Women in SF&F Month: Jacqueline Carey
Apr
02
2013

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Today’s guest is renowned fantasy author Jacqueline Carey! She’s probably best-known for her epic fantasy series, Kushiel’s Legacy, but she’s also written several other books, some of which fall under other speculative fiction subgenres. I love her books and think she does a fantastic job writing characters with a diverse range of abilities and personalities, particularly her unique and wonderful leading ladies. Today, though, she’s here to talk about epic fantasy and why it seems to be the last bastion of male-dominated sales and authors. Since she is one of the women who has managed to storm that particular castle, I was thrilled that she decided to contribute this month and couldn’t wait to read what she has to say. I was not disappointed!

Jacqueline Carey

When I was invited to write a guest post on women in fantasy, one issue leaped to mind. Across the multifaceted map of fantasy literature, from Hogwarts to Forks to Panem, female writers have been kicking butt and racking up massive sales almost everywhere in the genre for the past decade.

Almost.

There’s one bastion that remains a stronghold of male authors. When it comes to epic fantasy aimed at an adult readership, the top echelon remains exclusively male; at least according to my highly unscientific analysis. To be sure, there are women who’ve enjoyed considerable success writing epic fantasy—I’m fortunate enough to count myself among them—but there are none who have found the staggeringly large audiences of, say, George R.R. Martin and Robert Jordan.

As of this writing, Martin, Jordan, and the granddaddy of them all, J.R.R. Tolkien, top the list of Amazon.com’s fantasy author rankings. A glance at the first fifty listings on the Popular Epic Fantasy bookshelf on GoodReads.com reveals forty-seven titles by thirteen male authors, ranging from long-established Big Names to more recent arrivals like Brent Weeks and Patrick Rothfuss. Exactly three books by female authors made the list: The first two titles in Robin Hobb’s Farseer trilogy and my own Kushiel’s Dart.

Obviously, a wildly successful movie franchise and a hit series on HBO factor into a couple instances—but what gives with the overall disparity? Is it simply a matter of statistics? It does appear that there are more men than women writing epic fantasy. (Sidebar: Like I said, highly unscientific analysis. Feel free to conduct your own more rigorous research!) Is it that the audience is disproportionately male and suffers from a lingering fear of girl cooties? Or is it that publishers target a male readership? And why would that be a desirable marketing ploy when surveys have found that across the board, women read more than men in all categories except history and biography?

Or is it—gulp!—that by and large, men write epic fantasy better than women?

I don’t think so, but I do think there are some unconscious biases at work. When I polled my readers on Facebook—Yes! Another highly unscientific technique!—many cited a perception that male writers are more focused on plot and action, while female writers focus on character development and interpersonal dynamics. Call me crazy, but as a reader, I think the best books contain a balance of both.

A female interviewer recently asked me if I considered Kushiel’s Legacy to be fantasy with romantic elements or romance with fantastic elements. It surprised me. Sure, there are strong threads of romance woven throughout the books, but it seemed obvious to me that in terms of genre, they fall into epic fantasy. There are vast, sweeping plots; quests to unravel webs of intrigue, to save a nation from conquest, to thwart treachery, to undo curses, to find the Name of God, to avenge the death of a loved one, to save a missing heir—all the stuff of epic fantasy, or so I thought. And I couldn’t help but wonder, was my point of view too subjective, or would her perception have been different if I were a dude?

By the same token, a male reader once told me that when he recommends the Kushiel books to male friends, he assures them that I “give good war.” Good to know! Except that it’s unfortunate that such assurances are necessary. When I think about the most realistic depiction of medieval warfare I can remember reading in the genre, Mary Gentle’s Book of Ash series gets my vote.

If male epic fantasy aficionados have an unconscious tendency to gravitate toward authors they believe will deliver the goods they crave, I’d hazard a guess that’s not equally true of female fans of the genre. That’s not to say there aren’t millions of female readers jonesing for strong female characters—there are, I hear it all the time—but they don’t have as many options to choose from, not in epic fantasy. If you’re a voracious female reader and you want to get your epic on and hole up with a sprawling, satisfying multivolume saga, you might have to overlook the fact that it doesn’t pass the Bechdel test:

1) It has to have at least two women in it, 2) who talk to each other, 3) about something besides a man.

Correct me if I’m wrong (after all, that’s what comments are for), but I’m pretty sure The Lord of the Rings doesn’t pass, and I can think of a few more recent books in the genre, too.

