Tag: 5 Stars Page 1 of 21

PUB DAY REPOST: The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett: This Mystery/Fantasy Hybrid is My First 5-Star Read of the Year

The Tainted CupThe Tainted Cup

by Robert Jackson Bennett

DETAILS:
Series: Shadow of the Leviathan, #1
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Publication Date: February 6, 2024
Format: eARC
Length: 432 pg.
Read Date: January 4-9, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

What’s The Tainted Cup About?

This is a Mystery/Detective novel set in a Fantasy world. But to say that almost diminishes it. This is a Fantasy world you’re not used to seeing—well, I’m not anyway, you might be better read in the genre than I am. At the core of the mystery story are tropes, characters, motives, and twists that anyone familiar with that genre will recognize and resonate with. Combining the two genres here only serves to make them better.

The instigating event is the murder of a significant, but not hugely important, military figure on an estate of one of the most powerful and rich families in the Empire. That’s enough to get the official investigator, Ana Dolabra, and her assistant, Dinios Kol, involved. When you add in the cause of death—a clutch of trees erupted from the Commander’s chest—well, that’s definitely going to get some official notice. And quickly put you in a Fantasy world. Feel free to read that cause of death a couple of times, it’s still not going to make sense.

There’s just so much to talk about with The Tainted Cup—I’m going to talk about some of the best parts of this book as you would an Oreo cookie. The Mystery part is the creamy center (at least a Double Stuff in this case), and then the crispy cookie halves of the World Building/Setting and the Science of this World.

The Mystery

I already wrote a section below that quibbles with the official description, and I feel bad about doing that twice (am I risking future NetGalley approvals by this?), but I have to. It starts off by saying, “A Holmes and Watson–style detective duo.” You can maybe stretch things and call Ana Dolabra a Holmes-type character. Maybe. But outside of being the first-person narrator, there is nothing Dr. Watson-esque about Dinios Kol. I do not know if Bennett is a Rex Stout/Nero Wolfe reader. I suspect he is, though, because Dolabra and Kol are firmly in the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin mold. (there are other versions of this duo, Pentecost and Parker and Jake and the Fatman spring to mind, but there are others).

I mention this because I think the duo of Wolfe and Archie is one of the greatest achievements in Detective Fiction, and will joyously talk at length about them at length at any opportunity. Bennett using these types at the center of this book almost automatically guaranteed that I’m going to enjoy it. Particularly if he does it successfully. And, boy howdy, does he.

Ana Dolabra is a brilliant and eccentric figure. Our Nero Wolfe. She can be pressed into politeness with enough reason, but on the whole, she’s blunt, crass, and solely focused on things that interest her. For a variety of reasons, Ana rarely leaves her quarters, instead, she has clues, interviewees, and suspects brought to her (and frequently, those she reports to, too). More than once she brings suspects and interview subjects together to question and/or to reveal a solution, putting on a show for others.

She has a new assistant, Dinios Kol, to serve as her eyes and ears in the outside world—and to bring back those bits of the world she needs to do her work. Thanks to a special augmentation, he has a perfect and permanent memory and will remember entire conversations and things he sees perfectly, with the ability to describe them to the detail Ana needs. He looks at crime scenes, records, bodies, etc. for her, conducts initial interviews with witnesses and experts, and so on. He also seems to do his best to keep her interactions with others at socially-appropriate levels (although this is a challenge). If this isn’t Archie Goodwin to a T.

They’ve been working together for a while now—mostly on fraud cases. This is their first murder case—and they wrap it up quickly and efficiently. Except, Ana is pretty sure that this murder will be linked to others—something more than murder is afoot here, she’s certain. And she’s right. (I assume this is almost always the case—Dinios certainly does)

Soon, she and her assistant are assigned to help in the investigation in a nearby city where several others have been killed in the same way. Dinios is partnered up with an experienced Assistant Investigator, Capt. Tazi Miljin, who does some on-the-job training and mentoring while working the case.

Soon, they determine that this isn’t just a murder case—nor is it several connected murder cases, there is something much bigger going on. Something that puts an entire city—possibly the entire Empire—at risk.

The World

I don’t know that I want to get too in-depth here, because the discovery of it all* is part of the magic of this book.

* And by “all,” I mean all that Bennett is going to share with us in this book—there’s much more to learn in books to come.

We find ourselves in a minor city in an Empire at the beginning of the novel before we move to a larger city, a major center of military importance. We don’t know a lot about this Empire—it’s centuries old, there are civic religions/cults but we see very few true adherents, and many people are cynical about the government. But it doesn’t matter—they need the Empire to keep them alive. So they push on.

The military isn’t focused on other nations/city-states/bands of roving mercenaries or outside human threats (although they do take the time to focus on bands of deserters). Instead, they’re focused on the seas. Each year, during the rainy season, monstrously large sea creatures they dub Leviathans (both think and don’t think about other Leviathans you’ve come across—other than large, water-bound, and scary) attempt to come ashore and snack on humans, cattle, whatever.

Places like Talagray, where we spend most of the novel, exist to maintain the wall between sea and land—leviathan and Empire—it’s a massive wall (massive in a way I cannot get across to you) with the occasional weapons mounted to attack the leviathan. I saw Talagray as sort of Jackson’s vision of Minas Tirith, but flattened to one elevation. I’m not sure if that’s what Bennet was going for, but that’s what my mind saw. Maybe a little muddier.

While the local canton is concerned with the murders, naturally, their primary concern during this season is the maintenance of the wall. Some of these murders have threatened the integrity of the wall in important ways, threatening all of Talagray. As important as solving the murder is—stopping further murders and therefore preventing further damage to the wall is far more important. Also…they probably have something special in store for anyone who’d risk the wall in any way.

The Science

I’m disagreeing a bit here with the official description—so take my observation with a grain of salt (but I stand by it). There’s no magic in this Fantasy novel—which, sure, happens sometimes. But it’s still strange and notable.

What this novel does have is “sufficiently advanced technology [which] is indistinguishable from magic.” It’s not often that I get to apply Clarke’s Third Law this way, but it works. This is a very technological society, but nothing we’d recognize, really. There are no circuits anywhere, no electricity…horses and carts are the primary means of transportation for those who are going too far or need to go too quickly to walk. But they practice all sorts of engineering feats, genetic manipulation, medical marvels, and so on.

The source of their raw materials? The Leviathans that threaten them all. When these Leviathans die/are killed, the Empire’s scientists harvest blood, tissue, and bone for all sorts of things to accomplish the above. Leviathan bone is difficult to shape, but it results in tools and swords that are beyond the strength and endurance of metal. Tissues can be manipulated and applied to humans to extend their abilities (augmenting strength, enabling them to have memories that are like eidetic memory to the nth power, control of their pheromones to alter the behavior of those around them, and so on).

Especially when it comes to the abilities that some of these people have, or the freakish contamination that the murderer is using, in a Fantasy book featuring people on horseback using swords, this looks like magic. But it ain’t. It’s just a kind of science that’s sufficiently advanced that 21st-century Western Readers can’t distinguish. And I love that. Bennett does such a convincing and thorough job of describing this (without getting mired in the details) that it just comes alive and you believe it all—and want to learn more about it.

So, what did I think about The Tainted Cup?

My reflex reaction ought to be, I want more of the detective-y stuff. How could I not? That’s my default genre, Ana is a fantastic character, Dinios at work is so much fun, and the pair of them being new incarnations of Wolfe and Archie. But when you add in the world-building, the intrigue and politics, and all the cool science-y bits? I wouldn’t have it any other way. You need all of it to make something this good. And it really does—each section above would probably earn 4 stars or so from me. But when you put them together, the accumulated score has to be at least 5.

Also, all the other stuff in the book distracts from a couple of the problems with the mystery story. These aren’t significant problems by any means, but at one point Ana reveals that Person X is Person Y, and her assistants are shocked and amazed. I assumed everyone realized that as soon as Person Y was introduced and described. For it to take umpteen chapters for everyone to catch up astounded me (am pretty sure Ana was as fast as me, for the record). The other thing that I’d consider a problem, I won’t get into for spoiler-reasons, but I was distracted enough that I didn’t see it until the reveal. Also, it’s the kind of thing that Rex Stout himself would do, so I’m never going to complain about it. Mostly, because it worked really well for the story, so who cares?

Regular readers may have noted that I haven’t spent that much time talking about the characters. I chose not to for time/space reasons. If I focused on writing about Ana, Dinios, and Miljin alone—I’d double the length of this post. If I included every major character I want to talk about? I’d triple the length. No one wants to read me going on that long. So I’ll sum it up by saying that his characters are just as good and developed (and strange) as everything else I’ve talked about.

Bennett doesn’t show a lot of flair in this writing. It has almost none of Elmore’s “Hooptedoodle”—although he violates a lot of Elmore’s other rules (and does so for the betterment of the novel). This is a description, not a criticism, you’re not going to be wowed with his style. He doesn’t need that. The descriptions of characters, structures, and monsters are so vivid, so detailed you have no problem seeing exactly what he wants you to see (with just enough room for the reader’s imagination). The action scenes are well-executed. The descriptions of the trees growing from outside of a person are as disturbing as they should be. There are flashes of humor, flashes of hope and optimism in both the characters and the story—but it’s all in the shadow of the imminent threat posed by the Leviathans and weakened walls. So there’s a strong “The World May Be Ending Tomorrow if not Tonight” feel throughout. I was under the spell of the narration and story from early on.

