The Meaning of Night review

The Meaning of Night: A Confession by Michael Cox is a commitment read.  A thick book replete with ubiquitous footnotes, mostly antiquarian in nature, this is no mere summer read.  That’s not to say it isn’t a page turner; upon making the commitment, a reader will be duly rewarded by the author.  There is a murder in the opening pages, but this is no ordinary mystery.  The narrator confesses to the crime immediately, then spends the remainder of the tale explaining his motive for the random act of violence.  The narrator/confessor, Edward Glyver, is well acquainted with the seven deadly sins, but less acquainted with his own past.  As he indulges in the former and investigates the latter the mysteries begin to emerge from the London fog.  As the reader travels long distances through tenements and lordly estates with the narrator, it becomes the sympathetic quest of an unsympathetic character. This is the accomplishment of the author’s craft, the twist of the knife.

Second Act

I don’t suppose it is possible to post a spoiler for a book that came out last year, but with the third book in the series (The Hero of Ages) due out next month, I’m inclined to be a little guarded with my review of The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson.  Let it be sufficient then to say that this book holds its place well as the second act of the drama known as the Mistborn Series.  In the tradition of Orwell and Zamyatin, Sanderson’s revolutionaries who succeeded in toppling the Lord Ruler in Mistborn: The Final Empire have become the new government in The Well of Ascension.  The former gang of thieves now serve as counselors to the young king Elend Venture, an idealist whose entrenched faith in equality before the law threatens his own rule.  In addition to the threat from within, Elend’s throne is threatened from without by two human armies (one led by his own father) and an army of giants.  All four groups are afflicted by The Deepness, a devastating force held at bay by the Lord Ruler which seems to be returning in his absence.  It’s up to Vin, a young Allomancer who slew the Lord Ruler, to protect the man she loves and his foundling kingdom by discovering the secret of the fabled Well of Ascension.  The Lord Ruler used its power to create new races, drastically alter the landscape, and establish his cruel imperial rule over it all.  How will Vin use it, if she can even locate it?  Will she sacrifice all that she holds dear in order to save it?  And what will I read between the second and third acts of this terrific series?

Pandemonium review

As a comic book and Philip K. Dick fan, the premise of this book had me hooked.  Pop culture archetypes have spawned demons that possess human hosts, temporarily transferring their supernatural, albeit one-dimensional, abilities to the host, who is left with no memory of their possessed behavior.  The host may also be missing body parts and more, depending on the demon.  The narrator of Pandemonium by Daryl Gregory is Del, a man whose life was left in shambles by his childhood possession by a demon named The Hellion.  One of the less harmful demons (relatively speaking), The Hellion fits the same archetype as Dennis the Menace and tends to choose as his host young boys who fit the same bill.  Something went awry for both Del and The Hellion during the possession: The Hellion never left.  Del feels its presence in his mind and seeks out any and all options to exorcise it, which leads him into the paths of characters like VALIS, the intergalactic logical entity that possesses the form of Philip K. Dick and Mother Mariette, an Irish nun who possesses Del’s body in her own wicked way.  The concept is well-executed by Gregory, a decorated short-story writer, with an ending that is both plausible and satisfying in an untidy fashion befitting the title of the book.

The Stress of Her Regard review

Fans of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova (such as myself) sit up and take note: Tachyon Publications has reissued The Stress of Her Regard by Tim Powers.  Originally published in 1994, this is a dark, decadent, Romantic fantasy.  That’s Romantic with a capital R, as Byron, Keats, and Shelley are all characters in this immensely imagined and thoroughly researched novel.  The protagonist, one Michael Crawford, is carousing the night before his wedding when he places his intended’s ring on the finger of a marble statue for safe keeping.  His intentions fail his intended; she is brutally murdered on their wedding night.  Crawford flees from the authorities and his ghastly memories straight into the company of the poets and the demonic nephelim which regard them.  In exchange for inspiring their greatest literary works, the nephelim (or lamia) preserve their lives while demolishing the lives of everyone they hold dear.  Many authors have noted that there is blood on their pages; in The Stress of Her Regard Powers takes that metaphor to its furthest extent.  This book is utterly fantastic.  I’m placing it in my top ten, and I’m going to brush up on my Keats and Shelley to see if I can trace the incredible connections which Powers made into a phenomenal novel.