Goodreads review – PALANTIR PRESS

MAKING MONSTERS

An oddly heartwarming dystopia

240 pages, $2.99 on Kindle. Dystopian humor.

Summary: Ozark and a “misfit toys” collection of co-conspirators—gamer, pole dancer, assassin, gay actor and so forth–must overthrow the United Corporations of America (Health, Energy, Defense etc.) while surviving and/or escaping their quasi prisoner/slave existence. They struggle at it for a while, but are overcome by events. The End.

Review: The plotline and world-building are the simplest of threads, straightforward from oddly intriguing and mysterious kick-off chapters to gentle build in the middle and gallop to a mighty and powerful end. The treat here is the characters, a huge and high quality chocolate box of unique and delicious characters. We’ve got generals airlifted in from Dr. Strangelove. As mentioned above, a pole dancer with a heart of gold. Several gamers, hardcore, and their evil bot opponents. Murderous assassin-roommates. A handsome gay actor with a flair for on-stage revolutionary fervor. Our hero, Ozark, of course, but I will leave the reader to discover him. Author Joe Turk is a marvelous character builder. Even the minor characters linger with you, each with their own speech and behavior patterns and perfect reality. The storyline and world are social commentary sketches, more absurd than strictly plausible, powerfully but non-didactically skewering our crony capitalist current reality by taking it to absurd extremes and then letting events unfold. The author also takes aim at online dating sites, military leaders, and seed manufacturers, among other fun explorations.

I loved the writing. Unobtrusive when the action was galloping along, full of delicious observations and turns of phrases during slower periods, this book was a true pleasure to read. From the first chapter, I relaxed into the absurdities and trusted the author, for I felt safe in the hands of a mad master. The book might piss off a few ardent regulation-hating capitalists, but anyone with a sense of humor will enjoy it. Little tricks, like a chapter number countdown, demonstrate the intelligence and craft behind every line. I suppose it is strange to call dystopian novel “heartwarming” but it actually was, in spite of all the tragedies, and the dead people, and the insect-things, and the end of the world as we know it.

Recommendation: I happily recommend this book for those who like dystopian fiction mixed with a little gently humorous social commentary. The writing and craft are top-notch. Some sexy moments and cartoon violence, but nothing gross or graphic.

LEGACY OF TRUTH

A tale of love and magic set in 1800s Ireland

358 pages, $5.99 on Kindle. Historical fantasy.

Author Christy Nicholas’s first book in this series, “Legacy of Hunger,” wonderfully demonstrated her love for Ireland and Irish culture and history. This second book, “Legacy of Truth,” keeps those strengths and adds more—memorable characters, powerful conflict and a nuanced exploration of what is family, what is love and how one is to navigate the choices life throws one.

We meet Esme, the “good” twin in a pair of twin sisters, as a young girl nearing young womanhood. Her life is set in motion by two things—her Grandfa bequeathing her a slightly magical heirloom brooch and her selection of a husband from her suitors. Both lead to a schism with her remaining family, as she must leave her home to follow her new husband and conceal from her jealous twin the precious heirloom. Without spoiling the journey for readers, both the brooch and Esme’s continuing decisions about loving companions frame the course of her life and the drama in the story.

The writing is smooth and well-edited, with a vivid and detailed concreteness that beautifully supports the enthralling world created by the author, a world that begins in the 1780s in small towns in Ireland. I greatly enjoyed the flashes of Irish folklore and moments of magic, more organically integrated into the story in this volume than in the first book. The characters are real and human, with distinct personalities and motives. I particularly enjoyed Esme’s friendship with her neighbor Aisling, a surprising and sweet love. Esme herself, while “good” relative to her scheming and ambitious twin Eithne, is flawed and human, struggling with life’s challenges as we all do, and failing at times to be perfect and upright. While I questioned Esme’s decisions and judgment around love at times, I never found them to be forced or false but rather a natural outgrowth of her worldview and understanding as a simple woman in a small town, far from the worlds of sophisticates and lords and ladies. This is not a plot-driven tale of high adventure, but rather a chance to live in and explore another time and place and society through the life of a sympathetic and engaging character.

Recommendation: for readers of historical fiction who enjoy Ireland and the tiniest hint of magic, and well-drawn humble characters living real lives and a gentle tale pulled inexorably forward by the main character’s decisions about how to live her life.

