Chaz BrenchleyReseñas

Fun, takes a slightly weird turn in the 2nd half, which I was less amused by, but the basic story works very well, and is clever look at society.

Interstellar travel has been made possible by uploading consciousness to beam it to appropriate receivers, and decant yourself into the next body. Of course this has all sorts of problems and most of the galaxy has very strict rules regarding the identity, naming conventions and the like. However there are always exceptions, and one of those is Rotten Row, where pretty much anything goes. They have two Shutes so you can send yourself back and forth on the same day, and there all restrictions on bodytype have been disregarded, wings, fur, size and gender are all utterly optional. An artist visits hoping to be able to share mental holography of the denizens thoughts, but is almost immediately beguiled by a passing centaur. Of course some things never change, the rich can order any body they can conceive, while the poor try to earn a living as slaves to others literal designs.

The initial introduction to the world-building was the most interesting, with the look at what such a technology might do to things like art - original physical objects having to be shipped by actual tortuously slow spaceship (although the author fails to grasp how big space is, and long even light takes between stars), and culture. Gender and race become irrelevant when you land in whatever body is ready next, but identity the 'youness' remains critical. Religion gets only a passing glance, but like all traditions has managed to hang on and adapt. Once that's all established well enough with the Artist now exploring the fringes of acceptable behaviour, the plot they get roped into is less interesting, but serves well enough to deliver a resolution.

Clever, and an author worth looking out for.

A coup forces boy emperor, Chien Hua, to retreat to the source of his jade - the small island of Taishu. Jade can only be possessed by the emperor himself due to its inherent properties. It has always been transported, protected and controlled, by wealthy jade masters but with the emperor so close at hand, why shouldn't the miner clans profit from the transaction themselves?
Li Ton, captain of the pirate ship Shalla, has just put all the monks of The Forge to the sword. He's never believed the tales that they ensorcelled a dragon beneath the harbor with their power but he does think their prayers to the old gods keep the fishermen and tradesmen safe. A protection he wants removed, his cargo bays all the better for it.
General Tunghai Wang has all his soldiers in place, ready to cross the harbor, ready to face the emperor and take the jade throne. All that remains is the boat crossing.
And then there's the dragon. She is real, powerful and angry…and free.

Chinese fantasy is not something I’ve read before and I wasn't sure what to expect. The world building is lovely, so packed and concise and the language witty and unexpectedly lyrical at times. Will definitely read book two.

WOW. This book is so crusades. JFC. It was definitely a good but stressful read. I liked all the characters and the magic is cool. I'm still not sure if I even know what's really going on; what's really the point of the book. But it's interesting none the less. I'm also really confused about the main characters and their significance and it's quite strange that we've only had a semi glimpse of it after 600 pages.

I don't regret reading it though. I suppose my feelings about the overall story will develop as I move on to the next book. I wanted to give it 3 stars because things happened, but I felt like the story didn't go much of anywhere, which is nice because there's lots left, but I'm scared it'll be like this until the last 100 pages and I'll have to throw a fit. But it was interesting enough in its writing that it gets the extra star.

Very solid conclusion to the Outremer trilogy. I read the first two books many years ago (this gap is not reflective of their quality, it's just me being slack!); my memory of plot details is a little fuzzy and therefore I probably am not the best judge of how well this volume ties up all the loose ends. However, it certainly reintroduced me to the story and the major players in an economical fashion, the setting was thoroughly evocative, the characters were well-rounded, and it deftly and humanely navigated what could have been a minefield of ethnic and sexual stereotypes in lesser hands. The ending did feel slightly rushed; I think this series warrants a re-read at some point, so I can decide. And I will definitely be looking for more of the author's work!

This was a little hard, given that I haven't read the other two in the series, but it makes me want to go back and start those. More thoughts later.

I ended up passing on this book. I got about 130 pages in and even though I like the writing, I can't figure out what the heck is going on. There are a thousand characters and no mentions of what went down in the first book, so I couldn't tell who anybody is or what they're doing or how they're related to anybody else. After a hundred pages I could figure out some of it but I felt like I was missing the whole story. It's tough sometimes when you get the second book in a series for review -- most of the time you can catch up just fine, but this is one of those cases where the first book is a necessary read.