I didn’t set out to rave about this book. I was going to enthusiastically recommend it, but as I started to put my notes into some sort of order and write, I discovered that I really needed and wanted to rave about this. Fantasy fans are really going to get into this. Mystery/Detective Fiction fans who aren’t afraid to play in other worlds are going to go nuts over this. And I want to read the next book in the series today. But I’m willing to be patient—The Tainted Cup won’t even be published for 26 days. So I won’t start complaining about the delay in getting the next volume for 90 days (that seems fair).

Go place your orders or library holds now.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Penguin Random House via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.


5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

According to Mark by H. B. O’Neill: No Man Has a Wholly Undiseased Mind…

According to MarkAccording to Mark

by H. B. O’Neill

DETAILS:
Publisher: Fahrenheit Press
Publication Date: February 2, 2024
Format: eARC
Length: 496 pg.
Read Date: November 27-30, 2023

But we are all insane, anyway…The suicides seem to be the only sane people.
—Mark Twain’s Notebook, #40, (Jan. 1897-July 1900)

What’s According to Mark About?

This is tricky to describe, but let’s give it a shot.

Following a bad breakup, a despondent man, Robert, becomes convinced that the spirit of Mark Twain is trying to guide his life and thinking, giving him lessons in the form of quotations from Twain’s works. Eventually, Twain focuses on getting Robert to kill himself. Robert’s eager to follow the lessons of his hero, but things keep interfering with his efforts.

Meanwhile, Robert’s ex, Rebecca, is in therapy trying to deal with the breakup herself.

The novel takes us through Robert’s memories of their relationship while showing us the detritus of his life following the breakup and his efforts to do what Twain is calling him to do. In alternating narrative sections, we see Rebecca’s account of their relationship and we see a little bit of how she’s carrying on. Some of these accounts are synced to give us both perspectives on the events right after each other, some of them come several pages apart so the reader has to do some mental copying and pasting to get a chronological understanding of what happened.

That’s a pretty basic, yet comprehensive, way to tell you what the book is about without giving anything away. And it’s wholly unsatisfactory. Let’s see if I can do better in the next couple of sections.

Rebecca Morely

It’s entirely possible that Rebecca has been in therapy for some time before she and Robert broke up—she strikes me as the kind of person who may have seen therapists throughout her life as a way of staying healthy. Or maybe this is new for her.

Regardless, following the end of their long relationship, she’s in therapy now and her psychotherapist has instructed her to write a letter to herself as a means of coming to terms with the events. Rebecca tells us straight off that she’s struggling with some of the chronology, so we expect that the letter(s) won’t get everything perfectly straight and will hop around a bit, the way memories do. From her, we do get a fairly straightforward account of things between her and Robert—although she does circle around the events that led to their split a little, she doesn’t want to face it.

We see that Rebecca is a sweet woman. A sweet woman who is pushed around a bit by her parents’ expectations and wants for her—one of their big expectations is that she’ll eventually marry someone Rebecca’s known her whole life. He’s essentially an 80s teen movie villain who managed to grow up without Daniel Russo teaching him a lesson by kicking him in the face or Cindy Mancini setting him straight about how to treat women. She’s trapped by her parents expectations, and her understanding of society’s expectations, too.

But she’s finding her own way through that to focus on what’s best for her and what she wants. She wants love, marriage, companionship—and thinks she may have found that (or most of it, anyway) in the eccentric form of Robert. She’s very happy until things start to go wrong in his life and he won’t respond the way she thinks he ought. Little cracks in their foundation start to spread and eventually, things fall apart.

I really liked Rebecca. I empathized and sympathized with her—up to and including her self-recriminations. Possibly because of Robert’s view of her, I couldn’t see her as anything other than a wonderful person who made some tragic mistakes. Their relationship—particularly seen from her point of view—was so sweet even when we know it’s doomed. I found myself rooting for them even harder because I knew it wouldn’t work.

Horatio Robert Foxley

No man has a wholly undiseased mind; in one way or another all men are mad.
—Mark Twain, “The Memorable Assassination”

Robert (who hates the name Horatio), on the other hand…is hard to like (but you will). He’s hard to understand (but you’ll want to). He’s also a pretty unreliable narrator due to the way he sees the world in general, which grows worse as the book progresses. But you’ll get to where you can see through his narration to what’s really going on.

There are clearly a few (possibly several) diagnoses that psychotherapists and their colleagues would give Robert, but he never sees one to be given any diagnoses, medication, or other treatment. It’s tempting to play armchair psychologist and start listing some of them—but I’m going to resist that. O’Neill doesn’t give us the labels or diagnoses, so it’s speculation.

More importantly, this novel isn’t about a person with X. It’s not about his disorder. It’s not about his dealing with whatever issues he has. Those books have their places–and I’ve read my share of them. But O’Neill hastn’t written a novel about a man struggling with or coping with a diagnosis. It’s a novel about a man. It’s about Robert in all his strengths and foibles. He’s a man with many strengths, and some severe weaknesses, like most of us. According to Mark is about Robert’s life and his heart. He’s capable of great love, he’s capable of being loved. And like so many, when some of the supports in his life change or go away, his ability to cope with all the vagaries of life falters. He falters significantly because he needs his supports more than others seem to.

He and Rebecca have a Nancy Meyers-worthy meet cute, and his quirkiness (at least that’s how it comes across initially) attracts Rebecca. They build a life together—sure, she has trouble getting him to fit into hers—her friends and family don’t respond to Robert the way she wants, but they make do. He hits some bumps in the road, and doesn’t respond to them very well. Rebecca responds poorly to his responses.

Then he’s alone and Mark Twain starts whispering in his ear. Robert started reading Twain because of Rebecca, and quickly became a fan. Too much of a fan, one might argue. He read everything Twain wrote that he could get his hands on, and then everything he could about Twain. Rebecca chalked it up to enthusiasm, a sign that he was open to growth and that she had an impact on him—that he respected her opinion. But even she thinks he goes overboard with Twain. He’s driven enough, smart enough, and excessively concentrated enough on Twain that when these whispers start, they are actual quotations that Robert’s absorbed.

Once Twain starts talking to him, whatever was keeping Robert on the rails departs. And we are given a front-row seat to a mind falling apart. It’s horrific when you stop and think about it—but ever so compelling in O’Neill’s hands. More on that later.

Mark Twain

I learned more about Twain—particularly his time in England—than I’d known before thanks to Robert. I mean, O’Neill’s research. And naturally, the quotations that the book is full of make you want to go read more bons mots from him, if not actual works.

But at the same time…Robert becomes a case study in going too far with someone like Mark Twain, and I’ve been reticent to approach his work since then. I don’t think I’d end up like Robert, but…it’s like watching Jaws. You know it’s just a movie, that sharks like that don’t really exist. Buuuuut…maybe you should stay away from beaches/the ocean for a bit, just in case.

The Mark Twain in Robert’s head is an interesting figure—and one has to imagine that the actual Twain would appreciate (on some level) O’Neill’s use of his words.

Can You Laugh at This?

Man, I hope so. There are some moments around the first (that we see, anyway) attempt Robert makes at ending his life that seem to want to make you laugh. I did, anyway—like in Holland’s Better Off Dead—there’s some solid black comedy there (as Twain would want).

But the laughs taper off pretty quickly the more you understand Robert and what he’s going through. Also, his situation and mental health deteriorate steadily, and you forget about laughing and just want the guy to find some help (and, yes, things are already pretty bad as he’s suicidal when we meet him). This doesn’t make the book joyless or tortuous to get through—in fact, absurd moments, and little dashes of (mostly black) humor fill the book.

H. B. O’Neill

You really don’t have to read O’Neill’s website to know he’s a poet. His eye for detail is astounding. There are several instances of him focusing on a feature of a scene, a tiny aspect of Robert’s appearance, or something in his environment that made me put down the book to bask in it for a moment.

You can definitely see his poetry in word choices. There are repeated instances where Robert will look at the street and business signs around him, convinced that Mark Twain is communicating to him through them—the text will just be a string of these signs. And sure, it looks like O’Neill just wandered onto a random city block, took a few notes, and—presto!—had a paragraph for the book. But you know that’s not what happened—instead, he carefully constructed these lines to look like that—and yet to have a wonderful rhythm, provoke just the right images, and push Robert along the way he needs to be. I made a note at one point, “How does someone compose this? How does one revise this?” I’m just going to chalk it up to brilliance and move on.

The prose, the characters, the character arcs…these are all brilliantly conceived and executed, and I just cannot say enough good things about O’Neill’s writing.

So, what did I think about According to Mark?

If you cannot tell at this point, well, then I’ve really done a lousy job. You might want to just go by what I’ve said already because I may start overhyping it here.