Then, too, what about cover art? If we’re talking about unconscious bias, what role does cover art play? Tom Doherty, the founder of Tor Books, once said that while a cover doesn’t have to offer an accurate literal depiction of its contents (and dozens of authors sighed softly in dismay), it functions as a billboard to advertise the kind of experience readers can expect. Are the covers of male writers designed to appeal to male readers? It’s a subjective matter, but at a glance, I’d say yeah, kinda. Is the reverse true of female writers? At a glance, I’d call it a mixed bag.

Or maybe, just maybe, us women writers are just too damned efficient! Have any of us kept our readers twisting in the wind as long as George R.R. Martin and the late Robert Jordan? No. No, we have not. Instead of generating the buzz created by thousands upon thousands of fans clamoring for the next installment, we wrap up our plots and finish our series in a timely fashion, so fans can thank us and go back to clamoring for more from those who’ve left them hanging.

It’s probably our own damn fault. Though I’m not ruling out girl cooties.

About Jacqueline Carey:
New York Times bestseller Jacqueline Carey is the author of the Kushiel’s Legacy series of historical fantasy novels, The Sundering epic fantasy duology, postmodern fables Santa Olivia and Saints Astray.  Her most recent release, Dark Currents, is the first volume in the Agent of Hel contemporary fantasy series.  Jacqueline enjoys doing research on a wide variety of arcane topics, and an affinity for travel has taken her from Finland to China to date.  She currently lives in west Michigan.

Further information is available at www.jacquelinecarey.com.  Join her on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jacquelinecarey.author or follow her on Twitter at @JCareyAuthor.

Kushiel's Dart by Jacqueline Carey Banewreaker by Jacqueline Carey Dark Currents by Jacqueline Carey
Women in SF&F Month: Renay from Lady Business
Apr
01
2013

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The first guest of this month’s event is Renay from Lady Business! Lady Business is a collaborative blog with two other contributors, Ana from Things Mean a Lot and Jodie from Book Gazing. They write book reviews and commentary, discuss links around the Internet, and write all-around interesting and thoughtful posts.

Lady Business actually came to my attention shortly before last year’s Women in SF&F Month after Renay published some statistics on review coverage of books by women on SFF blogs in 2011. She also compiled some more statistics for coverage of books by women on SFF blogs in 2012, and I was glad to see she did this again since I think it’s important to keep the conversation going about coverage of books written by women. Since discovering this project, I’ve also come to enjoy reading her in-depth reviews.

Please welcome Renay today as she shares some of her experiences with discovering science fiction and fantasy and invites us all to contribute to a new project!

Lady Business Header

Gatekeeping is the process through which information is filtered for dissemination, whether for publication, broadcasting, the Internet, or some other mode of communication. […] Gatekeeping occurs at all levels of the media structure — from a reporter deciding which sources are chosen to include in a story to editors deciding which stories are printed or covered, and includes media outlet owners and even advertisers. Individuals can also act as gatekeepers, deciding what information to include in an email or in a blog, for example. (source)

I can’t say I started reading massive amounts of science fiction and fantasy early. I spent quite a bit of my young adulthood bouncing back and forth between genre television/film and romance literature. I couldn’t find a medium between the two I liked. I grew up watching Labyrinth, The Secret World of Alex Mack, and Sliders. I missed The X-Files, Buffy, and most of the various Star Trek shows for reruns of The Outer Limits, Ghostwriter, and Monsters. I had an unhealthy obsession with the Child’s Play films, Enemy Mine, Care Bears and Rainbow Brite movies until my early (okay, fine, late) teens and still regret nothing. Seriously, Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer was AWESOME science fiction! I loved a scratchy, likely bootleg, video rental copy of The Last Unicorn and checked it out weekend after weekend from the video store inside the laundromat without ever realizing it was also a book. I found a longtime home in Sailor Moon anime, magical-girl fantasy and story about friendship, and eventually Final Fantasy, a gaming fandom I’m still a part of today.

Books were harder to come by; I lived in an extremely small town. Both my school library and public library catered to more mainstream work. My public library, about the size of a one bedroom apartment, had every Stephen King, Dean Koontz, V.C. Andrews, and Nora Roberts book in print. My school library mostly had multiple copies of classical literature that teachers would spend years trying to get me to care about. Outside genre, I read a lot of romance because that’s what was marketed to young girls, so that’s what people got me. I liked and followed the series where the main characters were girls and where they interacted with a wide range of people and had boys who were friends and partners in crime. On my own, I read Sweet Valley, Babysitters Club, and tons of series about girls with horses. The choices were vast, serialized, and looking back, not very challenging. I didn’t often find books that spoke to me or that I would reread. Inside SF/F, the pickings for my age group at both libraries amounted to a ton of R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike and related knockoff series by people cashing in on that craze. It never got much wider. My options as I grew were limited.

