Pack of Lies

PSI #2

Written: Laura Anne Gilman [website]

Published: Luna

When: February 1, 2011 (Although some stores may have it out now.)

ISBN: 0373803249

Obtained Via: NetGalley

Cover Blurb:

My Review:

Making the focus of your mystery a sexual assault is either a very brave or a very stupid thing for a writer to do. Readers are way more uncomfortable with rape than they are with murder or other violent crimes. The success or failure of the story depends on whether you’re a good enough writer to pull it off. Laura Anne Gilman carries the sensitive subject well, resolving it in probably the only way that it could have been.

When Bonita Torres and her fellow PUPIs (I’m still not sure whether to love or roll my eyes at that acronym) are brought in on the case of an attempted rape, they believe it’s an open and shut case.The female companion of a ki-rin is assaulted by two Talented males, and one of them is killed when the ki-rin retaliates. Since the ki-rin is a unicorn-like fatae, complete with the unicorn’s requirements for virginity in its companions, nearly everyone involved assumes the ki-rin’s attack is justified. Open. Shut. Done.

Except heightened tension between the human Talents and the non-human fatae community means the city is ready to erupt into violence and war, and this attack could be the match that lights the inferno. Once the surviving male from the assault swears that the whole thing was a setup, that the girl had asked to meet the pair and that it hadn’t been rape, it becomes essential for the team to discover the truth – and fast. The case devolves into a he-said/she-said nightmare with no evidence that can prove either side.

This is where the whole thing could’ve broken down into a tangle that would have caused the story to fail. It didn’t. Gilman handles the twisty situation with a dignity that a lot of authors couldn’t have done. We don’t get to meet the surviving attacker “on-camera” but it would have been difficult, I think, to make all sides look sympathetic, even with the situation that’s been set up here. In the end, I think the reader is shown a fundamental truth: nobody wins when violence is done, not the attacker and certainly not the victim.

Since this is the second series Gilman has set in this version of NYC, the world is fully realized and extensively built. Something about the main characters didn’t grab me, though. Maybe it’s because I didn’t have the benefit of starting with the first in the series. I don’t know. Bonnie’s emotional reactions seemed just the slightest bit off. Then again, her emotions are being manipulated without her knowledge for the first half of the book, and this is a character who is very different mentally than I am, so maybe that’s all it is. She’s not written badly, she just doesn’t make me love her the way other characters have in the past.

I’m still reading through the first set of Cosa Nostradamus books. (I’m on book three. Maybe I’ll tell the story sometime of why I’m coming so late to that series.) So it’s possible there are bits of history missing that would better flesh out the characters. We’ll see.

Pack of Lies is certainly a solid story for the series, handling a delicate subject with grace, and I’ll definitely be giving the characters another go at reeling me in. I’m going to give this book a hopeful three and a half stars, with a look toward going back to Hard Magic for another go-round.

Rating:  

The Heir of Night

The Wall of Night #1

Written: Helen Lowe [website]

Published: Eos

When: September 28,2010

ISBN: 0061734047

Obtained via: Publisher (ARC)

Back Cover Blurb:

If Night falls, all fall . . .

In the far north of the world of Haarth lies the bitter mountain range known as the Wall of Night. Garrisoned by the Nine Houses of the Derai, the Wall is the final bastion between the peoples of Haarth and the Swarm of Dark—which the Derai have been fighting across worlds and time.

Malian, Heir to the House of Night, knows the history of her people: the unending war with the Darkswarm; the legendary heroes, blazing with long-lost power; the internal strife that has fractured the Derai’s former strength. But now the Darkswarm is rising again, and Malian’s destiny as Heir of Night is bound inextricably to both ancient legend and any future the Derai—or Haarth—may have.

My Review:

I’m pretty late in this review, since the book came out in September, but I really wanted to talk about it. I finished this book awhile ago but life has kept me from my review. This book, though, deserves to be talked about and so here I am, late to the party, but with a case of wine in hand (figuratively speaking anyway).

When Eos offered up advance reader copies of this book, I jumped at the chance even though I knew nothing about the book. I’ve had good luck with Eos’ fantasy offerings as a whole, so I figured even if I’d never heard of the author before that I probably wouldn’t be disappointed. Man, am I glad that not only did I make that jump but that I actually managed to snag a copy.

I have to admit to a few misconceptions going into it. The cover art, though beautiful, is pretty misleading. I mean, we have a huge dark castle looming out of a creepy-looking forest and a cloaked figure in the foreground holding aloft a lantern. I thought for sure that this was a vampire book. I couldn’t have been more wrong!

Make no mistake that this is a fantasy novel – and if you don’t believe me, one look at the blurb will prove it. It has a very slight science fiction flavor, in that the history of the Derai seems to be that they came to Haarth from a distant world. But it’s a science fiction flavor the way the first couple of Pern books were science fiction — only by the most remote of the world’s origins and (for this book, at least) that seems to have little bearing on the story.

In point of fact, we don’t learn much about the Darkswarm who are the sworn enemies of the Derai, or of the Derai people themselves. This novel focuses mostly on Malian, Heir to the House of Night, daughter of the leader of the foremost of Derai houses; and on her new-found friend, the young Kalan, who is a sort of apprentice priest at the local temple. They are separated from those who care for them, lost in the mountain-sized warren of the House while the treacherous and mysterious Darkswarm attack the House and Temple both.

This is another volume with more questions than answers, though I think not on the scale of Brandon Sanderson’s. The compelling portrayals of the main characters are comparable though. Both Malian and Kalan are young and naive but brave and they both live in a harsh world and culture. Their characters are vivid and both make choices believable for their age and experience.

The Derai seem to be a brutal people, one who put much stock in war and in physical might. There is also an undercurrent of treachery that sours their fearlessness into something dark and sort of bitter. I wanted to know more about the Derai, but I was also relieved when Malian begins the fantasy-series-required “hero’s journey” at the end of the book. The Derai and the Wall of Night they protect are just the tip of the enigmatic iceberg. The reader is given many teasing hints of more – and just as strange – cultures and peoples of Haarth.

I’m sold on this world, and on the characters. I want to know more. I think Helen Lowe has given us a unique new twist on the old “coming of age” fantasy trope and I can’t wait to see what else she’s going to do with it. Not only that, but now that I know from her website that she’s also a poet, I understand the beautiful imagery of this novel. The language here is gorgeous and unobtrusive. You’ll only notice how musically the words go together if you’re looking for it, otherwise you’ll just see the beautifully painted pictures of the scenes described. (Unless, of course, you don’t see pictures in your head**. Which boggles my mind, but is possible. Doubtless even if so, you’ll be able to appreciate this book anyway.)

The good news – at least for my overseas readers – is that I delayed in my review enough that now those in the United Kingdom can look forward to their local Heir of Night debut. The book is set to be released in March 2011, per the sidebar on the author’s website. Don’t feel bummed, US readers – you can pick up The Heir of Night now and still look forward to the sequel, coming out this fall. If you’re not convinced, then hear it from the author’s own lips over at John Scalzi’s Whatever feature: The Big Idea. 

Buy it at Barnes & Noble or Amazon.

Rating:  

**I was going to link, here, to an article I read by (I think) CE Murphy about how she doesn’t see images in her head when she writes and had no idea that anyone could even do that until she’d met someone who’d explained it to her. Except that I can’t find it. Oh, well.