Gomagog

 So, after a long absence from reading Stephen King's post Dark Tower novels, I picked up Fairy Tale with a gift card I received for my upcoming birthday.

While not particularly a horror tale (it really falls under the "Dark Fantasy" umbrella more than any other genre), it did not disappoint. (On the other hand, his endings still need a bit of help.)

Anyway, our focus character is Charlie, who's narrating the events from a future time of what happened when he was 17 and living in a Chicago suburb. A reclusive old man falls off a ladder, and Charlie saves him. Which introduces us to Radar, the dog, with whom we spend probably a quarter of the book learning about the care and feeding of said animal. 

Eventually, the old man dies, leaving Charlie with everything, including a pot of gold in his safe and a shed with a well to another world in it. 

Charlie ends up going in with the intention of saving Radar, who is very old and dying, since there's a sundial that works like Bradbury's carousel in Something Wicked This Way Comes.

Except...well...he does eventually subtract several years from Radar, but in the process, he winds up trapped in the Fairy Tale world he's part of, becoming a tale in and of himself. 

There are quite a few things I liked in here. King tends to reuse phrases from previous works, and in this particular book, he tells us the roots of some of those phrases. I like the idea presented in here about worlds stacked on worlds, since it echoes The Dark Tower without getting bogged down in the mythology that eventually overtook the narrative. I really was reminded of Walter Jon Williams' Aristoi at a few points as Charlie must confront being dragged out of an ideal into hard reality. 

I enjoyed this quite a bit. It reminded me quite a bit of Eyes of the Dragon, but with less sibling rivalry and much more just enjoying the ride.

I see why this got so much hate

 So, despite my best attempts to avoid it, I did read Greg Weisman's deeply unpopular War of the Spark: Forsaken this week. 

Picking up right after the last volume, we get into the chase after 3 planeswalkers who had sided with Nicol Bolas. Including the perpetual Liliana Vess, who's popularity has remained constant over the years since her introduction. The others are Tezzeret and Dovan Baan. 

Ugh. Anyway, of the 3, only Dovan actually dies, mainly because someone else kills him and plans to blackmail the person who was supposed to. (This was an older storyline, so the plot should be pretty familiar to anyone who reads the book.) 

There were a couple of odd reveals, such as finding out that Rat, the invisible girl, also has a male personality that assassinates people, and exactly who all the shapeshifter Laslov is actually impersonating. (One of his old printings is actually a lot of fun to play.) 

And then there's the controversial part. See, it was heavily implied that Chandra and Nissa were having an affair. And in this book, we find out it was never consummated, and most folks read it as bi-erasure. Which, yeah I get that. On the other hand, letting Chandra and Nissa have a happy ending given that everyone else gets a bad ending (Jase and Vraska are back to Human/gorgon coupling, but lacking trust in each other; Ral and Tomik losing together time; Gideon dead, etc etc....) it kind of makes sense that the world is bereft of elf on pyromancer fanfic for a while.  I'm sure they'll retcon the retcon eventually. 

Readable, but silly.

Let's break out the D&D and Ozzy!

 So, as part of my attempt to read something scary for Halloween, I wound up grabbing Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman. (It popped up on goodreads, it looked interesting.) 

So, we're switching between two narratives; one, Sean, starts in 1983ish, and one, Richard, is self narrated in 2012. Both are the same person, we just wait most of the book to get the full story on what exactly happened to turn Sean into Richard. The long story short here is that Sean got lead down the garden path by a pushy child psychologist and, along with his classmates, winds up implicating his teachers in a Satanic Ritual Abuse scandal. 

In 2012, Richard is teaching art at an Elementary school, and lo and behold, we start with him finding a mutilated rabbit with a birthday card for Sean stuck in its chest cavity. Things in the past keep happening in the present. It does seem Richard is being set up to be accused of doing what he accused his teachers of doing. 

Having lived through the 80's moral panic, Chapman does a really good job of recreating the mindset of the era during the Sean bits. Deeper digging into the era shows that what Sean endures pretty well reflects what was happening with the children coming forward with wild tales of zombies feeding them flesh after being summoned by teachers. 