When I was younger, the first piece of fantasy literature I can remember reading, if we’re going to discount talking hens who refused to share bread if you didn’t help them plant or harvest the grain, is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle. I loved this book. It was a favorite; I checked it out so much that the librarian once told me that I couldn’t have it, because other people wanted a chance to read it. I was fascinated by everything in it (although to be fair, the religious bits went over my burgeoning atheist head). I eventually bought a copy with birthday money, and that’s when I learned about its sequel, A Wind in the Door, a book that surpassed my love for the story before it and which shaped me up until my twenties. I met my partner through a shared love of the Time Quartet (yay ten years in July 2013!); these books did a great job at setting me on the current path of my life. Of course, around the same time I was missing out on other fantastic genre work due to my lack of guidance; I avoided The Giver because of the old man on the cover (I didn’t want to read about old men as I was full up on them in my real life, thanks) and probably tons of other genre books that were fantastic that weren’t packaged that way.

The one time I asked the librarian for books like A Wrinkle in Time she recommended C.S. Lewis and Roald Dahl. She did recommend some women but they were mostly historical novels. I remember trying The Witch of Blackbird Pond and being endlessly disappointed. Even in adulthood, I prefer actual history to fictional, especially in the case of American history. Therefore, L’Engle’s books would be the only pieces of genre fiction I would discover through my public education access, written by a woman, until I graduated high school.

My courses in middle school loved classic authors as defined by a public school system that at the time was focused on the problem of functional illiteracy. That meant everyone had to read more, even kids like me who weren’t struggling. This gave me a lot of opportunity to read, but most things we read were stories about (white) people filled with life lessons we had to answer perplexing questions about afterward. However, we also read an array of genre short stories. I remember two of the authors vividly, because I’ve become unable to escape them since: Ray Bradbury and Isaac Asimov. The first one we read was “Rain, Rain, Go Away” and I’ll never forget it because the teacher treated us to homemade cotton candy beforehand (devious). We read as many short stories as these men had available in the mid-to-late 90s. Fahrenheit 451 was a potential book for a book report that same semester in a different class; it was the only genre novel available and I skipped it, choosing instead to read Wuthering Heights to my eternal woe and regret (sorry, Brontë). We read Flowers for Algernon and listened to The War of the Worlds. T.H. White’s Once and Future King made tons of reading lists for book reports; it’s the one I saw most often. It bored me to tears, much like all Arthurian legend fiction has except for Susan Cooper, who I wouldn’t discover until 2006.

When I entered high school, there was more variety as we moved away from the short story. But I remember examining a shelf in my high school library on a rainy Wednesday, desperately looking for an interesting book to read during the required reading period our school had created. That day I didn’t choose Bradbury, Huxley, Anthony, Orwell, Heinlein, King, Clarke, Beagle, and Brooks. Instead, I would, as a young girl, pick up a copy of Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card on that random, stormy Wednesday, and fall in love again, hard, with Ender and Jane. I would plow through it during the required reading, and then continue reading on the sly through the rest of my classes. I would, like a terrible book thief, keep the book for two years, and continue on to reread Speaker every year for six years, until I finally got access to Ender’s Game — probably too late for it to matter to me as much.

