La Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1) by Philip Pullman
This is the first of Pullman's novels I've read. It was good, and I'd recommend it. It's the beginning of a series, which is good, because I'm not sure what's going on with a lot of elements of the story and the magic system. It's an interesting take on an alternate England where elements of magic and the church are intermingled.
You'll probably want to read Pullman's
His Dark Materials trilogy, set in the same universe, for more on the system and the church and whatnot.
Well, another monthish, another procrastination update...
Recently Read SF/F:
Sparrow Hill Road (Book 1 of the the Ghost Roads series, Seanan McGuire, horror/fantasy, paperback): The camp fire story/urban legend of the Phantom Prom Date gets to tell her own story, a tale of a hidden twilight America where roads channel power, vehicles can have souls, and hitchhikers can be ghosts. Rose Marshall was just sixteen when she was run off the road on the night of her prom, a victim of Bobby Cross. Cross sold his soul at a crossroads in a bargain for immortality, price to be paid in harvested souls, but the dead Rose got away before he could catch her... and she's been fleeing him for decades since as a hitcher ghost. Only she's getting tired of running, tired of knowing Bobby Cross is out there taking more victims as he tried to take her. Somebody has to stop him - someone like the forever prom girl Rose.
As I've come to expect from McGuire, this is a well-paced and utterly absorbing story, creating an American roadside mythology of lost spirits and lost roadways. Rose is a gutsy heroine, no longer the sweet small town girl she used to be, up against a terrifying villain in Bobby Cross. The book is actually a collection of short stories, though it builds toward a solid arc and climax as it goes. Sometimes fun, sometimes sad, sometimes bitter and sometimes sweet, I enjoyed it greatly and am looking forward to the sequel.
WE3 (issues 1 - 3, Grant Morrison, graphic novel/SF, Nook via Hoopla): A prototype program created the WE3 unit out of three former housepets - the dog 1, the cat 2, and the rabbit 3 - a cybernetically enhanced tactical strike team that puts no human soldiers at risk while being devastatingly effective in field operations. But with funding secured and the new model ready to unveil, the prototypes are to be destroyed like any obsolete tech... only nobody consulted the animals, who have a rudimentary grasp of English thanks to their enhancements. They escape, beginning a bloody flight across the countryside in search of a place they dimly recalled, a place where they won't have to hunt or kill called "home."
In the vein of Richard Adams's Plague Dogs, this is a brutal, gory tale of how inhuman humanity can be, an unsubtle condemnation of both war and military animal usage. Some of the action sequences are a bit choppy and hard to follow and the gore soon loses its shock value, but it does a decent job getting into the heads of its nonhuman cast. A decent read, with a few powerful and memorable moments.
A Darker Shade of Magic (Book 1 of the Shades of Magic series, V. E. Schwab, fantasy, paperback): Once there were four parallel worlds, with four Londons standing side by side on the same plot of land... but then Black London fell, consumed by its own magic. To protect themselves, the other three closed their doors, which can now only be crossed by rare blood mages. Three centuries later, Red London thrives, Grey London has all but forgotten what little magic it still has, and White London has become a haunted place as a power-hungry populace resort to ever more desperate measures under a succession of increasingly cruel monarchs.
Kell, one of two remaining blood mages, hails from Red London but feels at home in none, for all that he was adopted by royalty. He runs a small smuggling ring on the side, illegally carrying trinkets from the different Londons to paying collectors... but his latest trinket is anything but harmless, a relic of forbidden Black London that holds unimaginable power. He flees with it to Grey London... and into the path of Lila, a thief determined to make a name for herself and find an Adventure to live. The two are forced to become allies when the dark stone's powers are unleashed, threatening all three remaining Londons.
This one took a while to grow on me, for all that it's reasonably fast paced. Lila starts out selfish and a bit stupid when she first encounters magic, and Kell begins the story rather broody and sullen. For some reason, I kept envisioning Kell as an anime character, what with his broody nature and the way his hair is described as falling over one eye. In any event, it turns into a decent, action-oriented tale, if with a few too many cuts to side characters that don't always pan out.
Currently Reading SF/F:
Ghost Talkers (Mary Robinette Kowal, fantasy, paperback): In an alternate WWI, England's top-secret Spirit Corps take reports from recently-killed soldiers on the front lines, an invaluable intelligence tactic... but the Germans may be figuring out how the allies are keeping up with their maneuvers, and traitors within the base may be about to strike at the heart of the operation. Unfortunately, the top brass don't like listening to women, which most of the mediums are, brushing off the news as mere fancy: it's up to Ginger, the woman who took a murdered soldier's last report, to uncover the plot on her own.
Just started this one a couple nights ago. Interesting premise and decent characters so far.
And I'm poking at a SF title on my Kindle (Jo Clayton's
Skeen's Leap, about an interplantery Laura Croft-type artifact hunter who has stumbled onto a Big Find), but haven't committed to finishing yet. I think I will, but there's enough wobbliness in the writing that I might give it up. We'll see how the next chapter or so goes...