LEGACY OF HUNGER

A compelling tour of 1840s Ireland

288 pages, $4.99 on Kindle, historical fiction/fantasy.

Author Christy Nicholas obviously loves Ireland, Irish legends and the period of history she has chosen to write about, the 1840s in Ireland, the time of the potato blight and much suffering in the Irish common people. Whenever her clean, spare prose turned to Irish faery tales, or descriptions of the land and people, I could see and feel a warm glow on the page as her love for the time and people shone through. There is much to enjoy and savor within these pages, especially for those drawn to the period and the place.

And so I settled in for the story, now on a ship, now in a bumpy carriage, now running from men who would do heroine Valentia harm. Sad things happened, tragic circumstances arose. These tragic events did not rise to the level of drama, in the sense of a purposeful hero pursuing a meaningful end and meeting powerful resistance. They were just sad, tragic distractions on a single-minded journey.

Valentia had goals and motivations aplenty, and Nicholas crafted in her a subtle and nuanced character who did grow and evolve on her bumpy journey. And yet, as a reader, although I rather liked Valentia, carefully drawn flaws and all, and I was perfectly happy to join her on that journey, eventually I found myself waiting for The Story, the heart of her journey, to begin, and it never did, or not in a satisfying way for this reader. When we arrived, rather abruptly, and in strangely summarized form, at the end, I was startled to discover no real hook into the next book in the series, where perhaps The Story proper could begin now that the world and main character had been so carefully drawn.

I struggle to explain what was missing for me, for Valentia did all the things a good hero should do, persisting in the face of obstacles, developing kindness and compassion to overcome defects in her upbringing and blinkers in her world view. She was active, not passive. She made the choices about her journey, not the men or the servants or the mentors she met on her path. If I attempt, imperfectly, to summarize my feeling as a reader, it is that I was a passenger on someone else’s long and circuitous and often colorful and interesting journey, but I never knew where we were going or precisely why, and neither did Valentia, other than her quest to find an old brooch. And that is a terrible summary, for it was clear from the beginning that we were going to Ireland to search for grandmother’s brooch, which may or may not have magical powers, and that is precisely what we did, no matter the many obstacles. I just found myself wanting more powerful motivation than a comfortably raised young woman’s whim to go in search of an old brooch.

I’ve heard it said that “Satisfaction is Reality divided by Expectations,” and perhaps therein lies my personal difficulty with this finely wrought yet ultimately dissatisfying work, the high expectations I brought to the read. I was never quite sure what to expect, although I had been told to expect a historical fantasy, a genre I much enjoy. One of the challenges of the genre is the balance between historical and fantastical elements. Nicholas went heavy on the historical side, which I quite enjoyed by the way, and the care she took in her research shows, with slight hints of the fantasy that burst into full view only at the very end. That is fine, and a perfectly acceptable decision for a creator to make, and yet I found it a bit confusing as a reader, for I found myself waiting for the “fantasy stuff’ to begin and start driving the story but it never really did. The author created a kind of glass pane and distance between the reader and the experience of magic, in that the legends were told and described, as though a scholar were explaining to the reader bits of Irish faery legend, rather than allowing the reader to experience them in person as occurred only very occasionally in the book. Rather we were treated to small bits of Irish faery legends here and there in conversation and a few magical moments, but the fantasy never really took root but felt pasted on at the end. I wonder if a stronger choice in either direction might have been less confusing for readers and avoided some of that impatient waiting feeling I experienced, either light up the fantasy side faster and bigger earlier, or tell a straight historical fiction tale without the magic.

Recommendation: for readers who wish to learn more about Ireland of the 1840s, this is a thoroughly researched and lovingly drawn sketch of Ireland in that time. It lacks drama as a story, although the journey is an interesting and informative one, and the main character appealing in her very human mix of virtues and flaws. I am concerned that more fantasy-oriented readers will find the fantasy dosage less than their hopes and historical fiction readers may find the fantasy altogether too much.

PAGES OF TIME

Imaginative addition to time travel genre

374 pages, $3.99 on Kindle. Science fiction time travel.

Kudos to author Damian Knight for imagining a novel and creative time travel mechanism and using his invention to stir up a nasty brew of terrorism, coercion and ambition whipped up by villainous foes who can only be defeated by a brave sixteen-year-old boy. In this debut novel, Damian Knight slyly sets us down in mundane family drama, slowly turns up the heat to scorch us with family tragedy and then ratchets up the pace and the stakes when he eventually deposits us on the run in a thriller world of gun-brandishing spies and counter spies with national consequences in the balance.