Not as good as his short stories. It didn't seem to know which genre it wanted to be. Started out as a crime/mystery - man in hospital wakes up with amnesia to find he has a wife he doesn't know and is working for a local crime boss - then brings in an all-powerful angel to do the dirty work. Unsatisfying.

Re-read of the sequel to the stunning dark urban fantasy Dead of Light. Ben Macallan fled abroad at the end of the first book, away from his gangster family and away from any temptation to use his supernatural abilities. But even so he finds himself in a situation where he has to intervene or watch a friend suffer. His promise to himself broken, he gets on his motorbike and heads for home.

But home isn't what it was. The city has finally found a way to defy the Macallans and their uncanny powers of life and death. Only the Macallan men have power, and their women are now hostages. Ben is sick of death and destruction, but a rescue, never mind a peace deal, may be beyond even his extraordinary talent.

It can be read as a standalone if need be, but I think is much better read in sequence with Dead of Light. That way you get a full appreciation of the growth in Ben, as he not only learns to deal with his own newly discovered talent, but convinces key members of his generation of the family to find another way to use theirs. It doesn't have quite the same impact as the first novel, because you don't have the suspense of wondering just how the Macallan clan control the city, but it's still an intense ride with a book that's well out of the usual run of urban fantasy.

Light Errant is out of print in its original paper editions from NEL, but has been re-released in ebook format by Book View Cafe, along with Dead of Light. You can find samples of both books at the BVC website. And maybe if enough of us buy them, Chaz will write a third...

Chaz Brenchley has a fine track record of writing outstanding short stories, and that goes double for one particular class of short story, the ghost story. The set-up, the growing unease, the twist, the reveal - I simplify, I generalise, but still, these elements work brilliantly at short story length. But what happens when you try to sustain a ghost story at novel length?

Well, if you're lucky you get House of Doors.

This sequel (broadly speaking) to The Keys of D'Espérance might have been called The Doors of D'Espérance - it's about a house to which (the clue is in the name) people come when they are at the end of their tether, and about those people and what they find in that house. There are potentially any number of stories, visiting the house at different periods in history, and considering the various fates that might befall a large, remote, unbeautiful house (because Chaz Brenchley also writes well about houses).

House of Doors is set during the Second World War: D'Espérance is now RAF Morwood, a hospital for airmen with horrifying burns, and Ruth Taylor, recently widowed and looking for death, accepts a nursing post there. But before she can even enter the house, right at the door, she is met by - "of course" - the face of her dead husband.

Within the house she finds her patients, men whose injuries are - well, I used the word "horrifying" earlier, and I meant it. There is horror here, and though some of it is supernatural, more of it lies in the damage that the human body can sustain and still survive. These are the injuries that create the 'horribly disfigured' Phantom of the Opera horror, and I am, for reasons of my own, grateful for Chaz for not doing this, for making the reader aware of what his characters have suffered, of how they have been damaged by it and of the pioneering skills of those who treated them, but for pointing out too that after the initial shock, that 'horribly disfigured' face becomes just another familiar face.

I don't know whether a purist would accept House of Doors as a ghost story at novel length. It's a novel, certainly, an exciting, moving novel, and it has a ghost in it. But RAF Morwood has mysteries of its own, and these gradually reveal a story of war and how it is waged, heroism and what it costs. There's a wartime romance, which pulls off the trick of making sense to a modern reader while still making sense by the standards of the 1940s. What makes the ghost story central is an almost meta quality, the way the narrative takes the convention of the haunted house and turns it inside out, confronting the reader with questions about what it would mean to be haunted, how we might feel about ghosts if we thought of them as more than a thrilling fantasy. It invites you to be carried along by the story, but also to carry on thinking about what it means, long after you have reached the end.

Which I suppose makes it haunting at yet another level.