This experience made me wonder: how many other titles would I have fallen in love with like that if my access to science fiction and fantasy had been more robust? How often did I get derailed from genre when so often faced with male authors whose books just sounded boring because I wasn’t yet at that reading level, and had no one to introduce me to easier or more accessible work aligned with my interests? I had no other genre fans around me to direct me to female authors. At this point in my life they could have been my gateway into genre because I trusted women writers more due to all the romance I read. My high school library didn’t contain Bujold or McCaffrey or Le Guin, and it certainly didn’t contain Butler — I’m not sure I read any black authors in fiction until college. Forget about me finding Andre Norton and James Tiptree, Jr. — I thought these women were men up until at the latest 2002, far past when I should have known better. I kept running into the same problems: Bradbury, Huxley, Orwell, Heinlein, King, Clarke, Card, Beagle, and Brooks. Now it was with additional bonus Gibson, Goodkind, Stephenson, Pullman, Burroughs, Niven, Robinson, Dick, Vinge, Wolfe, Pratchett, Gaiman, Tolkien, Martin, Haldeman, and Herbert. The Internet was so young in comparison to now (life without Google and Wikipedia?), and it wasn’t always easy to find diverse recommendation lists. I would discover William Goldman’s The Princess Bride and find out that the movie I adored was based on a book and that S. Morgenstern didn’t exist (shocking to the younger me who felt stupid and ashamed for not getting it). I would read Snow Crash and be mostly confused because I was skipping so much context (sorry, cyberpunk, I was really too young and not political enough yet). I would discover that Orson Scott Card didn’t deserve my unreserved respect and love, especially as a young girl questioning her heterosexuality (ugh). I would be recommended Robin Hobb but would almost immediately be unable to separate the artist from her vicious indictment of my fannish identity and community, which had taught me so much about storytelling and myself. I would run up against walls of unavailability for Bujold and McCaffrey given the scope of their work. I would struggle with availability of women writing genre in general in all the libraries I had access to as a young woman in the rural American South.

I did eventually find lists with tons of recommendations as the Internet aged, but with a recurring theme: men were more valued, as writers and as heroes. There were always more men. The same handful of women were always present and often unavailable to me. I didn’t realize it at that time, but I would see this theme repeat over and over and over in SF/F culture.

As a baby genre literature fan I had nothing to guide me but what librarians and educators shared with me. I had more access once the internet came around for me in 1994, but even then finding things was difficult and being able to purchase them was often beyond me. I was limited to what adults around me felt were the most important, relevant titles — and so often, those titles were by men. They were the award winners, the notable works. But for the most part, women in genre literature were absent in my life until the mid-aughts, when I had disposable income, discovered book blogging and book culture online, and it started to get really organized. They were absent until I realized just how heavy my to-read list was with men when I compared it to my fannish community, where the majority of us were women writers writing genre fanfiction. It was stark, and ultimately, depressing, and it was at this point I started looking past what was offered on the surface of the adult SF/F community, the major awards, and began following more women writing about genre wherever I could.

This is why I now make it a point to talk about the genre fiction by women I love. We’re never going to go back to the 1990s where the Internet is an AOL log in screen and limited access; where animated backgrounds are all the rage and mailing lists are centralized and popular places of discourse which are hard to find and interface with for people new to the medium. There’s never going to be a kid exactly like me, raised by a father and later herself, surrounded by that father’s male friends and aching for voices like hers who cared about feelings and relationships that weren’t made of the strife she witnessed in the relationships around her. There’s never going to be a kid like me cut off from what genre has to offer by lack of options, only given access to lists likely made by men and featuring men, a shelf full of books by men their only choice. At the very least, genre YA is powerful and wonderful now and prevents that from happening to kids. But keeping in mind what gets passed the gate and beyond to populate culture still matters, especially: best of lists, featured lists, lists for librarians and professors and booksellers, recommendation lists, nomination lists, finalist lists.

To that end, and to complement this month-long adventure Kristen has invited us to, I have asked and received permission to help us build our own list full of our favorite women writers. Although it’s possible to find plenty of lists now, for me there’s always a certain thrill in asking people what their favorite books are. Perhaps because I grew up unable to do it or maybe it’s because if something sounds awesome I can go get it immediately. Building recommendation lists like this feels like a way my adult self is carving out a space for the baby genre fan that she could have been had she only had the resources; it’s a statement and a reclamation. Maybe the list will be for that baby genre fan in our lives who wants to know which way to go and isn’t sure; for the curious friend who wants to learn more; or as a resource to let us know what genre fiction by women is celebrated and loved at this moment in time.

To contribute, simply fill out this form or leave a comment with your ten favorite science fiction and fantasy books by women writers. At the beginning of May, we’ll release the final list, curated and organized, as a resource for everyone here at Fantasy Cafe. 😀

Women in SF&F Month: Week One Guests
Mar
31
2013

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The second annual Women in SF&F Month starts tomorrow! The entire month of April will be dedicated to highlighting the contributions of women to speculative fiction. There will be guest posts by women who write speculative fiction and women who share their love for the genre with others on their blogs throughout the month. Like last year’s series, some guests will be discussing the subject of women writing speculative fiction, but not necessarily, since the goal is to get some interesting people, thoughts, and books all in one place—and perhaps find some new books or blogs to read! (I have already madly been adding books to my wish list from reading the guests posts that will be going up this month.)

