heroes placed in despair and deciding if they can keep going. I like how it's actually William here who stands up and gets everyone to find their backbone here. The series continues to allow other characters to be awesome instead of only letting it's main character do anything cool. This is a good, self contained story that still touches larger issues and brings up more things to consider in the series.  Not to mention a look at the bigger world in the series itself. That said, I kinda feel like the past actions of characters like Demikas are excused to easily.  He doesn’t have to pay a price for his misbehavior nor does he acknowledge that was bad behavior. That doesn’t quite sit right with me.  That said I enjoyed it and I'm giving Log Horizon 7 by Mamare Touno a B. It's a good interesting entry into the series and I'm really interested in seeing how it plays out. I can't say much more than that without venturing into spoilers territory though.

Next week, we're Keeping it Real with the Quantum Series. Keep Reading!

Forests of the Night By S Andrew Swann

Forests of the Night

By S Andrew Swann

Mr. Swann was actually born Mr. Steven Swiniarski; he adopted the moniker S Andrew Swann as a pen name. He spent all of his adult life in the Greater Cleveland Area (which explains to me why his first book is set in a barely working dystopia {It could be worse.  It could be Detroit!}) where he lives with his wife and works a day job as a Database manager. He’s written 25 novels with the first being the work we are reviewing today! Forests of the Night was published in 1993 and is a fine example of Bio Punk. Now a good number of you may rightly be asking ‘just what in the name of all that's Holy is Bio Punk, you manic genius?’. Well Biopunk is an outgrowth of Cyberpunk, for those of you are new (Welcome! Glad to have you!{Hi!}) Cyberpunk is a genre of science fiction that is usually set in the near future and is focused on an examination of new technologies like the internet, virtual reality, and the the increasing digitization of our society(*sniffs*I smell the 1980s and early 1990s. Oh no.  I caught a whiff of the cocaine.). It pairs this with a society that is breaking down and falling into a dystopian nightmare where the super rich and their servants live in luxury with their whims catered to by that technology and everyone lives in their trash. Most Cyberpunks aren't that extreme but the idea is to examine how technology doesn't necessarily make everyone's life easier or improve society. Bio punk takes many of the themes and stories of Cyberpunk but instead of examining information technology likes to examine biological technology. Things like cloning, genetic engineering and so on.

Mr. Swann's book was released close enough to the 80s to be affected by the common ideas of fiction at the time and his efforts at subverting them leads to a book that... Strangely echoes modern anxieties. The Pan Asian War ripped across Asia in the biggest bloodbath in history and our side lost. Japan and India were subjected to nuclear bombardment by the People's Republic of China, who went on to occupy them. The United States remains a great power by the skin of it's collective teeth but whether or not we'll keep that status is open to question. It is not helped by the fact that reactionary political party has risen to power demanding that the federal government be cut back to the mythical ‘drown in a bathtub’ size (this last part seems odd to me, we have lost a war and our allies are in chains and your reaction is to demand tax cuts for corporations and cuts to government services?). However those forces haven't won yet and the US federal government is still able and in many cases willing to enforce its will on the corporations that operate in it's borders. The corporations however wield influence through campaign contributions and lobbying, just like today. Meanwhile, new minorities have arisen due to government's turning to genetic engineering for super soldiers. Franks, genetically created humans and Moreau's, people who were created by blending together the genetic traits of animals and humans. While due to a Constitutional Amendment, Moreau's have all the legal rights and standings of natural born humans, in fact they are heavily discriminated against. Forced to live in ghettos and systematically denied education and employment and subjected to a police force that acts more like a hostile occupying army then a police force (why does this sound familiar? {If this description is accurate, the author is A) not being subtle, and B) is...well not prescient because what is true now was true in 1993 but no one cared}). Not that long ago the situation exploded into a series of riots that were put down with military action and now as the United States stands with largest population of free Moreau's in the world, it also stands on the knife edge of social violence.

Into this comes our nudist detective (hey clothes are a pain when you have fur), who is also an 8ft tiger, with a pair of thumbs, a troubled past and a bad attitude, Nohar Rajasthan. He's got a couple of rules: always finish the job, get paid, stay away from murder cases, and never take a job from a human (or pink as Moreau's refer to us). As far as Nohar is concerned nothing good comes from messing around in human business, but like all private eyes in their first story, he's dead broke and the client a genetically engineered Frank from abroad (or is he?) who offers him more money than he's ever had at once... His better judgment is drowned out by not only a strong desire to be able to pay all his bills at once but his curiosity . Nohar has been hired to investigate the murder of a human, Daryl Johnson the campaign manager of the 12th district Congressmen Joseph Binder, a member of the reactionary party who is now running for Senate. The good Congressmen is pressuring the police to sweep the investigation under the rug and Nohar's employer, a major contributor to the campaign, would like to know why and is willing to pay for the knowledge.