“The Pages of Time” is a high concept story, deriving its power and engagement from the clever mechanism Mr. Knight has imagined for enabling time travel. Like all good magic, this mechanism has costs and limitations. Even when mastered, its powers are not enough to allow our young hero Sam to escape a terrible, soul-charring choice. The ending is spectacular, worth the ride and only visible a page or two before it explodes in the reader’s face. While the story is a standalone, Mr. Knight has set up an industrial-grade titanium hook into a great sequel or series.

The book is smoothly written and scrupulously well-edited, aside from a few rather Germanic capitalization choices here and there which perhaps obey British rules foreign to this American reader. I did not like the writing, smooth and perfectly copy-edited though it was. A screenplay of the same story, plot and characters would be a fast-paced delight, vividly highlighting Mr. Knight’s intricate plotting, memorable visuals and thriller genre black-and-white villains while moving the story along to its brilliant finish. The screenplay version by its very format, conventions and constraints would burn away the distractions and digressions that mar an otherwise good story. Take a blow torch to most of the side character descriptions, most of the domestic drama, most of the “hello, how are you?” chit chat, most of the backstory digressions, most description of mundane moments like the decisions of what tea biscuits to eat or the full read of flight captain’s take-off speech, and the camera would show us clearly and easily where we are in space and time, leaving only a spare and fast-paced imaginative and innovative exploration of time travel and its consequences set in a high stakes thriller world.

On the page as written as a novel, a reader can easily struggle with jumps between heads and time locations. “Is this the young version of that character?” “Are we in present time or the past?” Upon a careful re-reading, to make sure I understood, I saw that Mr. Knight in fact diligently marked these transitions with reminder clues, but his pathfinding breadcrumbs were often obscured by extraneous detail or side dramas or random conversations that did not keep reader focus pinned firmly on the core drama of his story, a teenager’s battle to save his family from the terrible destruction visited upon them by using his powerful–but in the end tightly limited–time travel ability.

My peevish quibbles aside, “The Pages of Time” is a solid addition to the time travel bookshelf, and Mr. Knight exhibits in this first book a great natural gift with plotting, world-building and sheer imaginative scale as well as disciplined care in the editing and presentation required to deliver a quality book. I look forward to his next book in the series.
* * * *
I was given a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.

THE WONDER: BLOOD RED

Madness and Mayhem: a droll and entertaining start to a steampunk fantasy series

210 pages, $2.99 on Kindle, steampunk fantasy

James Devo’s debut steampunk fantasy “Blood Red” is a meticulous marvel of madness. I loved it. I’ll tell you why, of course, for this is a review, not a fan girl rant, but it’s the sort of fun, fantastic, quirky read one could work up a good fan girl rant about. I received a free review copy of this book in exchange for an honest review, and I am so very lucky that I did.

I like steampunk, I like fantasy and I like clever British humo[u]r. So, yes, I admit I was pre-disposed to enjoy this book for genre reasons, for it delivered all three in spades.

The steampunk was lightly done, found mostly in the vaguely Victorian/Edwardian speech and costumes of the characters, settings and the use of steampunk mechanical devices to overcome magical devices. The fantasy was yes, I must use the word, fantastic. Devo developed an intricate and yet stunningly simple magic system, of green, red and blue Wonder, magical substances manipulated by hyperphysicists, of course. For bonus points he developed a fantasy world with layers of backstory and varied settings discovered in pleasing droplets as our heroes and villains pursued their various and often nefarious ends. I finished the book a few days ago, and yet beautiful and terrifying visuals still linger in my brain, from hordes of onrushing Humps, masked Immolators, a Cathedral somehow leaning down and then springing back up, a crystalized world, and a fine library where cognac and fine port are served to gentlemen and pushy adventurous ladies on luxurious leather chairs. I wish I could forget Mandrell’s final state, but alas, he haunts me still.

Best of all was Devo’s humor and skill at sketching characters. Within these pages, look forward to lots of droll character development, very British, dry and funny as hell, from the unfortunate aristocrat Mandrell to the equally/less/more unfortunate warrior Tork, depending on how permanent you prefer your death. Let us not overlook the relentless and insatiable Laurel, the noble and tragic Hilt and all the others of this double ensemble crazy cast of characters. I cannot pretend I was able to keep straight all the characters, but as a rough guide for readers, there’s a bunch of good-ish guys and gals and a second bunch of bad-ish guys and gals, and both groups, with occasional team-switching and double-crossing, are in competitive pursuit of this book’s McGuffin, a Gargoyle key, which is eventually obtained and then in the second half of the book, put to use to reach somewhere previously unreachable, with momentous outcomes in the balance.