I’m very excited about this year’s guests, and I hope that everyone enjoys it! The guests for the first week are:

Women in SFF week1 2013

April 1: Renay from Lady Business
April 2: Jacqueline Carey (Kushiel’s Legacy; The Sundering; Santa Olivia)
April 3: Karin Lowachee (Warchild; Burndive; Cagebird; The Gaslight Dogs)
April 4: Sherwood Smith (Crown Duel; A Stranger to Command; Inda)
April 5: Ana and Thea from The Book Smugglers
April 6: Lane Robins, aka Lyn Benedict (Maledicte; Shadows Inquiries)

The Leaning Pile of Books
Mar
30
2013

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included.

This is a day earlier than usual since tomorrow I will be announcing the guests for the first week of the second annual Women in SF&F Month! Due to this, this weekly feature will be on hiatus until after April is over.

Since I haven’t had enough time to get caught up on reviews before April, I wanted to briefly mention the books I have in the pile of books to review right now. They’re all very good books and include my two favorites of the year so far. While I plan to review them as I have time, the earliest I’ll be able to get reviews up is sometime after the April series is over so I don’t want to wait at least another month to mention them. In brief, here’s the books I will be writing full length reviews for later.

Shattered Pillars by Elizabeth Bear
The sequel to Range of Ghosts is every bit as good as the previous book. It’s beautifully written, and I love the characters and story. I also love how magic isn’t a bunch of hand-waving but requires actual knowledge to do correctly. This is one of my two favorite books I’ve read so far this year.

River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay
I have talked about this one a little since I interviewed Guy Gavriel Kay recently, and this is my other favorite book I’ve read so far this year. I loved the story and characters, and there were some beautifully written passages and reflections in it.

The Best of All Possible Worlds by Karen Lord
I’m still processing what I think of this one. It was definitely an enjoyable book, but I’m also finding it very difficult to review.

One ARC showed up this week, and shortly before writing this a mysterious box of books arrived. It contained books from my wish list but no gift receipt or indication of where they came from. I can only assume they’re for my birthday next week, but you never know… Maybe I’ve taken to ordering books in my sleep!

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

The Shining Girls will be released in hardcover and ebook in the US on June 4, and it will be available in the UK and South Africa in April. An excerpt from The Shining Girls can be read online.

Lauren Beukes has won the Arthur C. Clarke Award and was nominated for the John W. Campbell Award. I haven’t yet read any of her books, but I’m excited to read this since I’ve been hearing her books are quite good.

 

The Time Traveler’s Wife meets The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in this story of a time-traveling serial killer who is impossible to trace–until one of his victims survives.

In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. He stalks them through their lives across different eras until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back.

Working with an ex-homicide reporter who is falling for her, Kirby has to unravel an impossible mystery.

THE SHINING GIRLS is a masterful twist on the classic serial killer tale: a violent quantum leap featuring a memorable and appealing girl in pursuit of a deadly criminal.

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

The Summer Prince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

The Summer Prince, a stand alone young adult science fiction book, was just released the beginning of this month (hardcover, ebook, audiobook). An excerpt from the beginning of the book can be read online.

 

A heart-stopping story of love, death, technology, and art set amid the tropics of a futuristic Brazil.

The lush city of Palmares Três shimmers with tech and tradition, with screaming gossip casters and practiced politicians. In the midst of this vibrant metropolis, June Costa creates art that’s sure to make her legendary. But her dreams of fame become something more when she meets Enki, the bold new Summer King. The whole city falls in love with him (including June’s best friend, Gil). But June sees more to Enki than amber eyes and a lethal samba. She sees a fellow artist.

Together, June and Enki will stage explosive, dramatic projects that Palmares Três will never forget. They will add fuel to a growing rebellion against the government’s strict limits on new tech. And June will fall deeply, unfortunately in love with Enki. Because like all Summer Kings before him, Enki is destined to die.

Pulsing with the beat of futuristic Brazil, burning with the passions of its characters, and overflowing with ideas, this fiery novel will leave you eager for more from Alaya Dawn Johnson.

A Turn of Light by Julie Czerneda

A Turn of Light (Night’s Edge #1) by Julie E. Czerneda

Julie Czerneda is best known for science fiction and this is her first fantasy novel. It was released earlier this month (massive trade paperback, ebook, audiobook). The first chapter is available online.