That being said, the parts in the present of 2012 fall flat. Really flat. It felt a lot like reading an outline of a much better story than actually was presented. Even the big reveal isn't that exciting, as pretty much anyone paying attention will figure it out about halfway through.

Which is sad, since Sean's story is both sad and compelling. One just wishes Richard's story was more fleshed out, and less thin than his created identity.

Meet/Cute with a bunch of silly

 So, one of the books I found myself browsing at work was Boyfriend Material by Alexis Hall.Which once I realized was male male romance with a male author, I figured, Why not?

So, we're (self) centered around Lucien O'Donnel, the son of an Irish-French Folk Singer and a Prog Rock start who mostly seems to be a cypher of Ian Anderson. Luc is about to get fired from his job as a donation coordinator for a Dung Beetle charity after donors get wind of him passed out in a gutter after a party, particularly after the paparazzi takes pictures of said event. Needing reputational rehab, he gets his best friend Bridget to set him up with Oliver Blackwood, a straight laced criminal defense solicitor. As it turns out, Oliver needs a fake boyfriend to get through his parents' anniversary party. 

Which leads to a fake relationship that becomes much more real about halfway through. 

Well, ya know, except for the whole complications that crop up towards the end, leading to Richard Gere picking him up from his hovel....er...well....

I mean, we get solid portrayals of both men's emotional damages as the plot meanders on; Luc's dad left him for fame, and tries to reconcile now that he's dying of cancer and on a The Voice style competition, Oliver's parents are some of the most unintentionally cruel people this side of Harry Potter's Aunt and Uncle. It's appropriately sad at all the right points, and absurd bits of humor crop up at unexpected intervals. 

Yeah, it's a bit too frothy to be serious, and a bit too dark to be comedy. But it works and entertains. 

Nicol Bolas needs ketchup

 So, one of my older HPB purchases was Greg Weisman's novelization of Magic: the Gathering's War of the Spark. 

Now as someone who plays the game occasionally, I knew the plot here, but reading the novel was kind of a novel concept to me.

Problem being that, like many novels written about gaming material, it's really uneven. 

So, plotwise, we open on Elder Dragon Nicol Bolas landing on the city plane of Ravnica, and setting his trap. The Planar Beacon to draw every planeswalker in the multiverse to Ravnica, the Immortal Sun, to trap everyone there, and the Planar Bridge opened in the Guildhall to disrupt the leylines and let the mummified Eternals to march on Ravnica, taking everyone's Spark to feed Bolas.  

As such, what remains of the Gatewatch gathers to try to put down Bolas once and for all. 

Anyone who plays the game has a good understanding of this. People who don't aren't likely to read this. 

Anyway, there are a few surprises in here, like finding out Static Shock er Ral Zarek has a male lover. Or the about as subtle as the Village People lesbian undertiones between Chandra and Nissa. (Supposedly, in the sequel volume, they retcon the hell out of that.) We get the silliness of Jace's love for the Gorgon Vraska (it's sweet, but I'm trying to figure out what the children would look like), and Rat, who almost no one can see. 

Honestly, the weak parts here are trying to humanize the characters. They have no real depth.

On the other hand, as befits the authors work with comic books, the action sequences match if not surpass the grand fight scenes in your average MCU movie, where everyone gets some screentime to show off. I mean, when the Invulnerable Gideon Jura, paragon of White Magic attacks Bolas after jumping off the Black and red Demon Radkos, I felt the urge to yell loudly and throw popcorn. 

Honestly, I enjoyed it enough to feel I didn't waste money by buying the volume, but...

Not the cemetary, but the Lake

 I'm running behind on updates again.

So, Riley Sager wrote another late summer thriller, and once again, I wound up reading it, expecting the same issues I run in to with his narratives. 

Honestly, The House Across the Lake is a step up from previous novels by the author, but it does suffer from a problem with sticking two major twists too close together, so that the effectiveness of the final twist suffers. 