This investigation pulls Nohar into the deep end real fast as he finds himself targeted by both the local and federal police for his investigation but also by the Moreau Rat gang the Zipperheads, or Zipheads as most call them. Nohar finds himself pulled into a political conspiracy and into racial street violence at the same time. As the connections between the company paying for the investigation and the Binder campaign are found to be more numerous, deeper, and stretching out into places that seem nonsensical, Nohar becomes a target for people that want him to just walk away. He has to connect the dots and and figure out just what is going on before the body counts gets too high or he ends up as part of it. That said Nohar isn't completely without allies or weapons of his own. His foster father, Manny the Mongoose works with the police as a morgue assistant (At least he’s not a vulture or hyena…) and the guy they call in to handle Moreau bodies. I gotta be honest I really like the relationship here. Mr. Swann does a good example of showing us a relationship between two people who honestly care about each other but also have a lot of history between the two of them, not all of it good history either. This is complicated by the fact that much of the bad in that history isn't either of their fault but is the result of actions by Nohar's biological father and Nohar's own efforts to understand his biological father. Manny clearly wants to keep Nohar safe and whole, while Nohar is struggling to prove that he can be his own man and finish the path he's chosen for himself. Speaking of Nohar let's talk about him.

Nohar is as befits a private detective in a punk setting, an intelligent and cynical person with a complicated past that has left him an outsider in Moreau society while his genetic heritage has made him an outsider in human society. Nohar isn't just distrustful of human authorities figures, he's often borderline contemptuous of his fellow Moreau's. He doesn't hesitate to point out their self destructive tendencies or how those tendencies are egged on by human authorities to justify their bigotry. Despite his distrust of human government, he is able to have human friends (Wow, we have seen this before.  Do the other Moreaus call him him an Uncle Tomcat?). For example the human hacker Bobby that he works with, who also happens to be a childhood friend. He is also able to connect with Stephanie Weir, an assistant to the murdered Mr. Johnson who is either the witness that will help him figure everything out or the target that gets him killed protecting her. While Nohar may be cynical and has problem making friends, he isn't dismissive of other people's lives and we see this as he rescues Angel, a rabbit Moreau, the last survivor of a gang wiped out by the Zipperheads. I can't talk too much about Angel without unleashing spoilers but suffice to say, what she brings to the table is an interesting piece of the puzzle. Nohar's isolation stems more from him not being to confront his personal problems but preferring to focus on... Anything else. I can't get to down on Nohar for that. It's a very human personality flaw shared by a lot of people.

I enjoyed this book as you might have guessed. Nohar is a flawed but good protagonist who retains a moral compass and a desire to at least try and make the world slightly better. Although like most of us he would like to get paid while doing so. The mystery is an interesting one that is gradually revealed through Nohar doing the classic detective work of talking to people, tracking down witnesses and leads and at times engaging in good, old fashioned violence. The action in this book is well presented, while Nohar is allowed to be the kind of terrifying force that an 8 foot tall tiger man with fangs and claws capable of tearing people apart (human senator:”I just see weapons in our schools”) should be; he’s not an untouchable avatar of war here, his injuries and mistakes mount up and take a toll on him. This gives the action a sense of realism and helps ground it a bit. Which is a good thing when a lot of your book is battles between rat gangsters and tiger private detectives. The villains, mostly personified in an Afghan hound assassin named Hassan who manages to be terrifying despite my mental picture of him being utterly ridiculous, have an interesting motivation that makes sense. It's also one that you will not guess in the first chapter of the book but is well enough foreshadowed that it doesn't feel like it comes out of left field, which is always appreciated. The rats on the other hand don't really feel that menacing until the last part of the book, but I think that's because for 2/3rds of the book we're literally reading about small groups of rats trying to threaten and intimidate a bloody Tiger! I mean... Thing's that just aren't happening (Criminals are often dumb?  Do they breed like rats?  That might explain why they are so blaize about their casualties.{Well, Nohar says that the Latin American governments went with rats specifically because of their fast breeding times so, yes.}).

I do want to talk about the Moreau's before I give my grade on the book though. I have to be honest and say I really don't see humanity using genetic engineering to create sapient races of laborers and soldiers. Robots are cheaper and don't have to be sapient, which means they can't rebel, can't unionize, or start thinking they deserve things like paid vacations, coffee breaks, civil rights... You know all the little things that some employers dream of not having to give to their labor force. Frankly if I found out we were, I would be willing to go really far in stopping it from happening. We shouldn't create another species or 50 just to foist off our wars on. For that matter we shouldn't create a sapient race--biological or mechanical--until we know damn well what we want to accomplish from such a feat, how we're going to provide for such a race, and that we can behave in a manner that won't end up shaming our descendants when they read about it in the history books. When it comes to triumphs of science like this, we should asks ourselves not just if we can do something but if we should do something and if we're ready for the responsibility that it entails. That said Mr. Swann does a good job of showing us some of the consequences of not thinking ahead on things like this and holding up a mirror to our society to consider in some ways. I find myself giving S Andrew Swann's Forests of Night a B+. It definitely left me wanting to see more of that world and you should give it a look as well.

Next time, we hit some lighter fare with yes... Another Log Horizon novel! Keep reading!  

This review edited by Dr. Ben Allen, whose comments how up in the red.