I have heard that Julie Czerneda’s SF is great, and I’ve also been hearing that this book is really good so I’m excited about reading it.

 

The village of Marrowdell is an isolated pioneer community, but it is also the place where two worlds overlap, and at the turn of light–sunset–the world of magic known as the Verge can briefly be seen.

Jenn Nalynn belongs to both Verge and Marrowdell, but even she doesn’t know how special she is–or that her invisible friend Wisp is actually a dragon sent to guard her… and keep her from leaving the valley. But Jenn longs to see the world, and thinking that a husband will help her reach this goal, she decides to create one using spells. Of course, everything goes awry, and suddenly her “invisible friend” has been transformed into a man. But he is not the only newcomer to Marrowdell, and far from the most dangerous of those who are suddenly finding their way to the valley…

A Vision of Light by Judith Merkle Riley

A Vision of Light (Margaret of Ashbury Trilogy #1) by Judith Merkle Riley

Book 1 in a completed trilogy, A Vision of Light is followed by In Pursuit of the Green Lion and The Water Devil.

 

The bestselling novel that introduces Margaret of Ashbury and launches a trilogy featuring this irrepressible woman

Margaret of Ashbury wants to write her life story. However, like most women in fourteenth-century England, she is illiterate. Three clerics contemptuously decline to be Margaret’s scribe, and only the threat of starvation persuades Brother Gregory, a Carthusian friar with a mysterious past, to take on the task. As she narrates her life, we discover a woman of startling resourcefulness. Married off at the age of fourteen to a merchant reputed to be the Devil himself, Margaret was left for dead during the Black Plague. Incredibly, she survived, was apprenticed to an herbalist, and became a midwife. But most astonishing of all, Margaret has experienced a Mystic Union—a Vision of Light that endows her with the miraculous gift of healing. Because of this ability, Margaret has become suddenly different—to her tradition-bound parents, to the bishop’s court that tries her for heresy, and ultimately to the man who falls in love with her.

Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay

Sailing to Sarantium (The Sarantine Mosaic #1) by Guy Gavriel Kay

Having LOVED Tigana and River of Stars, I must now read all the books written by Guy Gavriel Kay! I was told that this was a good one.

Sailing to Sarantium has one sequel, Lord of Emperors.

 

Crispin is a master mosaicist, creating beautiful art with colored stones and glass. Summoned to Sarantium by imperial request, he bears a Queen’s secret mission, and a talisman from an alchemist. Once in the fabled city, with its taverns and gilded sanctuaries, chariot races and palaces, intrigues and violence, Crispin must find his own source of power in order to survive-and unexpectedly discovers it high on the scaffolding of his own greatest creation.

Review of Fade to Black by Francis Knight
Mar
25
2013
Fade to Black
by Francis Knight
384pp (Paperback)
My Rating: 5/10
Amazon Rating: 3.2/5
LibraryThing Rating: 3/5
Goodreads Rating: 3.51/5
 

Francis Knight’s debut novel, Fade to Black, is the first book in the Rojan Dizon trilogy. Fade to Black was released last month, and the rest of the trilogy will be available by the end of this year. The second book, Before the Fall, is scheduled for release in June, and the third book, Last to Rise, is scheduled for release in November.

Magic is not appreciated in the towering city of Mahala. It was once used to power the city until the substance synth was developed, removing the need to depend on magic practitioners, who often went mad and caused chaos. The mage king was overthrown and beheaded by the Ministry, and mages in Mahala went into hiding—-or worse, were sent to the ‘Pit when discovered.

Rojan Dizon is a licensed bounty hunter who uses his forbidden pain magic to locate people, mostly petty criminals and runaways. After a particularly difficult job capturing and returning a clever teenage alchemist to her parents, Rojan returns to the office to discover a message from his brother Perak. This is unexpected since Rojan and Perak parted on bad terms nearly 8 years ago, and the two have not been in touch since. After Rojan last saw him, Perak has made a great invention and risen to the rank of Cardinal, married, and had a daughter. Perak contacts Rojan because he needs his skills at finding people: Perak himself was shot, his wife was shot and killed, and his daughter was kidnapped by the gunmen.

Despite the rift between him and his brother, Rojan doesn’t hesitate to agree to find his missing niece—and continues this quest even after discovering the Ministry appears to be involved somehow. Rojan’s gut is telling him he’ll find his niece in the ‘Pit and his magic confirms this, leading him to devise a way to get into the lowest part of the city, find her, and return her to her father as quickly as possible.