This book wrecked me. It dominated my thinking and conversation at the end of November. I became obsessed with it—my friends and family surely got tired of me talking about it as I read on. I started compiling lists of who to recommend it to, who I should just buy it for (the publisher will be happy to know that I have purchased multiple copies already and I’m probably not done). I also have a list of people I’m going to warn away from this book, because, my friends, According to Mark is not for everyone. But the right people are going to love this book.

I’m not sure if I gave too much away above—I don’t think I did. And I tell you truly, I could’ve easily kept going on and on. This is me showing restraint.

It’s hard to put into written form what I want to say about this book. There’s part of Fridland’s Like, Literally, Dude where she shows all the way “Dude” can be used in a conversation with its various shades of meaning. I can see having a conversation with someone who’s read the book largely consisting of those shades.

“So where he makes her a bikini? Oh, dude!”

“And then with the lady at the library? Duuuude.”

“Oh, Dude! The poor dog with the swans!”

“Dude…” (laughter)

and so on. There’s an infamous scene from The Wire with a different four-letter word that would also work as an example of the conversation I could have with someone who’s read it.

But for you, the people that I’m trying to convince to read it? I don’t know how to convey exactly what I want to say.

Trust me. You want to read this. The writing is exquisite. These characters are wonderfully drawn and brought to life by O’Neill. According to Mark entertained me. It horrified me. It moved me. It disturbed me. It rattled me. It broke my heart. It gave me some odd hope. I loathed some of these characters, and loved others to a degree that’s unsettling. It’s been 64 days since I finished this book, and I’ve likely thought about this book on at least 53 of them (and not just because it took me this long to write this post). It’s one of the best books I’ve read in ages, and one I see myself talking about for years to come.

Disclaimer: I was given this eARC from Fahrenheit Press—with no expectation that I’d write anything. But there’s no way I could not say something. Thanks to them for this gift.


5 Stars

Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett: This Mystery/Fantasy Hybrid is My First 5-Star Read of the Year

The Tainted CupThe Tainted Cup

by Robert Jackson Bennett

DETAILS:
Series: Shadow of the Leviathan, #1
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Publication Date: February 6, 2024
Format: eARC
Length: 432 pg.
Read Date: January 4-9, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

What’s The Tainted Cup About?

This is a Mystery/Detective novel set in a Fantasy world. But to say that almost diminishes it. This is a Fantasy world you’re not used to seeing—well, I’m not anyway, you might be better read in the genre than I am. At the core of the mystery story are tropes, characters, motives, and twists that anyone familiar with that genre will recognize and resonate with. Combining the two genres here only serves to make them better.

The instigating event is the murder of a significant, but not hugely important, military figure on an estate of one of the most powerful and rich families in the Empire. That’s enough to get the official investigator, Ana Dolabra, and her assistant, Dinios Kol, involved. When you add in the cause of death—a clutch of trees erupted from the Commander’s chest—well, that’s definitely going to get some official notice. And quickly put you in a Fantasy world. Feel free to read that cause of death a couple of times, it’s still not going to make sense.

There’s just so much to talk about with The Tainted Cup—I’m going to talk about some of the best parts of this book as you would an Oreo cookie. The Mystery part is the creamy center (at least a Double Stuff in this case), and then the crispy cookie halves of the World Building/Setting and the Science of this World.

The Mystery

I already wrote a section below that quibbles with the official description, and I feel bad about doing that twice (am I risking future NetGalley approvals by this?), but I have to. It starts off by saying, “A Holmes and Watson–style detective duo.” You can maybe stretch things and call Ana Dolabra a Holmes-type character. Maybe. But outside of being the first-person narrator, there is nothing Dr. Watson-esque about Dinios Kol. I do not know if Bennett is a Rex Stout/Nero Wolfe reader. I suspect he is, though, because Dolabra and Kol are firmly in the Nero Wolfe/Archie Goodwin mold. (there are other versions of this duo, Pentecost and Parker and Jake and the Fatman spring to mind, but there are others).

I mention this because I think the duo of Wolfe and Archie is one of the greatest achievements in Detective Fiction, and will joyously talk at length about them at length at any opportunity. Bennett using these types at the center of this book almost automatically guaranteed that I’m going to enjoy it. Particularly if he does it successfully. And, boy howdy, does he.

Ana Dolabra is a brilliant and eccentric figure. Our Nero Wolfe. She can be pressed into politeness with enough reason, but on the whole, she’s blunt, crass, and solely focused on things that interest her. For a variety of reasons, Ana rarely leaves her quarters, instead, she has clues, interviewees, and suspects brought to her (and frequently, those she reports to, too). More than once she brings suspects and interview subjects together to question and/or to reveal a solution, putting on a show for others.

She has a new assistant, Dinios Kol, to serve as her eyes and ears in the outside world—and to bring back those bits of the world she needs to do her work. Thanks to a special augmentation, he has a perfect and permanent memory and will remember entire conversations and things he sees perfectly, with the ability to describe them to the detail Ana needs. He looks at crime scenes, records, bodies, etc. for her, conducts initial interviews with witnesses and experts, and so on. He also seems to do his best to keep her interactions with others at socially-appropriate levels (although this is a challenge). If this isn’t Archie Goodwin to a T.

They’ve been working together for a while now—mostly on fraud cases. This is their first murder case—and they wrap it up quickly and efficiently. Except, Ana is pretty sure that this murder will be linked to others—something more than murder is afoot here, she’s certain. And she’s right. (I assume this is almost always the case—Dinios certainly does)

Soon, she and her assistant are assigned to help in the investigation in a nearby city where several others have been killed in the same way. Dinios is partnered up with an experienced Assistant Investigator, Capt. Tazi Miljin, who does some on-the-job training and mentoring while working the case.

Soon, they determine that this isn’t just a murder case—nor is it several connected murder cases, there is something much bigger going on. Something that puts an entire city—possibly the entire Empire—at risk.

The World

I don’t know that I want to get too in-depth here, because the discovery of it all* is part of the magic of this book.

* And by “all,” I mean all that Bennett is going to share with us in this book—there’s much more to learn in books to come.

We find ourselves in a minor city in an Empire at the beginning of the novel before we move to a larger city, a major center of military importance. We don’t know a lot about this Empire—it’s centuries old, there are civic religions/cults but we see very few true adherents, and many people are cynical about the government. But it doesn’t matter—they need the Empire to keep them alive. So they push on.

The military isn’t focused on other nations/city-states/bands of roving mercenaries or outside human threats (although they do take the time to focus on bands of deserters). Instead, they’re focused on the seas. Each year, during the rainy season, monstrously large sea creatures they dub Leviathans (both think and don’t think about other Leviathans you’ve come across—other than large, water-bound, and scary) attempt to come ashore and snack on humans, cattle, whatever.

Places like Talagray, where we spend most of the novel, exist to maintain the wall between sea and land—leviathan and Empire—it’s a massive wall (massive in a way I cannot get across to you) with the occasional weapons mounted to attack the leviathan. I saw Talagray as sort of Jackson’s vision of Minas Tirith, but flattened to one elevation. I’m not sure if that’s what Bennet was going for, but that’s what my mind saw. Maybe a little muddier.

While the local canton is concerned with the murders, naturally, their primary concern during this season is the maintenance of the wall. Some of these murders have threatened the integrity of the wall in important ways, threatening all of Talagray. As important as solving the murder is—stopping further murders and therefore preventing further damage to the wall is far more important. Also…they probably have something special in store for anyone who’d risk the wall in any way.

The Science

I’m disagreeing a bit here with the official description—so take my observation with a grain of salt (but I stand by it). There’s no magic in this Fantasy novel—which, sure, happens sometimes. But it’s still strange and notable.

What this novel does have is “sufficiently advanced technology [which] is indistinguishable from magic.” It’s not often that I get to apply Clarke’s Third Law this way, but it works. This is a very technological society, but nothing we’d recognize, really. There are no circuits anywhere, no electricity…horses and carts are the primary means of transportation for those who are going too far or need to go too quickly to walk. But they practice all sorts of engineering feats, genetic manipulation, medical marvels, and so on.

The source of their raw materials? The Leviathans that threaten them all. When these Leviathans die/are killed, the Empire’s scientists harvest blood, tissue, and bone for all sorts of things to accomplish the above. Leviathan bone is difficult to shape, but it results in tools and swords that are beyond the strength and endurance of metal. Tissues can be manipulated and applied to humans to extend their abilities (augmenting strength, enabling them to have memories that are like eidetic memory to the nth power, control of their pheromones to alter the behavior of those around them, and so on).

Especially when it comes to the abilities that some of these people have, or the freakish contamination that the murderer is using, in a Fantasy book featuring people on horseback using swords, this looks like magic. But it ain’t. It’s just a kind of science that’s sufficiently advanced that 21st-century Western Readers can’t distinguish. And I love that. Bennett does such a convincing and thorough job of describing this (without getting mired in the details) that it just comes alive and you believe it all—and want to learn more about it.

So, what did I think about The Tainted Cup?

