Kat Dancing

I completely failed to complete the 50 book challenge last year, but it's not going to stop me from trying again. And discovering FM's new TBR forums is as fuel to the fire. So here's two of the books I consumed on the recent Canada trip for your diversion:



"To Play the Fool" by Laurie R. King

Finding the killer of a homeless man becomes unexpectedly complicated when the prime witness refuses to speak in anything but Bible quotes.

When a group of homeless hold an impromptu cremation of a beloved dog, it gets little attention from the LA police -- until a week later, when the same group tries to do the same thing for the dog's owner. Both dog and man died violently, and the ragtag group of failed and half-crazed homeless can't or won't tell Officer Kate Martinelli what happened. When Kate tracks down the man who arranged the dog's cremation, the much-loved Brother Erasmus, he seems even madder than the rest, refusing to speak save in quotes from Shakespeare or the Bible. But as the mystery deepens and becomes more sinister, Kate, increasingly fascinated by Erasmus, realizes that there can be a method in madness and that the past can provide good reason to become a "holy fool".

This is the second of King's Kate Martinelli mysteries, but it stands superbly on its own. As usual for King, the compelling mystery nevertheless takes a backseat to the brilliant character sketches she provides -- in this case of the homeless men and women, from the homeless-by-choice dead man John to the precise and proper sometimes-artist Catherine* to, of course, Brother Erasmus himself. The background and mythos that King provides him with, the movement of Fools, is brilliantly thought-out and painstakingly backed up, and the confusing method of communicating via quotes is amazingly well handled. One can almost feel the main character's frustration oozing from the page as she painstakingly teases bits of information out of Erasmus, but at the same time, we come to understand along with Kate how such a method can sometimes say more than mere words could.

If the book has a flaw, it is that the action moves slowly for a mystery and the end (as I've found with several King stories) seems a letdown, less the brilliant revelation of a Hercules Poirot than a simple acknowledgment of a truth that was there all along. However, the sympathetic and thought-provoking portrayals of LA's homeless population more than make up for the plot's lack. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys strong, complex characters and a good read.

* Not absolutely sure of the character's name, and the book is elsewhere. Corrections welcome.



"The Wizard Hunters (The Fall of Ile-Rien, Book 1)" by Martha Wells

A suicidal playwright finds herself in possession of magic that could save her besieged world.

Tremaine's world is dying; it has been in a personal way since her father disappeared seven years ago and in a more drastic way since the mysterious Gardier appeared three years ago and began attacking cities, killing and destroying everyone in its path. Desperate, the mages of Ile-Rien scrabble to recreate the spell that caused Tremaine's father to vanish, believing that he had been trying to create a weapon that they could use against the Gardier. It is only when Tremaine is dumped into the middle of an ocean on a strange world that anyone realizes her father had an entirely different purpose in mind.

In the meantime, Ilias and his brother Giliead, worried that a sorcerer they defeated the year before, penetrate the island that had been the sorcerer's stronghold -- only to find it filled with an entirely new kind of sorcery clearly meant for war. When the brothers become separated and Ilias stumbles across a strange (and damp) young woman who seems to share his dislike of the new sorcerers, the two worlds are given another chance to survive the ravages of the ruthless Gardier.

At first glance this book appears to be YAFT (Yet Another Fantasy Trilogy) with little to set it apart from its fellows, and I suspect that's why we haven't heard more of Martha Wells. But it's far more. For one thing, it has a sense of humor. A book that routinely delivers up such gems as "Ixion alive had been bad enough. Ixion, dead, headless and really, really annoyed was unimaginably worse," has already removed itself from the realms of the angsty and deathly serious YAFTs. There are a great many terrible things happening in Wizard Hunters, but the characters stand up to them with spirit and dry wit, which makes the occasional moments where they find something they can't face painfully touching.

For another thing, this is no generic-medieval setting. Il-Rien could be loosely described as "steampunk", while Ilias's world is more Bronze Age, but in both cases Wells (an anthropologist) twists the settings with a light but deft touch into something truly her own. The alienness of Wells's settings does not astonish; rather it creeps up on and ambushes the reader at odd points with a subtlety that is all too rare in fantasy. I was particularly impressed with the way Wells handled Ilias's people, who are neither savages nor idealized rustics but a true civilization with its own strong and weak points.

But most of all, The Wizard Hunters sets itself apart by being a remarkably good book. The writing is skilled, the storytelling on a par with the best, and the characterization simply unforgettable. I heartily recommend this to anyone with a love of good story -- and a couple of hours to spare, since once you pick this one up, you won't willingly set it down.