While Fade to Black is a mildly entertaining book, the story, writing, characterization, and plot are not particularly well done or unique, and there is nothing that makes it a book that demands to be read when there are so many other books to read. It’s a fast-paced, dark-toned book told from the perspective of a narrator who is rough around the edges and trying to survive in a corrupt city. The setting is promising with the physical structure of the city, its history, and the combination of fantasy and dystopia, but it also has a lot of basic similarities to other settings in speculative fiction. (Of course, this is the first book of three, so it’s entirely possible that this was just an introduction and it will be explored in more depth later!)

The strongest element of Fade to Black is the development of the city of Mahala and its rule by the Ministry. The highest people are in the “Clouds,” looking down on those below them. In fact, everyone looks down on those below them, and the city’s structure quite literally represents the highest and the lowest. The Ministry have controlled everything since removing the king, from controlling magic to supplying synth to replace the use of magic. Once it was learned that synth killed people, they replaced it with the mysterious and less effective substance Glow. Magic does come with a price since it’s bought with pain, though it doesn’t have to be the magic user’s own suffering. Even aside from that, magic can cause mages to go insane and Rojan fears giving in and letting magic control him more than he does the pain, though he doesn’t particularly like that aspect of it, either. I enjoy seeing balances in systems so I really liked that magic use required sacrifice, but at the same time, I’ve read books with similar disadvantages to practicing magic. Likewise, the city under the thumb of the corrupt government is not a new concept, and while it was intriguing on the surface, there wasn’t enough depth to make it truly stand apart from all the other books utilizing this same type of idea.

Likewise, Rojan was a fairly typical character having commonalities with many others in books I’ve read before—the flawed type with a jaded past and tough exterior that appears to be hiding a decent person underneath in some ways. He’s had a difficult past, and his present is also difficult since he has to hide his abilities in order to survive. He acts tough, but he also seems like a product of his struggles and harsh environment since he also seems to be a bit softer than he’d like to admit. At the beginning of the book, he captures a teenage runaway and he’s not immune to sympathy with her plight when she begs him not to return her to her family. Having met her terrible parents, Rojan cannot blame her. He does tend to think about following his own rules of survival first, and he does return her to her family in the end since her father is an important person in the Ministry who could make his life quite miserable. Yet, he also realizes she’s clever enough to escape again, and before he returns her and collects his money, he shows her where she can go the next time she runs away. He also has rules that apply to not harming others, such as not using other people’s pain for his magic, and he doesn’t always follow his practical rules for remaining alive. Rojan doesn’t hesitate to help his estranged brother when there’s a chance he may be able to recover his daughter for him, despite the great risk to himself. That said, he’s not completely sympathetic since he is a womanizer who doesn’t treat the women he’s dating very well (such as, informing any of them of the existence of the others or seeming to really care about any one of them). The other characters seem rather one-note, with the more developed ones being influenced by their pasts with one or two motivating forces.

Fade to Black was a diverting, quick read, but it didn’t offer me anything numerous other books could not. The setting was intriguing, but it also wasn’t developed enough to truly shine. The gritty noir feel and rough-around-the-edges main character also seemed like elements I’d read many times before. Fade to Black was not a bad way to spend some time, but it was not a book that made me take notice or made me want to continue reading the series.

My Rating: 5/10

Where I got my reading copy: ARC from the publisher.

Read an Excerpt from Fade to Black

Other Reviews of Fade to Black:

The Leaning Pile of Books
Mar
24
2013

The Leaning Pile of Books is a feature where I talk about books I got over the last week – old or new, bought or received for review consideration. Since I hope you will find new books you’re interested in reading in these posts, I try to be as informative as possible. If I can find them, links to excerpts, author’s websites, and places where you can find more information on the book are included.

This week, one ARC and three review copies showed up in the mail. One of these has already been mentioned in one of these posts when the ARC showed up: River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay, which will be released in hardcover and ebook on April 2. I have already read this one and thought it was excellent, and it’s my favorite book I’ve read this year so far. Last week I posted an interview with Guy Gavriel Kay about this upcoming book and his writing, and he had really interesting answers.

On to the other books!