My reflex reaction ought to be, I want more of the detective-y stuff. How could I not? That’s my default genre, Ana is a fantastic character, Dinios at work is so much fun, and the pair of them being new incarnations of Wolfe and Archie. But when you add in the world-building, the intrigue and politics, and all the cool science-y bits? I wouldn’t have it any other way. You need all of it to make something this good. And it really does—each section above would probably earn 4 stars or so from me. But when you put them together, the accumulated score has to be at least 5.

Also, all the other stuff in the book distracts from a couple of the problems with the mystery story. These aren’t significant problems by any means, but at one point Ana reveals that Person X is Person Y, and her assistants are shocked and amazed. I assumed everyone realized that as soon as Person Y was introduced and described. For it to take umpteen chapters for everyone to catch up astounded me (am pretty sure Ana was as fast as me, for the record). The other thing that I’d consider a problem, I won’t get into for spoiler-reasons, but I was distracted enough that I didn’t see it until the reveal. Also, it’s the kind of thing that Rex Stout himself would do, so I’m never going to complain about it. Mostly, because it worked really well for the story, so who cares?

Regular readers may have noted that I haven’t spent that much time talking about the characters. I chose not to for time/space reasons. If I focused on writing about Ana, Dinios, and Miljin alone—I’d double the length of this post. If I included every major character I want to talk about? I’d triple the length. No one wants to read me going on that long. So I’ll sum it up by saying that his characters are just as good and developed (and strange) as everything else I’ve talked about.

Bennett doesn’t show a lot of flair in this writing. It has almost none of Elmore’s “Hooptedoodle”—although he violates a lot of Elmore’s other rules (and does so for the betterment of the novel). This is a description, not a criticism, you’re not going to be wowed with his style. He doesn’t need that. The descriptions of characters, structures, and monsters are so vivid, so detailed you have no problem seeing exactly what he wants you to see (with just enough room for the reader’s imagination). The action scenes are well-executed. The descriptions of the trees growing from outside of a person are as disturbing as they should be. There are flashes of humor, flashes of hope and optimism in both the characters and the story—but it’s all in the shadow of the imminent threat posed by the Leviathans and weakened walls. So there’s a strong “The World May Be Ending Tomorrow if not Tonight” feel throughout. I was under the spell of the narration and story from early on.

I didn’t set out to rave about this book. I was going to enthusiastically recommend it, but as I started to put my notes into some sort of order and write, I discovered that I really needed and wanted to rave about this. Fantasy fans are really going to get into this. Mystery/Detective Fiction fans who aren’t afraid to play in other worlds are going to go nuts over this. And I want to read the next book in the series today. But I’m willing to be patient—The Tainted Cup won’t even be published for 26 days. So I won’t start complaining about the delay in getting the next volume for 90 days (that seems fair).

Go place your orders or library holds now.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Penguin Random House via NetGalley in exchange for this post—thanks to both for this.


5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

Ozark Dogs by Eli Cranor: The Sins of the Fathers…

I’ve been trying to write about this book since April. I know I’m not going to do this justice, and so I keep procrastinating. But with 2 posting days left this year…I can push it off no longer.


Ozark DogsOzark Dogs

by Eli Cranor

DETAILS:
Publisher: Soho Crime
Publication Date: April 4, 2023
Format: Hardcover
Length: 290 pgs.
Read Date: April 12-13, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

What’s Ozark Dogs About?

One of the bigger hurdles for me in completing this post was figuring out what to put here, I toyed with:

It’s by Eli Cranor, which means it’s going to have a Southern Noir sensibility, is probably going to have something to do with family, and is going to be excellent. That’s all you really need to know.

I still stand by that, but figure you need more, I just wasn’t sure what to say. I’ve finally given up and am just going to paste what Soho Crime has on their website (which, frankly, gives away more than I would’ve).

After his son is convicted of capital murder, Vietnam War veteran Jeremiah Fitzjurls takes over the care of his granddaughter, Joanna, raising her with as much warmth as can be found in an Ozark junkyard outfitted to be an armory. He teaches her how to shoot and fight, but there is not enough training in the world to protect her when the dreaded Ledfords, notorious meth dealers and fanatical white supremacists, come to collect on Joanna as payment for a long-overdue blood debt.

Headed by rancorous patriarch Bunn and smooth-talking, erudite Evail, the Ledfords have never forgotten what the Fitzjurls family did to them, and they will not be satisfied until they have taken an eye for an eye. As they seek revenge, and as Jeremiah desperately searches for his granddaughter, their narratives collide in this immersive story about family and how far some will go to honor, defend—or in some cases, destroy it.

Consequences

Don’t get me wrong—there’s plenty of crime, tension, drama, and all the rest in the novel’s “today.” But in a very real sense the novel isn’t about any of that. It’s about what happened almost two decades before this that set the families on their courses and what the outcomes of those courses are.

This is a book about ramifications, consequences, pigeons coming home to roost—however you want to put it. When you read about those earlier events a part of you is going to ask, “Why didn’t Cranor write about that?” Most—or at least many—authors would’ve, and then some would’ve added something like this as a sequel. Or maybe as Part II in a longer novel.

Cranor’s not about that, though. His focus is on what those events do to the present. How they’ve shaped the lives of those in the present (primarily without their knowledge or understanding), and how the sins of the fathers can be visited on their sons and daughters.

The Author’s Note

Frequent/Regular readers will know that I almost never mention this kind of thing when I talk about a novel. Do read this one after you finish reading about the Fitzjurls, the Ledfords, and the rest.

Unless I miss my guess, you’ll agree with every syllable.

So, what did I think about Ozark Dogs?

This, like Cranor’s first novel, would be really easy to over-hype, so I’m going to try to be restrained here.

The prose is so sharp, so…on point. You can tell every syllable was considered, if you read portions of this aloud (or, I’m sure, listen to the audiobook) you will feel the work that went into it—although it’s so smooth and flowing that it comes across as effortless. You see exactly what Cranor intends you to see, probably feel what he intended, and understand the motivations (even the ones that disgust you) of these people in precisely the way he planned.

The dialogue is so well done that you might find yourself sounding a bit like someone from Arkansas for a day or two after you finish.

These characters—it’s hard to think of them as characters, really, they’re people. People you can imagine seeing on the news or in a documentary about all this. It won’t be the most flattering documentary about anyone, I should add. I think every single one of them crosses a line—more likely many lines—that they’ve known their whole life they wouldn’t cross, at least have resolved they wouldn’t cross again years ago. But they do, sometimes with regrets, sometimes with eagerness. And your heart breaks for them, even for some of them that you hope horrible things happen to by the end of the book. Fully developed, fully realized, very human (read: fallible and flawed) characters on every page.

Earlier I said this book is about consequences, and that’s stuck with me for months. But it’s also about devotion—sometimes devotion that borders on obsession. Devotion to a cause, devotion to an idea, devotion to yourself, or (the most dangerous?) devotion to a person (or group of people). There’s a straight line between every character and what they’re devoted to and those consequences.

But if you don’t want to think about books like that—and you’re just looking for a great read? Ozark Dogs fulfills that, too. It’s a full-throttle, action-packed, revenge-driven, thrill ride with great fight scenes, enough blood and guts to satisfy the reader looking for that, and some twists and reveals that’ll stun you.

Cranor gives us another thriller that you can give to an anti-genre snob, who’ll appreciate it as much as people who only read Crime Fiction/Thrillers will. If you haven’t read him yet, do yourself a favor and get this (and Don’t Know Tough) now and start waiting for his July release while you’re at it.


5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

The Last Devil to Die by Richard Osman: The Joy Love Brings, and the Price We Pay

I know I’ve been disorganized this year, but how did it take me so long to finish this? (I did start it the day after I closed it). Oh well, here it is anyway.


The Last Devil to DieThe Last Devil to Die

by Richard Osman

DETAILS:
Series: The Thursday Murder Club, #4
Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books
Publication Date: September 19, 2023
Format: Hardcover
Length: 422 pg.
Read Date: September 28-29, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

… it might be nice for the Thursday Murder Club to have a new project that moved at a gentler pace than usual. Something a bit less murdery would be quite a novelty.

What’s The Last Devil to Die About?

What a nice thought—and for a minute, it looked possible.* But no reader expected it to continue, and it doesn’t. In fact, the murder strikes pretty close to home—a character the reader had met recently, but who had strong ties to Stephen and Elizabeth. Which, of course, is how the Thursday Murder Club gets involved. Since the reader does know him, though, we’re invested from the get-go.

* And I’d absolutely read that.

The Club encounters art forgery, a different group of drug smugglers, and some people who make others they’ve faced down seem downright cuddly. (not all of them, obviously, these retirees have faced off with some scary people) The path they have to follow to find the killer—and the object their friend died over—is probably the twistiest they’ve gone down yet.

Yes, there is the “less murdery” case as well—a fellow resident of Coopers Chase is getting fleeced by an online romantic interest, but he can’t see it. So the Club takes it upon themselves to expose the fraud to protect him before he’s totally broke (and maybe get a little of the money back).

Loss, Grief, and Death

Life continues, whatever you do. It’s a bulldozer like that.