We open on Casey Fletcher, an actress who has been schlepped up to her lakeside Vermont estate after her drinking problem got so out of control that she got fired from a Broadway play she was starring in. WE find out that Casey's drinking issues stem from her husband drowning in the lake she's currently trapped at a year prior. (Yes, I didn't make the connection that Casey is a rough cypher for Carrie Fisher until I started writing this review.)

Anyway, We have four other people staying at the lake, which is fairly isolated and very rich. Eli, an old sci-fi author is the only year round resident. We have Boone, a recovering alcoholic ex cop restoring the neighbor's house. And we have Tom and Katherine,  the former a tech millionaire, and the latter a supermodel. 

We get introduced to Katherine as Casey saves her from drowning in the lake. 

Anyway, the story becomes equal parts Rear Window, and a few other horror movies we won't mention due to spoilers, as a hurricane remnant approaches, and Casey starts spying on the neighbors with her dead husband's bird watching binoculars, as we find out EVERYONE's dirty secrets. 

I mean, the overwhelming sense of catharsis is palpable as we hit the first finale, but then there's the second finale that falls kind of flat following the original reveal. Past that, it's what I expect from Sager, readable fun.

Well, Hello, Esme!

 One of the books I picked up in London was A Blink of the Screen, a collection of short fiction from Terry Pratchett. While anthologies aren't usually my thing, this is Pratchett. 

Anyway, the collection is roughly 2/3 non-Discworld, and 1/2 Discworld, although a few of those are things written for other sources. (In particular, a synopsis written setting up the Discworld boardgame that eventually got written in book form as THUD!.) 

There are some stories that are really really good and stick out in the not Discworld section. Like "Turntables of the Night", in which DEATH goes to a Disco. The entire conversation between the anthropomorphism of Death and a DJ discussing artists they collect made this worth the buy. In another really odd one, "Twenty Pence, With Envelope and Seasonal Greeting" is a bit like if HP Lovecraft wrote a Christmas story. (Seriously. Much of the story is recounted by someone observing an insane postal worker driven mad by the world turning into Christmas Cards.) 

In terms of the Discworld section, the big one is the near novella that is "The Sea and Little Fishes" (which has deleted material in the Appendix). It concerns Witch Trials, and a committee of witches trying to convince Granny Weatherwax not to enter so someone else can win. Esme's way of dealing with this is delightful. Another standout is "Theatre of Cruelty", in which the Night Watch tries to solve the mystery of a dead puppeteer. Including the absolutely wonderful interview with a witness, once again DEATH. 

One really interesting story in here, "The High Meggas", is basically the origin of The Long Earth. One of the protagonists here shares a name with the eventual protagonist of the series, but past that the resemblance to what came later on is superficial. 

And of course, there's the lyrics to the Ankh-Morpork National Anthem, written for a BBC Radio programme about various National Anthems. Which was then set to music and sung by the Scots. 

Seen Here. 

Bonus joke is Pratchett's observation that most folks remain shocked to learn their anthem has more than one verse, so the second verse has a bunch of mumbling followed by a few words, as if the Soprano singing it remembered the ends of the phrase. 

I miss Pratchett. I'm always glad to have a reminded of why I miss him.

A nightmare at midsummer.

 So, I actually finished Seanan McGuire's Be the Serpent Friday, but it's been a week. 

So, October and Tybalt are married and in bliss. Other than being summoned to Muir Woods for the debate on waking up Rayseline, who was last seen (awake) trying to kill off most of the court. Mind you, when October entered her dreams, a promise was made, which comes to the fore after she's wakened. Which is, essentially, Rayseline comes to be October's servant for a year, giving her a chance to heal. 

Which is all well and good until two of the court seers (sisters of Toby's best friend) start screaming in terror. Which leads to finding out one sister is dead, and the brothers are ok. 

Which is pretty much where the plot gets going, as we start digging deeper into the true nature of Fairie, and indeed, just about everyone in here ends up going off at Oberon at some point in time. (Frankly, he kind of has it coming.) 