I loved the voice and writing. It was just right for the genre, mood and pace of this story, with little bon-bons of delicious humor embedded in what could have been the most prosaic and dull of moments. Devo somehow managed to maintain a rather frenetic feel in the pacing as we rush from battle to siege to oasis to battles anew while still slowing down for bite-sized morsels of back story and character sketching and relationship development that are the delight of this book. The story was rather fractal in nature, if I can use the word that way, in that the big over-arching plot was there, writ large (“Find the key. Use the key. Enjoy the consequences”) but along the way we had many mini-plots and mini-situations unspooling and allowing for more humor, depth and complexity. Don’t for a moment trust the author’s summary guide to characters and terms at the end of the book. It is half-truths, lies and exaggerations, mostly serving as a lame excuse for more humor. Watch the chapter headings carefully, to remind yourself where and when you are, for it can get overwhelming and you could easily get lost without a map and timepiece. That way you will not miss the freeway turnoff to the sad tale of Maisy, one of these fractal side-tales that, I kid you not, brought me to tears at the noble sacrifices made. It was an echo of every great soldierly sacrifice made on behalf of hapless civilians, up to and including Aragorn riding out against the horde when the keep has fallen to give the civilians time to escape.

On craft and presentation, I liked the layout and found the book quite well edited and clean. I am usually quite harsh about typos, and oddly enough the author seems to have misplaced some periods here and there, but spells perfectly and, other than the missing periods, punctuates well. The Humps must have made off with the missing periods, or the Trade stole them to swap for blue Wonder.

Recommendation: Ordinarily I would knock off a star for such craft sins, but I genuinely enjoyed the ride so much I could not bring myself to do it, as my personal enjoyment level was a six on a five point scale. Five stars, for wit, humor, world-building, pacing, wordsmithing, superb and memorable characters and a series I plan to read in full as a paying customer. Highly recommended for fantasy and steampunk fans looking for a new series, as well as anyone fond of British humor. Not recommended for stiffs who take everything too seriously, as they will find it appalling. Not for young and innocent readers, although I believe they would greatly enjoy the originality, creativity, creatures and humor of this world, as children enjoy William Goldman’s “The Princess Bride” although it was written for adults. Perhaps parents could read aloud to their children and edit Mandrell’s difficulties on the fly to something more family-friendly.

CRY FOR ME ARGENTINA

Ordinary people living through extraordinary times–an English couple in Argentina before the rise of Peron

Historical fiction. 353 pages, $4.90 on Kindle

Debut novelist Phyllis Goodwin’s sweeping tale of two ordinary young English people who meet and marry in Argentina between the wars, and all the history that swept around them as they built their simple lives together, accomplishes the most important thing a story can do, in my humble opinion, and that is to move the reader to care about those characters and their story. As the revelations of the final pages fell into place, I found my throat choking up as unpretentious and non-heroic human souls faced truth and responded with courage and humanity. I will not spoil the journey for the reader, but thank the writer for the gift of sharing that journey.

The book could use a good scrubbing by a tough love editor, for sins of punctuation, telling-not-showing, inclusion of extraneous details, point of view shifts and oddly telescoping time shifts within single paragraphs.

And yet, even with all these technical flaws freely admitted, there is much to enjoy and value in this story. Without the story ever bogging down into a history lesson, the reader absorbs much of the rising tension of that time period as the world convulsed not once but twice in world wars, and then once more the reader experiences the tension of the rise of the Peron movement after WWII through the main characters in Argentina. The author’s feel for setting was rich and nuanced; I too love jacarandas, their color and their scent, and have chickens and dream of a duck pond. The characters are individual and unique and memorable, their motivations clear and sharp. Perhaps there are too many lesser side characters cluttering the main narrative, and a sharper editing knife would pare a dozen away, but even the smallest walk-on part seemed to reflect a real individual, not a type, and to echo a variation on an experience in the main characters’ lives in some way. Perhaps all those side characters and meanderings through unrelated stories are not so extraneous after all. The naturalistic style of the narrative, while frustrating at times as it insistently dwelt in details that seemed to take the reader away from the main current of the story, enhanced the sense of real people and real place that is a major strength of this work.