This series has always featured death—not just murder. Given the age and health of the protagonists—and the community they live in—it’s a constant presence. But not just death, going on, grieving, learning to cope with the absence of a loved one—and maybe not learning.

We’ve watched Joyce, for example, grieving for her husband from Day 1. Everyone since that time has lost people that were important to them, talked about losing others, and so on. It’s one of the dominant themes of this series.

In The Last Devil to Die, dominant seems to be an understatement. Osman doesn’t let you get away from it—not in a mawkish, maudlin, or over-the-top manner. It’s just there, it’s what the characters are facing and dealing with in a variety of ways (even some of the bad guys!). It doesn’t leave you (too?) despondent, however. There’s hope, there’s life, there’s a tomorrow for the living. It is a bulldozer.

I’ve always been impressed with the way that Osman treats these subjects, he’s at his best in this installment.

So, all in all, I ’ve had a lovely Boxing Day, and am going to fall asleep in front of a Judi Dench film. All that’s missing is Gerry working his way through a tin of Quality Street and leaving the wrappers in the tin. Irritating at the time, but I’d give everything I own to have him back. Gerry liked the Strawberry Delights and Orange Crémes, and I liked the Toffee Pennies, and if you want to know the recipe for a happy marriage it is that.

So, what did I think about The Last Devil to Die?

That’s the thing about Coopers Chase. You’d imagine it was quiet and sedate, like a village pond on a summer’s day. But in truth it never stops moving, it’s always in motion. And that motion Is aging, and death, and love, and grief, and final snatched moments and opportunities grasped. The urgency of old age. There’s nothing that makes you feel more alive than the certainty of death.

This summer, when I did the Mid-Year Freak Out Book Tag, I said that while no book had made me cry this year, I figured something would by the end of the year. I didn’t think it would be a cozy mystery that did it. Almost twice.

But I was laughing—or at least chuckling—within a couple of pages both times. And it didn’t feel like emotional whiplash or like he was undercutting the seriousness of what elicited the tears or almost tears. Osman was just honestly portraying these characters in all their aspects which brings laughter and tears.

I’ve talked a lot about this book’s “downer” parts. Let me assure you that the comedy is great—watching Ron try to understand his son making Cameos, for example. Other things with Ron, too, actually. I’m having trouble coming up with examples—well, Joyce is a reliable source of humor, obviously. Everyone is, as you know if you’ve read one of these books (and if you haven’t, but are reading this post…there’s your homework, go pick up the first one and thank me later). I’m having trouble coming up with other specific examples that I can use in this post, sadly. But they’re there, I assure you.

As always, the characters are Osman’s strong suit. Our regulars are in fine form, as are the some returning characters (including some I was pleasantly surprised to see), and the new characters are great additions to the cast (however temporary some of them might be). They all practically jump off the page fully formed and it’s hard to ask for more.

The online fraud story goes pretty much like you expect it to—this isn’t a Mrs. Plansky’s Revenge kind of thing. But it was very satisfying. The murder mystery, which is theoretically why people pick this book up, on the other hand…I have mixed feelings about it. But I can’t explain that reaction. Osman knows how to construct a mystery, the red herrings are perfect, the suspects are wonderfully designed, and the reveals and wrap-up were done almost perfectly. I can’t think of a single problem with it. But the entire time I was reading it, something just didn’t click.

I want to stress that this is my only issue with the book—sadly, it’s the A story. Maybe it’s the fact that it didn’t feel like it always. Maybe it’s because everything else in the novel was so good and so emotionally strong, that the mystery couldn’t compete. Maybe the book was just too crowded with storylines and this one didn’t have as much time to develop as it needed? It’s also (very likely) just me. I also thought it was pretty easy to guess the killer’s identity—but the motive and the reveal were so well done that I didn’t care. Also, the herrings were red enough that I doubted my guess more than once.

That ineffable quibble aside, this is the best book in the series thus far. I couldn’t put it down—from the “are you kidding me?” beginning through the emotional body-blows over the course of the book, up to the strong conclusion, and all points in between, Osman kept me guessing, kept me invested, and kept me wondering how he could be so good at this.

I don’t need to tell fans to get this (they’ve probably all read it by now), but I can encourage new readers to catch up.


5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

PUB DAY REPOST: Partial Function by JCM Berne: A Mom With A Particular Set of Skills

Partial FunctionPartial Function

by JCM Berne

DETAILS:
Publication Date: November 7, 2023
Format: eARC
Length: 361 pgs.
Read Date: October 9-10, 2023

The First Chapter

Don’t worry, I’m not about to go through this book chapter-by-chapter talking about each one—there are thirty chapters, and while I know I can go on and on about books that I like…

No, I’m going to focus on the first chapter for a moment for one reason—your reaction to the first chapter is going to tell you everything you need to know about this book. If you read that chapter (and everyone who’s stumbled onto this post should do at least that) and you think “Yeah, I can see myself enjoying this book.” You almost certainly will. If you read it and think, “Oh yeah! Give me more of that!!” You definitely need to read on. If you read this chapter and aren’t that interested in going on—trust that instinct and move on with your life. Also, I feel bad for you. (but I say that without judgment, even if it doesn’t sound like it).

This chapter isn’t quite the novel in microcosm, but it comes close—it has the spirit, the humor, the action, the supernaturally-charged martial arts, and the panache that will characterize the rest of the book. Anddddd, best of all, it features a very good dog. The book will bring in more characters than just Akina Azure and her dog (frustratingly named Dog*), which is the biggest reason I can’t say this chapter is a microcosm.

* It’s not just this that Akina has in common with Walt Longmire—I actually could write a post comparing the two—but this is my biggest complaint with both of them. You two have great canine companions, they deserve a great name.

So, What’s Partial Function About, Anyway?

I don’t know that I can do better than the description I was given for the cover reveal a couple of weeks ago—I’ve tried, and I keep unintentionally borrowing elements from it, so let’s just use it:

If Taken starred Michelle Yeoh and was set on a Jurassic Park-inspired Cradle.

Monster hunter Akina Azure inherited the most powerful weapon in the martial world before retiring to a peaceful life raising her twin girls.

The Reaver has them kidnapped, thinking Akina will trade that weapon for their safe return.

Will she? Or will she use it to wreak a terrible retribution on the men who took her girls?

You get one guess.

I’ll expand a bit on that, though.

Akina was part of a legendary band of adventurers, The Five Fangs, and then she and her husband Petrick (also one of the band) retired to go live far away and start a family. None of their friends have seen—or heard—from them or of them in years. Long enough for them to raise twins into their teens before Petrick died of blood plague (I don’t know what that is, but the name alone…).

Now, Akina tracks down one of the Fangs, Remy, to help her. She needs his connections to put her in touch with the people she needs to put her rescue plan into action. It wouldn’t hurt to have one of the few people alive that she trusts to have her back, either.

Remy isn’t crazy about the idea, but he can’t say no to Akina. These two past-their-prime warriors are soon joined by a much younger fighter (who is not quite in her prime and has a lot to learn first) that they can’t entirely trust, but can certainly use. Three people and a dog against the most powerful, feared, and twisted warrior (and his army) living. That’s if they can dodge the kaiju-esque monsters along the way.

It’s really not a fair fight.

Fantasy’s Answer to Sam Axe

I predict that most people talking about this book are going to focus on Akina—as they should. And I’m tempted to spend a lot of time talking about Dog, because he’s such a good boy.

But I want to hone in on Remy for a bit. He’s so essential to the way this book works, and I think he’s so easy to overlook. Sure, Akina and Zhu have some good, snappy, dialogue, and Dog being dog is amusing. Remy’s easily the funniest character in the novel and can be seen as only comic relief. That’s an error.

A couple of days ago, in an earlier draft of this post, I made a joke about him essentially being Sam Axe from Burn Notice. I haven’t been able to get that comparison out of my mind. It’s so on the nose. Remy serves as Akina’s Devil’s Advocate, voice of reason, conscience, and confessor. He’s the only one she fully trusts anymore. He knows someone (or knows someone who knows someone) everywhere they go and can get them whatever resources they need. In a fight, he’s almost as good as Akina and saves her on more than one occasion.

He covers all this with a commitment to doing nothing but drinking, womanizing, and lazing about all day—which is pretty much what he’s been doing since Petrick took Akina off to who-knows-where. When called upon, he steps into action, griping the entire time about how it’s cutting into his drinking. Again—Sam Axe.

If you’ve ever wondered what a wuxia-adjacent Bruce Campbell would be like, this is the book for you.

Okay, setting that all aside—at the end of the day, you’re going to like Remy and trust him to do the right thing more than pretty much anyone else in the book (see the next section for a hint of that). His agenda is pretty clear—do the right thing by his friend, do the right thing in general, and then leave everyone to their business so he can get back to pickling his liver. He may not understand the nuances of everything going on—but he’s honest, he’s clever, and he’s tough. Just the kind of guy you want to have around.

The Central Question of the Book

Most—possibly all—of the “bad guys” in this novel wouldn’t describe themselves that way. They think they’re doing the right thing to save the world, or at least civilization. Not just the right thing—the only thing that will save humanity.