Any rate, we get pretty deep into what actually caused the Broken Ride, or at least another perspective on it, and a hell of a lot of dirty laundry about the Courts and Claims of Oberon, Janet, Titania, and Maeve. We also get a really BIG freakin' cliffhanger after the main plot is mostly resolved. 

Then we get a really cool novella that explains the binding of Antigone the Sea Witch and how it came to be. 

While most people who've finished complain about the cliffhanger, I'm enjoying it, since I can't wait to find out what happens next. Particularly since the teaser we got prior to the book being released had me assuming this would be the book in which Antigone actually tries to kill October. It's not. Yet. 

Always fun, and I can't wait to see what happens next.

As unto Sodom, but with less purpose

 So, wound up rereading John Rechy's The Coming of the Night over the past week. While it's a lot less verbose than City of Night, it covers similar territory while illuminating the end of an era. 

We're in Los Angeles in 1981, opening on Jesse in the morning, as he prepares to basically screw his way to a massive release in the night. (A note on structure here. We get multiple focus characters, and we follow them from morning until Night.) The Sant'Ana winds are blowing and the entire city is on edge. We meet Zha Zha, the drag queen porn director, doing a "rehearsal" in the hills for a closeted producer. We have Clint, who's come to LA to get away from some issues in NYC. We have the black cowboy who hates being fetishized for being clack, we get the muscle guy who's worried that his size isn't enough for people. We have the older queen, who sees himself as above the lowlifes out cruising the streets, even as he cruises himself. We have Paul, who's boyfriend is off screwing around in San Francisco. We have the straight hustler, doing men for money. We have Father Norris, who is asked by a woman in confession to go save her son, who has a naked crucifix tattooed on his back while he's busy hustling.And we have the leather guy, who winds up plotting the orgy for Jesse's birthday in the park at night. And lest we forget, we have the roughnecks out to go queer bashing. 

It's quite funny in several spots, as almost everyone in here keeps mentioning how to avoid a hookup once you think the other person is saying no, as Zha Zha's party finds the stars switching roles randomly; but there's also some really painful moments as Clint reveals that he's running for a gay cancer that took out one of his friends in New York, as father Norris chases shadows, as the queer bashers wind up getting bashed themselves. 

Ultimately, it's the portrait of the days right before AIDS, when sex and sexuality were the reward for the sheer amounts of shit society poured down upon the queers. Sadly, as we all know, it got worse. 

Well worth reading.

D&D Multiverse?

 Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman have returned to Dragonlance with Dragons of Deceit, their first collaboration in this setting in several years. 

We open on Destina, a Solamnic Lady who's father dies at the battle of the High Clerist's Tower (where Sturm died in Book 2 of the original series.) As time progresses, her life falls apart, as the keep her father left her gets taken over by her Uncle, and she winds up losing everything.

Hearing tales in Palanthas of Tasslehoff's adventures (in Legends), Destina seeks first the Greygem (last seen in Summer Flame; however, this book is set before the Chaos War) in Thorbardin, and then seeks out Tasslehoff in Solace to get the Time Travel MacGuffin Device to go back in time to try to keep her father from dying. 

There's a hell of a lot of silliness, particularly since Destina's big plan to get Tas to cooperate involved her turning into a Kender, made more complicated by the Greygem also playing havoc with magic. 

By the end, two characters who were dead prior to the start of the book wind up with Tas and Destina in an major event prior to the Cataclysm, with folks in the present (of this book) looking on in horror as history rewrites itself. (With both the Greygem AND Tas in the past, time can be altered.)

While I was amused by the novel as a whole, I kind of wonder what path the authors are shooting for with this trilogy. I mean, there's Destina's narrative of accepting the death of her father, there's the whole if Chaos is back in the 3rd age, can they prevent the whole of the Chaos War later on, and another bit of two characters who sort of remember their fates but are honestly kind of as they were at the beginning of the entire world, and what could they do? 

While part of me is hoping they're retconning the entire Chaos War (it was seriously a painful read, and one gets the impression it was forced by TSR), I'm also wondering if we aren't going to wind up with the first D&D setting with a Multiverse of Madness.