Zenn Scarlett by Christian Schoon

Zenn Scarlett by Christian Schoon

This first book in a new young adult science fiction series will be released in trade paperback and ebook in the US and Canada on May 7. It will be available in B-format paperback in the UK and Australia on May 2. There is currently a Goodreads giveaway for 3 copies of Zenn Scarlett, and those from several countries are eligible to win.

I am incredibly excited about reading this book! The author contacted me awhile ago to see if I wanted an ARC when they were available, and I was immediately intrigued by the premise of a character training to be a veterinarian specializing in alien life forms on Mars. I wanted to be a veterinarian myself when I was young, and I just love this concept. And the cover is quite striking, too!

 

When you’re studying to be exoveterinarian specializing in exotic, alien life forms, school… is a different kind of animal.

Zenn Scarlett is a resourceful, determined 17-year-old girl working hard to make it through her novice year of exovet training. That means she’s learning to care for alien creatures that are mostly large, generally dangerous and profoundly fascinating. Zenn’s all-important end-of-term tests at the Ciscan Cloister Exovet Clinic on Mars are coming up, and, she’s feeling confident of acing the exams. But when a series of inexplicable animal escapes and other disturbing events hit the school, Zenn finds herself being blamed for the problems. As if this isn’t enough to deal with, her absent father has abruptly stopped communicating with her; Liam Tucker, a local towner boy, is acting unusually, annoyingly friendly; and, strangest of all: Zenn is worried she’s started sharing the thoughts of the creatures around her. Which is impossible, of course. Nonetheless, she can’t deny what she’s feeling.

Now, with the help of Liam and Hamish, an eight-foot sentient insectoid also training at the clinic, Zenn must learn what’s happened to her father, solve the mystery of who, if anyone, is sabotaging the cloister, and determine if she’s actually sensing the consciousness of her alien patients… or just losing her mind. All without failing her novice year….

Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta

Finnikin of the Rock (The Lumatere Chronicles #1) by Melina Marchetta

Finnikin of the Rock, winner of the Aurealis Award for Best Young Adult Novel and the first book in a young adult fantasy trilogy, is available now. The second book, Froi of the Exiles, has also been released. Quintana of Charyn, the third book, will be released in the US on April 23, 2013. (It appears to already be out in Australia, where Melina Marchetta lives, and may be available in some other countries now, too.) An excerpt from Finnikin of the Rock can be read on the publisher’s website.

The cover quote by Kristin Cashore calling it “Dark and beautiful and utterly believable” has me very excited about reading this.

 

2008 Printz Award Winner Melina Marchetta crafts an epic fantasy of ancient magic, exile, feudal intrigue, and romance that rivets from the first page.

Finnikin was only a child during the five days of the unspeakable, when the royal family of Lumatere were brutally murdered, and an imposter seized the throne. Now a curse binds all who remain inside Lumatere’s walls, and those who escaped roam the surrounding lands as exiles, persecuted and despairing, dying by the thousands in fever camps. In a narrative crackling with the tension of an imminent storm, Finnikin, now on the cusp of manhood, is compelled to join forces with an arrogant and enigmatic young novice named Evanjalin, who claims that her dark dreams will lead the exiles to a surviving royal child and a way to pierce the cursed barrier and regain the land of Lumatere. But Evanjalin’s unpredictable behavior suggests that she is not what she seems — and the startling truth will test Finnikin’s faith not only in her, but in all he knows to be true about himself and his destiny.

Rebel Angels by Michele Lang

Rebel Angels (Lady Lazarus #3) by Michele Lang

Rebel Angels, the final book in the Lady Lazarus trilogy following Lady Lazarus and Dark Victory, was released in hardcover and ebook on March 12. An excerpt from Rebel Angels can be read on tor.com.

 

Magda Lazarus has twice come back from the dead to fight the Nazis’ devastating conquest of Poland. To prevent the Holocaust her sister has seen in terrible visions, Magda will need the Heaven Sapphire, a gem powerful enough to defeat even the demon Asmodel. With the future of all Europe in the balance, Magda and her husband, the fallen angel Raziel, begin a perilous journey to the Caucasus, the resting place of the fabled stone.

Surrounded by Germans, Russians, and mistrustful Azerbaijani tribesmen, Magda must summon all her magic to withstand the predations of the deadly supernatural foes. But more dangerous yet is the power of the Sapphire itself, which could stop Hitler…or destroy Magda.

Rebel Angels, the climactic book of Michele Lang’s Lady Lazarus trilogy, filled with suspense, magic, and action, will have readers at the edge of their seats until the exciting conclusion.