But they’re so focused on the ends that they cross all sorts of lines when it comes to means. They do things to increase their power that are repugnant to the reader and just about every character in the novel. Honestly, kidnapping Akina’s twins in order to compel her to surrender her weapon is pretty much the mildest thing the “villains” like the Reaver do to secure the ability they think will help them.

It’d be easy to write them off here—ends don’t justify the means and all that, right?

But when you stop and think about the steps that Akina takes to enable her to rescue the twins? It’s hard to think of her as a hero (and she doesn’t pretend to be one, in fact, she outright denies it).

The novel focuses on Akina; she’s nice (generally) to Remy, Zhu, and her dog as they travel; she’s funny; she defends young women from creeps and slavers…and so on. So you reflexively think of her as a “good guy” a “hero.”

As we read Partial Function, we’re thinking about things like Taken. So let’s start there—are the actions that Bryan Mills takes to rescue Kim, the right thing to do? Sure some of them—but all of them? How about John Wick—think of the death and destruction that comes from him getting his vengeance? We’re inclined to think of Mills* and Wick as the heroes—but are they? I’d ask the same thing about Akina.

* Who am I kidding? None of us think of him as Mills, we think “Liam Neeson”—or “Liam Neesons,” maybe. No one thinks of him as Bryan Mills.

Now, that isn’t a criticism of her as a character. I loved Akina. I wanted to see her win, her whole plan was brilliant, I enjoyed watching her fight, banter, be corrected, and wreak vengeance. Maybe even more than I enjoyed Neeson or Wick doing the same.

I’m just not sure I should.

So, what did I think about Partial Function?

I have a couple of pages of notes that I can’t get to. There are so many quotable moments—because of heart or laughs. Berne’s got a way with words that I’m tempted to call Butcher-esque, and I just want more of it. But I need to get moving, so let’s just say that I had so, so, so much fun with this. Between this, Chu’s The War Arts Saga, and talking a little to Tao Wong this summer, I’ve decided I need to make more room in my reading for wuxia-inspired works.

The world-building deserves a paragraph or five to celebrate it (but it’s taken me 2 weeks to get this much written, I’m not risking putting this off any longer). For example, I should talk about the kaiju-ish creatures, but beyond saying they’re dinosaurish animals with powers that love snacking on humans (when they’re not stomping on them), I don’t know what to say. The political/clan system serves the whole thing well and I’d enjoy seeing more of it in a future installment.

Partial Function is a fast, enjoyable, action-packed read with a lot of heart and just enough humor to help you deal with the stakes and destruction. And these characters? I loved getting to know them and spending time with them. There’s a lot to chew on in these pages if you’re in a thoughtful mood, and if you’re not? You don’t need to, you can just enjoy the ride.

This was intended as a stand-alone, but the door is open for another adventure or so for the survivors. If we get a sequel, I’ll be first in line for it. If we don’t? This is going down as one of my favorite fantasy stand-alones. Either way—I’m encouraging you to read the first chapter and apply what I opened with. I’m sure there will be those who don’t get into this, but I can’t understand why.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from the author—after repeated requests—in exchange for this post and my honest opinion.


5 Stars

 
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

Partial Function by JCM Berne: A Mom With A Particular Set of Skills

Partial FunctionPartial Function

by JCM Berne

DETAILS:
Publication Date: November 7, 2023
Format: eARC
Length: 361 pgs.
Read Date: October 9-10, 2023

The First Chapter

Don’t worry, I’m not about to go through this book chapter-by-chapter talking about each one—there are thirty chapters, and while I know I can go on and on about books that I like…

No, I’m going to focus on the first chapter for a moment for one reason—your reaction to the first chapter is going to tell you everything you need to know about this book. If you read that chapter (and everyone who’s stumbled onto this post should do at least that) and you think “Yeah, I can see myself enjoying this book.” You almost certainly will. If you read it and think, “Oh yeah! Give me more of that!!” You definitely need to read on. If you read this chapter and aren’t that interested in going on—trust that instinct and move on with your life. Also, I feel bad for you. (but I say that without judgment, even if it doesn’t sound like it).

This chapter isn’t quite the novel in microcosm, but it comes close—it has the spirit, the humor, the action, the supernaturally-charged martial arts, and the panache that will characterize the rest of the book. Anddddd, best of all, it features a very good dog. The book will bring in more characters than just Akina Azure and her dog (frustratingly named Dog*), which is the biggest reason I can’t say this chapter is a microcosm.

* It’s not just this that Akina has in common with Walt Longmire—I actually could write a post comparing the two—but this is my biggest complaint with both of them. You two have great canine companions, they deserve a great name.

So, What’s Partial Function About, Anyway?

I don’t know that I can do better than the description I was given for the cover reveal a couple of weeks ago—I’ve tried, and I keep unintentionally borrowing elements from it, so let’s just use it:

If Taken starred Michelle Yeoh and was set on a Jurassic Park-inspired Cradle.

Monster hunter Akina Azure inherited the most powerful weapon in the martial world before retiring to a peaceful life raising her twin girls.

The Reaver has them kidnapped, thinking Akina will trade that weapon for their safe return.

Will she? Or will she use it to wreak a terrible retribution on the men who took her girls?

You get one guess.

I’ll expand a bit on that, though.

Akina was part of a legendary band of adventurers, The Five Fangs, and then she and her husband Petrick (also one of the band) retired to go live far away and start a family. None of their friends have seen—or heard—from them or of them in years. Long enough for them to raise twins into their teens before Petrick died of blood plague (I don’t know what that is, but the name alone…).

Now, Akina tracks down one of the Fangs, Remy, to help her. She needs his connections to put her in touch with the people she needs to put her rescue plan into action. It wouldn’t hurt to have one of the few people alive that she trusts to have her back, either.

Remy isn’t crazy about the idea, but he can’t say no to Akina. These two past-their-prime warriors are soon joined by a much younger fighter (who is not quite in her prime and has a lot to learn first) that they can’t entirely trust, but can certainly use. Three people and a dog against the most powerful, feared, and twisted warrior (and his army) living. That’s if they can dodge the kaiju-esque monsters along the way.

It’s really not a fair fight.

Fantasy’s Answer to Sam Axe

I predict that most people talking about this book are going to focus on Akina—as they should. And I’m tempted to spend a lot of time talking about Dog, because he’s such a good boy.

But I want to hone in on Remy for a bit. He’s so essential to the way this book works, and I think he’s so easy to overlook. Sure, Akina and Zhu have some good, snappy, dialogue, and Dog being dog is amusing. Remy’s easily the funniest character in the novel and can be seen as only comic relief. That’s an error.

A couple of days ago, in an earlier draft of this post, I made a joke about him essentially being Sam Axe from Burn Notice. I haven’t been able to get that comparison out of my mind. It’s so on the nose. Remy serves as Akina’s Devil’s Advocate, voice of reason, conscience, and confessor. He’s the only one she fully trusts anymore. He knows someone (or knows someone who knows someone) everywhere they go and can get them whatever resources they need. In a fight, he’s almost as good as Akina and saves her on more than one occasion.

He covers all this with a commitment to doing nothing but drinking, womanizing, and lazing about all day—which is pretty much what he’s been doing since Petrick took Akina off to who-knows-where. When called upon, he steps into action, griping the entire time about how it’s cutting into his drinking. Again—Sam Axe.

If you’ve ever wondered what a wuxia-adjacent Bruce Campbell would be like, this is the book for you.

Okay, setting that all aside—at the end of the day, you’re going to like Remy and trust him to do the right thing more than pretty much anyone else in the book (see the next section for a hint of that). His agenda is pretty clear—do the right thing by his friend, do the right thing in general, and then leave everyone to their business so he can get back to pickling his liver. He may not understand the nuances of everything going on—but he’s honest, he’s clever, and he’s tough. Just the kind of guy you want to have around.

The Central Question of the Book

Most—possibly all—of the “bad guys” in this novel wouldn’t describe themselves that way. They think they’re doing the right thing to save the world, or at least civilization. Not just the right thing—the only thing that will save humanity.

But they’re so focused on the ends that they cross all sorts of lines when it comes to means. They do things to increase their power that are repugnant to the reader and just about every character in the novel. Honestly, kidnapping Akina’s twins in order to compel her to surrender her weapon is pretty much the mildest thing the “villains” like the Reaver do to secure the ability they think will help them.

It’d be easy to write them off here—ends don’t justify the means and all that, right?

But when you stop and think about the steps that Akina takes to enable her to rescue the twins? It’s hard to think of her as a hero (and she doesn’t pretend to be one, in fact, she outright denies it).

The novel focuses on Akina; she’s nice (generally) to Remy, Zhu, and her dog as they travel; she’s funny; she defends young women from creeps and slavers…and so on. So you reflexively think of her as a “good guy” a “hero.”

As we read Partial Function, we’re thinking about things like Taken. So let’s start there—are the actions that Bryan Mills takes to rescue Kim, the right thing to do? Sure some of them—but all of them? How about John Wick—think of the death and destruction that comes from him getting his vengeance? We’re inclined to think of Mills* and Wick as the heroes—but are they? I’d ask the same thing about Akina.

