Sorcerer to the Crown, Zen Cho
Received to review via the publisher

I was really excited to get my hands on this one, and confess I begged rather through whatever medium I could think of. So much glee when I did get it! It wasn’t strictly on my reading list for this month, but I figured I had to behave myself and read it right away, especially since my reviews can be somewhat delayed in posting. This was not at all a hardship, except in that I kept getting distracted from my paid freelance work to a) read it or b) flail about it.

If you’re seeing the comparison to Susanna Clarke and thinking “oh no”, you may not be much reassured to know that I liked this, considering that I consider Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell to be an amazing piece of work. However, I’m not insensible of the criticisms people have had of that book, and the Georgette Heyer comparison is perhaps more apt in terms of tone and style. The plot might be rather Clarke-ish — the issues with English magic, the requests of the government for help in war, issues of imperialism and slavery, and of course commerce between the lands of Fairy and our own — but the tone is more like Heyer, and the writing rather lighter than Clarke’s in JS & MN. My only issue with the writing is that sometimes it seemed a bit too stilted: “do not you [x]” was not as common a construction in actual Regency times as used here, I think. Something struck me as wrong, in any case, though I confess that I haven’t particularly examined Austen and Heyer too closely on their syntax, and this is just my kneejerk reaction as someone who reads a lot from all periods.

The story itself is fun. I quickly began to suspect aspects of it, but didn’t put everything together until the end, and there were one or two things that caught me out. The love story is sweet: the realisation that there’s something there is fairly swift, but actual action and resolution of it isn’t, so it avoids feeling too easy. There’s some beautiful writing here — lovely images, lovely meditations on relationships between characters. And of course, it can’t help but meditate on colonialism given Zacharias’ birth and adoption, Prunella’s mixed heritage, and Mak Genggang’s part in the story. It’s done sensitively, with an understanding that there may be great affection even where there’s also problematic elements (meaning mostly the relationship between Zacharias and Sir Stephen).

Most of all, you’ve just got to love Prunella’s sheer audacity. She’d give Heyer’s Sophy a run for her money, I think, and like her she’s also kind and concerned with others.

All in all, I enjoyed this a lot; the only real stumbling block for me was in it being compared to such giants as Heyer and Clarke, and in some of the language — mostly the dialogue, in fact — which didn’t sound right to me. I do recommend it, even if you couldn’t get on with JS & MN; it’s not the same sort of slow, measured narrative at all, and there are absolutely no footnotes (at least in the uncorrected proof I’ve received!). It’s also a stand-alone fantasy (or if it doesn’t, it is perfectly satisfactory as one), which I know some people (myself included) very much crave.

Rating: 4/5

A Dance in Blood Velvet, Freda Warrington

My review of the first book is here.

I still feel kind of weirdly ambivalent about these books. Everything the copy says about the lush gothicness, it’s true; I find the prose really compelling, something sweet and syrupy and addictive. It engages all the senses, it draws you into its dark embrace… it is exactly the rich velvety experience promised by the titles: A Taste of Blood Wine, A Dance in Blood Velvet, The Dark Blood of Poppies…

I was a little ambivalent with the first book because of the fear that it was going to glorify the vampirism as some kind of true love, some kind of real romanticism. In a way, it does: Karl and Charlotte do truly love one another, and they’ll come through their trials to find each other again. But at the same time, it never shies away from the monstrousness, which is in part what makes it so compelling. Their power, hypnotic, sensual; their pain and separation from humanity. It’s done well, that constant push-and-pull, their dependence on humanity, the way they may kid themselves they feel above.

“Fierce, intolerant and possessive” is how Charlotte describes their love — there are no illusions here about it. I think I’m okay with that, as long as the books continue walking this line between monstrous and sympathetic. Andreas, for example, is one character who seems to fall on the other side of the line in his sheer self-absorption. Ilona, in her amoral gloating about what she is, the way she plays it to the hilt. Charlotte and Karl aren’t perfect either, but they try not to fall into that, and it works to make them interesting characters.

Now what I’m not sure about is the mythology; the angels, or whatever they are, and Violette/Lilith. After Kristian’s fall in the first book, it seemed like it was going a more rationalist route with Charlotte’s beliefs, and then there was a ton of occult stuff in this book. I’m gonna read The Dark Blood of Poppies, though, definitely; if Warrington can keep me uncertain but riveted through two books, I’m along for the ride with the next two.

Rating: 4/5

The Death House, Sarah Pinborough

I mostly skimmed this book, because the whole creeping fear of the illness thing… it gets to me. It’s one of the things my anxiety does to me: just a constant sense that my body is a ticking timebomb, and sooner or later, something will go wrong. I don’t need the idea of a test to tell if you’re Defective, a whole society that condones locking people who have that gene away. So, yeah, I mostly skimmed this one.

It’s not a bad story, actually. I wasn’t sure, from the concept, but I did find myself getting absorbed and stopping to read some sections. The writing is pretty good — there are some really gorgeous bits, particularly at the end. That last line, “I’m not afraid” — ahh. Lovely.

The creepiness and suspense, well, what with trying to avoid the details of the illness and so on, I didn’t really get a full sense of that. Neil Gaiman blurbed it, though, so you can see what kind of audience this is aiming at, the tone that it goes for. In this case, bear in mind that the rating I give it is a compromise between how good I think the book is (probably four stars) and my discomfort with the subject matter (two stars), since I rate things according to my personal enjoyment.

Rating: 3/5