Recommended: for historical fiction readers interested in the role the English played in Argentina in the first half of the twentieth century. I would not consider it a historical romance in the classic genre sense of the term, although the main characters’ clean romance and married relationship is real and believable.

I received a free copy of this work in exchange for a fair and impartial review.

SHINING ONES: LEGACY OF THE SIDHE

Legends of the Sidhe walk the earth again in a modern Irish world

342 pages. $2.99 on Kindle.

Author Sanna Hines’ “Shining Ones: Legacy of the Sidhe” deliciously blends Celtic myth, family drama, old-school questing and classic conflict between (mostly) good and (probably) evil in this epic fantasy. Undergirded by meticulous research and a bold willingness to mix and match old legends with modern blended family challenges, the story kicks off when Julia, a teenager with some odd skills and confusing parentage is kidnapped, and an ever-growing collection of Dananns and friends must rescue her.

Hines’ characters are legion, vivid and individually detailed and motivated. There are too many to keep track of, and I state this firmly as fact, not criticism. (Nobody yells at G.R.R.Martin for having too many characters.) Hines further torments her readers by having her characters sport both English and Gaelic names, change names, hide identities, bear nicknames and occasionally shapeshift. Yes, I cursed Hines out more than once trying to figure out who was who, but as the onion gets peeled and our band of adventurers digs deeper into Hines’ richly imagined world revealing new layers of history, legend and family ties, keeping track of everyone and their loyalties is half the fun. Side-plots of romance and family drama abound as the motley crew pursues the quests of the main narrative of saving Julia and the world as they preferred it remain. Without spoiling discoveries for the reader, I will remind readers that your mother’s advice to treat everyone you meet as important and worthy is well worth bearing in mind as you meet new characters.

The world-building is superb. From the genetics of Formorian and Danann matings and the transmission of talents, to the biology of longevity, through the portals that transport our unruly band of heroes from the United States to the Irish isles, to the complex and internally consistent magic system and the realism of urban and rural modern and legendary Ireland, Hines has created a rich and compelling world.

The craft level here is fully polished and professional, from the story-telling and world-building to grammar, punctuation and formatting.

Recommendation: for fantasy readers interested in Celtic myth and legend, who love a richly detailed world and the complexity of a huge cast of characters and an ultimately nuanced battle for the future of the world, where good and evil are shaded in gray and not simplistic black and white. While several main characters are young people, this is no dumbed down YA fantasy ruled by mighty and precocious teenaged Chosen Ones, but instead features characters of all ages with adult concerns and challenges. If you are looking for an easy read, you’ll hate this. If you are looking for a richly detailed world and characters so real you feel you could look them up and visit them, you’ll love this book. Some readers may find all the characters overwhelming; for my part I loved the complexity of the world, the conflict, and the new discoveries about the characters that emerged along the journey. If you love modern fantasy, read this book and watch this talented author to see what she does next.

SALVATION’S DAWN

A worthy addition to the epic fantasy canon by Joe Jackson.

446 pages, Kindle and paperback

“If it so pleases you, we will fire dance in his honor.”

This story is a treasure, a work of art, a labor of love and a magical artifact. Weighing in at 446 pages and something near 200,000 words, Joe Jackson’s first foray in epic fantasy nails both epic and fantasy. Featuring the rare strong female lead, who is not human but demon-hunter, black and winged, but simultaneously all female and all warrior, Jackson’s world and heroine are fresh and unique.

First, to the naysayers. Yes, the story starts slow. For the world-building is intricate, detailed, lovingly crafted and real. I know Kari’s world, for I have now smelt it, tasted it, heard it, learned of its gods and demons. I call this not fault but beautiful slow-building power and solidity, a concreteness and reality that make Jackson’s world as real to me as Tolkien’s or Le Guin’s or Salvatore’s worlds. Is there too much explanation and back story and arcane detail? Possibly. But if you are a reader who is looking for your next great fantasy world and characters to fall in love with and pursue through hundreds of rich and glorious pages, you will not mind the slow pace of the first half or the detailed descriptions of races and lands and history but rather will revel in them.