* Who am I kidding? None of us think of him as Mills, we think “Liam Neeson”—or “Liam Neesons,” maybe. No one thinks of him as Bryan Mills.

Now, that isn’t a criticism of her as a character. I loved Akina. I wanted to see her win, her whole plan was brilliant, I enjoyed watching her fight, banter, be corrected, and wreak vengeance. Maybe even more than I enjoyed Neeson or Wick doing the same.

I’m just not sure I should.

So, what did I think about Partial Function?

I have a couple of pages of notes that I can’t get to. There are so many quotable moments—because of heart or laughs. Berne’s got a way with words that I’m tempted to call Butcher-esque, and I just want more of it. But I need to get moving, so let’s just say that I had so, so, so much fun with this. Between this, Chu’s The War Arts Saga, and talking a little to Tao Wong this summer, I’ve decided I need to make more room in my reading for wuxia-inspired works.

The world-building deserves a paragraph or five to celebrate it (but it’s taken me 2 weeks to get this much written, I’m not risking putting this off any longer). For example, I should talk about the kaiju-ish creatures, but beyond saying they’re dinosaurish animals with powers that love snacking on humans (when they’re not stomping on them), I don’t know what to say. The political/clan system serves the whole thing well and I’d enjoy seeing more of it in a future installment.

Partial Function is a fast, enjoyable, action-packed read with a lot of heart and just enough humor to help you deal with the stakes and destruction. And these characters? I loved getting to know them and spending time with them. There’s a lot to chew on in these pages if you’re in a thoughtful mood, and if you’re not? You don’t need to, you can just enjoy the ride.

This was intended as a stand-alone, but the door is open for another adventure or so for the survivors. If we get a sequel, I’ll be first in line for it. If we don’t? This is going down as one of my favorite fantasy stand-alones. Either way—I’m encouraging you to read the first chapter and apply what I opened with. I’m sure there will be those who don’t get into this, but I can’t understand why.

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from the author—after repeated requests—in exchange for this post and my honest opinion.


5 Stars

 
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

REPOSTING JUST ‘CUZ: The Trinity: An Introduction by Scott R. Swain: A Brief but Deep Study

I’m about to re-read this book, so I figured it was a good idea to remember what I thought about it.

The Trinity

The Trinity: An Introduction

by Scott R. Swain
Series: Short Studies in Systematic Theology

Paperback, 133 pg.
Crossway, 2020

Read: January 17-31, 2020
Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

What we find in later Trinitarian creeds, confessions, and doctrinal summaries are not improvements upon a latent or undeveloped biblical Trinitarianism but, rather, the church’s attempt to fathom the depth of the riches of biblical Trinitarianism for the sake of various liturgical, pedagogical, and polemical ends. Some of the church’s creeds, confessions, and doctrinal summaries represent such faithful expressions of scriptural teaching and enjoy such wide-ranging ecclesiastical consensus that we dare not transgress the lines they have drawn. Rather, taking them on our own lips, we gladly join the church’s chorus of Trinitarian praise.

What’s The Trinity: An Introduction About?

It’s kind of there in the title, right? This is an introduction to the classical Christian doctrine of The Trinity. He’s not trying to re-invent the wheel, he’s definitely not trying to innovate, but to provide a concise (it’s a Short Study, after all) jumping-off point into deeper studies by providing a solid foundation.

He spends two chapters looking at the primary Biblical texts demonstrating the Doctrine. Chapter 3 is about the Simplicity of God—something too many overlook in a discussion of The Trinity. The following three chapters each focus on a Person of the Trinity. The final chapters are about the “external works” of the Trinity, the “appropriation” of specific works to particular persons, the beneficiaries of God’s work, and assorted topics.

All of that is a lot to ask of 133 short pages. Swain pulls it off by being concise, but he never seems to be leaving out details or avoiding the complicated ideas (although he obviously has to).

Touching on Controvery

This isn’t a polemical work—Swain is here to inform and educate, not combat. Still, he does talk about some Christological errors, including the contemporary dust-ups over EFS/ERAS—Eternal Functional Subordination/Eternal Relations of Authority and Submission.

Swain briefly (again, it’s a Short Study) addresses this error. He’s calm, he’s fair, yet he’s firm. It’s one of the best short treatments of the controversy I’ve seen, and in the context of the larger discussion of the Person of the Son as well as the larger discussions of each of the Persons, it’s incredibly helpful. It also fits where he put it and doesn’t seem like Swain used the opportunity as a digression just to beat a pet theological peeve.

Helpful Supplemental Material

Maybe it’s just me, but I rarely find the post-text material all that helpful. This book was one of the pleasant exceptions—there’s a brief glossary of some of the technical terms. Also, the “Further Reading” suggestions look great and my “To Buy” list grew a bit.

So, what did I think about The Trinity: An Introduction?

Because the persons of the Trinity are internal to God’s life, not external works of God, we can know the persons of the Trinity, as well as their ultimate plan for creation (Eph. 3:9), only if they stoop down and open up the depths of their inner life to us. Only the persons of the Trinity know the persons of the Trinity. Therefore, only the persons of the Trinity can make known the persons of the Trinity. The revelation of the Trinity is a matter of divine self-revelation, divine self-presentation, divine self-naming.

While this is a theological book, drawing on the teaching of the Church, Swain is careful to never lose sight of the source of this Doctrine, the Word of God. We know this, we understand this (as much as we do) because it is revealed to us. That’s vital to an understanding of the doctrine, and vital to the teaching of it. Swain doesn’t let his readers stray from the text.

This is one of those books where my notes keep saying “Chapter X is likely the highlight of the book,” “the section on X is likely the most valuable in the book.” It appears 60-70% of the book is a highlight—and I may not have written all of those parts down. Which is to say, there’s a lot of gold here, very little (if any) dross.

Helpful, insightful, and useful—it also achieves its end for leading on to further study for me. It’s accessible, but not easy, reading. At the same time, it’s a challenging, but not difficult, text.

Also, I like the looks of this series as a whole, I’ll most likely be grabbing more/all of them if they’re all about this quality.


5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, opinions are my own.

Who Chose the Gospels?: Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy by C. E. Hill: Robert Langdon Might Have Been on the Wrong Track (shocking, I know)

Who Chose the Gospels?Who Chose the Gospels?:
Probing the Great Gospel Conspiracy

by C. E. Hill

DETAILS:
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Publication Date: April 7, 2012
Format: Paperback
Length: 247 pg.
Read Date: September 10-24, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

All this presents a rather sticky problem. Recall that in Professor Ehrman’s political interpretation of church history it isn’t until the fourth century that the ‘orthodox’ party finally ‘sealed its victory over all of its opponents’, At that time ‘it rewrote the history of the engagement’, claiming that its views were passed down from Jesus’ apostles. And yet here is Irenaeus, nearly two centuries earlier, already ‘rewriting history’ long before the victory was sealed. At a time when, many prominent scholars insist, the issue was still very much in doubt, Irenaeus writes as if the church had been nurtured by these four Gospels from the time of the apostles.

The problem with Irenaeus is that he simply wrecks the popular paradigm. His views about the emerging New Testament canon, and about the four Gospels in particular, are simply too well-developed, too mature, to fit the scheme that many have invested themselves in today. As a second-century Christian author who argued that there are, and can only be, four legitimate Gospels—because they alone teach the truth about Jesus and because they alone had been handed down in the church from the time of the apostles—Irenaeus lies like a fallen Redwood in the path of those who would see the choice of the four Gospels as a late and politically motivated manoeuvre of the fourth century.

How do you solve a problem like Irenaeus?

What’s Who Chose the Gospels? About?

That last question in the quotation would work pretty well as an alternate title for the book—how do you solve a problem like Iraneaus? Or, more to the point, how do you ignore his (early date) recognition of only 4 gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—despite what we’re told about the state of gospel availability and canonization by so many today.

Hill examines some of the time frames, uses, content, and provenance of some of the so-called competitor gospels (i.e., those that never were considered canonical) to compare them to both the canonical gospels and those early figures of the Church we see discussing the gospels. But primarily, Hill is concerned with the use of and testimony regarding the canonical gospels—and the evidence regarding their use by the Church and when it started. The overwhelming bulk of the book is focused there.

So, we may now ask, how did the Christian church, apparent drowning in a sea of Gospels, finally end up with only four? The educated reader of today may already have come to the conch. sion that the story was attended with a good bit of bullying intrigue, and skullduggery. Many perhaps picture councils of bad-tempered bishops voting on which books to include in the Bible one minute, and voting to execute heretics the next. As now widely believed, in any case, that the four canonical Gospels emerged into prominence only fairly late from a long and drawnout battle within early Christianity, a battle finally won in the fourth century after the establishment of the church by Constantine the Great. While academics might not, as Teabing does Dan Brown’s novel, attribute the collation of the Bible to ‘pagan emperor Constantine’, many even in the academic community insist that the question of which Gospels the church ought to endorse was still up for grabs in the fourth century.

He also looks a little bit at contemporary theories (both academic and popular) about the development of the canon—insofar as it focuses on the Gospels. He finds it wanting, and somewhat self-contradictory—and talks about that, too. But even as he does so, it’s not the main focus of the book—which is, as said earlier, the four gospels and how the second (and possibly first) century church regarded them, and how that changed (and mostly didn’t change) in the two centuries following.

The Tone of the Book

You probably can’t read it in the image above, but that top blurb is from D.A. Carson and it says, “Not many books that are so informed are such a pleasure to read.” I really didn’t pay much attention to it—and just figured he meant something about how nice it is to have such an informative read or something like that. If for no other reason, it was from Oxford University Press, who are not known for fun reads. I was super duper wrong.

This was a blast to read. Seriously, I had a lot of fun.

Not—and I want to stress, not—because he’s making jokes, being silly, or outrageous or anything like that. There’s just something about Hill’s style. He’s charming (seemingly effortlessly), not in a way that calls attention to itself, but it’s there—a little mild sarcasm, some wordplay, some other bits of humor along the way—but it’s nothing I can point to, and say “there it is!” But time after time while reading this, I found myself grinning for no apparent reason.

That’s just his style—the subject is serious, and frankly, pretty dry. But Hill keeps it from being dry without tuning down the seriousness of both the positive case he’s trying to build and the criticisms he makes toward the other side(s).

So, what did I think about Who Chose the Gospels??

In short, we have no evidence that the church ever sat down collectively or as individual churches and composed criteria for judging which Gospels (or other literature) it thought best suited its needs. On the contrary, the key realization which best explains our inability to find an ultimate ‘chooser’, which best explains why the church didn’t take the easy way out with some kind of singular Gospel and why it never cobbled together a set of criteria to apply to all the Gospel candidates, is that the church essentially did not believe it had a choice in the matter! The question ‘why did you choose these Gospels?’ would not have made sense to many Christians in the second century, for the question assumes that the church, or someone in it, had the authority to make the choice. To many, it would be like the question, ‘why did you choose your parents?

A few other books/chapters that I’ve read on the subject talk about the conclusions Hill draws, and refer to some of the evidence, but Hill’s the first one I’ve read who’s actually “shown the work,” as my math teachers/professors would say. His answers match other scholars, but I can actually see how he got them. For that alone, I enjoyed reading this book and profited from it.

Add in his style? Oh, buddy—now we’re cooking with fire.

Hill is careful and thorough, acknowledging challenges to his position about the emergence of the fourfold Gospel to the place it holds today. But he’s consistent in showing how those challenges don’t have the weight and merit that so many in our culture assume they do. Not to keep picking on it—but the authors/editors of Church History in Plain Language should spend time with this book and others like it before they finish the Sixth Edition—it would really help out with its particularly weak chapter on the Canon.

I think the concluding chapter could’ve been beefed up a little bit. Maybe after a few more readings, I can figure out what it was missing—I just felt it was weak here and there. Or another reading or two will show me that I could’ve paid better attention this time (entirely likely).

Regardless, Who Wrote the Gospels? is a book well worth time and attention—and it’ll repay both.


5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

God to Us: Covenant Theology in Scripture by Stephen G. Myers: A Great Introduction to This Vital Idea

God to UsGod to Us:
Covenant Theology in Scripture

by Stephen G. Myers

DETAILS:
Publisher: Reformation Heritage Books
Publication Date: November 27, 2021
Format: Hardcover
Length: 310
Read Date: June 11-August 22, 2023
Buy from Bookshop.org Support Indie Bookstores

Disclaimer

Some friends and I read this book at the same time, getting together to talk about it periodically. So it’s entirely possible, even likely, that some of what I say in this post is a thought borrowed from someone else. This will particularly be true if I say something insightful or interesting.

What’s God to Us About?

This is, pretty simply, an introduction to Covenant Theology. Myers defines covenant in his introduction (with special focus on the words used, and meanings suggested, in the Old Testament, New Testament, and Septuagint). From there, he gives a brief history of the development of Covenant Theology throughout Church History, which is probably worth a book unto itself—but this chapter serves well enough.

From there he looks at the three predominant covenants in Scripture/Theology—the Covenants of Works, the Counsel of Peace, and the Covenant of Grace. He spends two chapters on the Covenant of Grace—one on understanding the covenant and then one on the circumstances surrounding the announcement of the Covenant and what we can learn from that (and this is one of those chapters worth the purchase price of the book alone). He then looks at the developing covenants that make up the Covenant of Grace—the Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, Davidic, and New Covenant. Myers then looks at Covenant Theology in the New Testament and then in The Church. The Mosaic Covenant is another Covenant that gets two chapters (the rest all get one)—the second looks at the ways the New Testament writers think about and use the Mosaic Covenant.

Highlights of the Book

I like to focus on one or two chapters that really stand out to me when talking about books like this. Myers made this very difficult for me—I’m tempted to say Chapters 2-12 were highlights, but that seems to be cheating. It’s true, though—there’s something in each of those chapters that made me sit up and pay attention in a way I didn’t expect.

I guess I would have to say that the chapter on the Noahic Covenant was particularly effective—usually, I tend to think (and think I’ve seen authors treat it this way) about the Noahic Covenant being something covered just to check a box between Adam and Abraham—it’s where the word covenant is first used, so we need to look at it, but it’s not that big of a deal. Myers won’t let you think that way, showing how it’s a pivotal step in Redemptive History—and I’ll not make that mistake again.

Chapter Nine, “The Mosaic Covenant in the New Testament,” is so vital and so important that I have to mention it. Not only does Myers help the reader understand what the NT is doing, but he also helps the reader avoid some of the more popular and prevalent errors regarding this understanding today. The same could be said for Chapter Eleven, “The New Covenant.”

And if I’m not careful, I’ll list the other chapters, too—so I’m going to move along.

Things I Wasn’t Crazy About

I’m not going into details, but Myers uses Gen. 6:18 extensively in his arguments about God establishing covenants in Genesis before the word “covenant” was used. He’s not the first to do so—O. Palmer Robertson mentions someone (some people? I don’t remember and am not going to go look it up) doing the same in a footnote in his 1987 book, The Christ of the Covenants. It seems to be a perfectly valid argument—but I wonder if Myers relies on it too much. Yes, he uses a multi-pronged argument, and Gen. 6 is just one of them—but it seems to be called to do more than it maybe can.

Secondly, and I know I didn’t catch this, that’d be one of the others I read it with. Myers uses the early chapters of Hosea to substantiate his position on what the exiles of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms mean for the Davidic Covenant (and the Covenant of Grace as a whole). There’s much to be commended for his position—but a lot of what he says about the early chapters of Hosea seems to differ from what Hosea says later on. Now, if I studied this portion of this book a bit more, I might have an easier time defending Myers’s position—but at first and second glance, he seems to stumble a bit here.

Lastly, and this is a very minor problem, the thirteenth chapter, “Covenant Theology and the Church,” is a bit of a letdown. Your results may (and likely will) vary. But for me, after twelve chapters with insights that impressed me when they didn’t teach me and/or helped me to think about Covenant Theology in a new way, to come across a chapter about the sacraments, Church membership, and related ideas that was as basic and straightforward as this just left me wanting more. I didn’t see any problems in what Myers said, but it all seemed a bit too obvious. He’s been sailing along

So, what did I think about God to Us?

I loved this book. I’ve read more books on Covenant Theology than I can easily count, and if this isn’t the best, it’s so close to it as not to matter. Myers gives his readers a thorough introduction to Covenant Theology as it came to the Protestant Church from the Reformation—particularly the English Reformation and the explanation offered by the Westminster divines and their contemporaries. His introduction is readable, clear, and helpful to the layman willing to put in a little work—but he’s not just repeating what the previous generations gave us, he’s looking at contemporary theology and insights as well.

Is it perfect? Nope. Are there more problems with it than those I mentioned above? Almost certainly. But it’s just so good that the flaws are forgivable. I learned a lot—even if it was just a better way to state what I’d already believed and understood—but I got much more than that from the book. It’s such a helpful work.

More than that—as all good theology should, it led me to doxology. That our Lord would condescend to His people in covenant is mind-blowingly gracious in the first place—that He does so to rebels in order that he could win them to Himself? That should drive us to worship. And the more we understand the gracious and remarkable nature of these covenants, the more we should be driven to it. Myers brings his readers to this point repeatedly—sometimes just by explaining something clearly—sometimes by applying his explanation to the reader to help us understand how it should make us reflect in worship.

I’ve tried to keep this brief and to resist the urge to dive deeply into some of the areas of the book that I would want to if this was the place for deep dives into Theology. But this is about books, so I’m not going to. I cannot say enough good things about God to Us. It’s just great. I’ve given it as a gift already, I will do so in the future as well as recommend it to anyone who asks for a good intro to the topic. Also, I commend it to whoever reads this post.


5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
Irresponsible Reader Pilcrow Icon

Page 1 of 21

Powered by WordPress & Theme by Anders Norén