For gamers, of both the dice or digital tribes, you will instantly know the distinctions between rogues and wizards, healers and tanks. If you, of those tribes, enjoy the RPG part of MMORPGs, you will love this book. And if you are a dice-throwing D&D fanatic, you will have found your ancestral home. If you have no idea what I am talking about, this beautiful rich world and its gloriously complex and detailed heroine may not move you, and so you should pass by, and read something simpler and less demanding. But if you are of either of those tribes, then you must make this journey, alongside Kari, demon-hunter.

I do not want to give away details of the plot, or Kari’s relationships with her fellows the Silver Blades, or her fascinating back story, for these are pleasures due the worthy reader. But any book that begins with a bath and a double god-hammer and ends with a fire dance promises a strenuous and adventurous journey, slow though its start may be. The fighting is rare but physical and visceral, with a Special Forces concreteness that makes the moments memorable. The sex is loving and based in relationship. The conversations are between real and distinctive characters, with individual motivations and agendas.

Jackson has fashioned an amazing world and a brilliant heroine. I look forward to the next installment in the Eve of Redemption series and highly recommend this work to fans of epic, gargantuan fantasy.

THE DRAGON’S CASTLE

A fresh and engaging take on the making of a wizard, this second book in the Apprentice Series by prolific and award-winning fantasy, science fiction, YA and spirituality writer James Cardona shows his fantasy and YA background.

604 pages, $4.99 Kindle, $24.99 paperback

Bel, a new graduate of Lasaat, the elite school for wizards, now serves as apprentice to forest archmage Nes’egrinon. Before he can even recover from wounds suffered in the quest to win his mage staff, Bel and his master must answer an urgent summons and rush to the capital to help King Thrashel save his throne and his realm. Bel and Nes’egrinon are soon plunged into a cascade of challenges: succession battles, wizardly corruption, multiple hostile armies and the much-reviled foreign avian wizards, not to mention mighty creatures bent on humanity’s destruction. Bel must also face his own greatest personal challenge, his love for Shireen, the woman he can never have if he is to achieve his full potential as a wizard.

Written for a young adult audience, this second book in multiple-award-winning author James Cardona’s Apprentice Series covers familiar ground—the training of a wizard—in fresh and engaging ways. Older and more mature than Harry Potter and his friends at Hogwarts, Bel and Shireen must together grapple with the terrible trade-off at the heart of their quest to become wizards, the requirement that they abandon all hopes of love and marriage, even as their love rekindles and grows ever deeper and more passionate. More earnest, dutiful and altruistic than the edgy, cool, pot-smoking, alcohol-guzzling magician college students of Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians” series, Bel and Shireen must make life-changing decisions while learning their wizardly powers, dodging various enemies and watching their elders grapple with the consequences of their own youthful decisions. Less formidably confident than Mother of Dragons Khaleesi from G.R.R. Martin’s “The Game of Thrones” series, these young apprentices are approachable, fallible and engaging heroes, their interactions with each other and their masters leavened with a gentle humor as they struggle, fail and rise to try again and make wise decisions without half the knowledge and wisdom they need.

Uniquely wonderful is the author’s ability to take the reader into the minds of the young apprentices as they struggle to learn their craft, whether it be sensing the forest and the life force of all the creatures it contains, sending oneself out into the world or peering into another’s mind. Even more thrilling are the moments when the reader gets to experience the same skills now masterfully exercised through the viewpoint of their experienced masters at the fullest extent of their powers. Author Cardona exercises a rich and vivid imagination, taking the reader on an exciting, well-paced and always surprising journey through a complex and concrete world. Whether it be political maneuvering, pitched battles, magical fights or courtly marriage ceremonies, Cardona tells his tale in memorable detail.

I admire the complexity and depth Cardona brings to this young adult tale and the respect he has for his readers. He does not insult his young readers with over-simplification and a dumbed-down vocabulary. Relish with me “the fetor of death,” for example. Or the speech of the Tundric officers, with their echoes of the poems of the Icelandic Viking sagas like “game of iron” or “swords covered in the dew of men’s blood.” His political setting of warring realms under outside threat carries echoes of the warring but inter-related Anglo-Saxon realms on the eve of the Viking invasions that eventually unified England. He explores the ancient and persistent trade-off between a spiritual vocation and an ordinary layman’s life through both his young apprentices, standing on the precipice of their decisions, and through the lives of their old masters, who have had to live with their decisions. While his heroes are moral and generous, they are also prey to selfish urges, lapses into cowardice and thoughtlessness. In short, they are very human and real. And oh! He does marvelous things with the great creatures awakened in his story.

Definitely a worthwhile and engaging read, but a few problems bear mentioning. Typographical slips and jarring word choices and repetitions occasionally marred my experience of this magical adventure. Language choices veered from courtly formality (“My good king!”) to contemporary informality (“you know,” “neurotic kook”). I was unsure whether these were attempts at humor or just sloppy style. I hate sounding pedantic about such details when the story, world and characters are so well imagined and engaging, but I believe it hurts the cause of indie publishing when self-published authors release work that does not meet traditional professional editing standards.

In spite of my gripes about these small flaws, I would strongly recommend this series to young fantasy fans for its unique and memorable spin on the path of the wizard and the vividly imagined experience of being a wizard.

MILLION DOLLAR STAIRCASE

276 pages $4.99 on Kindle

Author: David Crosby. Mr. Crosby is an award-winning photo-journalist making his novelist debut with this book, first in his Will Harper mystery series.

Former journalist Will Harper struck it lucky when Aunt Dotty kicked the bucket and left him enough to kiss his job goodbye and buy a boat. Then his luck runs even hotter when the attractive French-speaking owner of the run-down marina where he parks his boat gets romantic. But they’ve got trouble with a capital “T” because evil developers want the city fathers to wield the weapon of eminent domain to bulldoze her marina and put up a million dollar staircase, ADA-compliant, of course, in the middle of their new development. With the help of a hotshot lawyer who owes him a favor and armed with his journalistic sleuthing skills, fearless and generous Will swings into action to help his new lady friend.

First, the fun. It’s a sun-drenched Florida coastal setting, with ramshackle bait shacks, live aboard boats, lazy boozy meals, flowered shirts, greedy developers, corrupt local politicians and scary tattooed “muscle.” My apologies for bringing current events into a review, but I write this review in the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign, where it’s the Donald and his eminent domain wielded against little old ladies so he can build a casino parking lot vs. Bernie fighting for the revolution of the little guy against Big Money. Mr. Crosby has written a timely book, and built a fictional world around a real and current issue. He’s definitely fighting for the little guy, or in this case, the lovely Sandy of the French accent who is in danger of losing her marina to the evil developers. The author demonstrates a good grasp of the legalities of eminent domain and the strategies of evil developers and does a solid job of helping the reader understand them as well. He also knows his way around journalism and boats.

Somewhat confusingly, the book is marketed as a mystery. It is not a mystery, or at least it is not mysterious. The villains are introduced straight off as villains, rather selfish and ham-handed villains in fact, and the only mystery is how and when they will receive their come-uppance for being so villainous and dastardly. “Million Dollar Staircase” is not so much a mystery as it is the introductory pilot for what looks to be a private detective series built around the dashing, justice-minded, generous, brave, gentlemanly, independently affluent and conveniently skilled Will Harper. Think of it as an extended character sketch with some fun action sequences as the bad guys are foiled and brought low.

I like Will, although I question his judgment at times…in ways I cannot detail without spilling plot beans. He makes some very strange decisions. Let’s just say I found myself chanting “Call the police!! Call the police!!” several times. I guess hard-boiled detectives-to-be don’t instinctively do that when confronted by awkward corpses. He’s a nice guy, a gentleman, smooth enough with the ladies and treats them well, which is also appealing, but he lacks a certain cluefulness about the fair and mysterious sex. I liked him enough to want to pull him aside a couple of times and just tell him, “Dude, she’s just not that into you…” His difficulties with love form a kind of subplot as a backdrop to all the legal proceedings and action sequences.

Mr. Crosby is a good storyteller, although I’m not sure he’s demonstrated his mystery chops with this book. (Need more…mystery.) I would also quibble with his dialogue style, which is naturalistic to the point of being too real—greetings and small talk–and not as effective as it could be in showing character and pushing the plot along. Minor typos and formatting issues distracted slightly. He’s a great world-builder. I could feel the Florida mugginess and taste the seafood. I enjoyed his little guys and gals vs. the Big Bad Money Boys plot. His characters are colorful and memorable enough if not particularly complex. The story is conveyed with a warm, earnest upbeat feel, gliding calmly over the occasional murders and kidnappings and difficulties in romance with a gentle humor.

Mystery fans looking for a new series should check out Will Harper, perfectly positioned at the end of Book 1 to start solving crimes and mysteries, although Mr. Crosby’s ability to create mystery and tension remains, in this first pilot book, as yet unproven.