Third part of the medieval China-inspired fantasy by Chaz Brenchley writing under his Daniel Fox pen name. And make no mistake, this is the third and final part of a single story which began with Dragon in Chains, rather than the third of three novels. You'll need to have read the first two parts to get the most out of this book. Fortunately, that's no hardship. This is a complex story that needs the space to do justice to the lives of its characters.

At the end of the second part (Jade Man's Skin), the young Emperor had control of the island of Taishu, source of the jade that underpins imperial power, and was about to lose the city of Santung across the strait to the general who was attempting to overthrow him -- until the no-longer-chained dragon disrupted the petty wars of humans. In this volume the characters have to deal with the consequences -- the dragon will not permit boats to cross the strait unless they are protected by the presence of the Li-goddess of the sea, in the form of one of the children the goddess has taken for her use as a human avatar. As the humans play out their struggles for power, so do the dragon and the goddess, in a complex tales with many strands. It does not end in the boy Emperor winning back his entire empire, but that would not be the right end for this story, and it ends well enough.

As with the first two parts, this offers a thoughtful look at war and its aftermath, written in stunning prose. The trilogy is a long read, but well worth the time.½

It's hard to describe this book, second in "Moshui, The Books of Stone and Water" in anything less than superlatives. It's a rare second book (the first being Dragon in Chains) that stands so well on its own. There's no trace of "middle book syndrome," the let-down of a volume that is essentially all development. Jade Man's Skin has its own integrity, gorgeous prose, action that ranges from subtle to gritty to expansive. The ending was so perfect, so satisfying, that if the story ends there (which it does not), I would have been completely satisfied.

Julianne is now married twice, Anton is free of the Daughter but finds himself missing it terribly, and all of the cast are building up to a battle royal.

It's a complicated world with complicated twists and turns and layered politics. It's good but somehow I felt somewhat relieved to be finished. While I felt more of a connection to both of the female characters they really didn't fell like they were distinct enough as people to stand out, often I found myself wondering which one the author was referring to by "she".

Still, it's an interesting, multi-layered story that's set in a sligtly different world, in a Middle East both like and unlike our own in the Middle Ages and with a huge cast of characters.

Why are the second books of trilogies so difficult? Jade Man's Skin is the second book of Moshui: The Books of Stone and Water, a series set in an alternate China where dragons are real and jade has the power to make an emperor nearly invincible. I greatly enjoyed Dragon in Chains, the first in this series. And I can’t say that I didn’t enjoy Jade Man's Skin; only that I enjoyed it less. It seems to start somewhere and end somewhere, but there is a great deal of chatter in between.

The dragon inhabiting the strait between the mainland of the empire (which is clearly China, though it is not given a name) and Taishu (which appears to be Taiwan in our world) has been mostly unchained, but is not entirely free. Not only is she somehow bound to the boy, Han, whose own chains, once stricken, unleashed the dragon, but she is also forbidden to act whenever she chooses by the goddess of the strait, the Li-goddess. The Li-goddess’s sympathies appear to lie with the young emperor, Chien Hua, but that is not entirely clear; indeed, it seems that her sympathies are most explicitly with the fisherman, Old Yen, the grandfather of Mei Ling, who is the emperor’s first – and so far, only – concubine.

Almost everyone is at odds with everyone else in this chapter of Fox’s trilogy. General Ping Wen wants the emperor’s throne, but he is ostensibly the emperor’s principal protector at the moment, the one in charge of the armed forces who remain loyal to Chien Hua. Tunghai Wang, the soldier who led the rebellion again the emperor that forced him to flee to Taishu, does not know of Ping Wen’s ambitions, but relies upon him to assassinate the emperor. Mei Ling and the emperor’s mother know of Ping Wen’s treachery, but are unable to convince the emperor, who wants to follow Ping Wen’s advice to launch an assault on the mainland.

Yes, there are many different characters and story arcs to keep track of in this book. Some characters who played significant roles in Dragon in Chains, such as the jade master, Guangli, and the pirate, Li Ton, have only walk-on roles here, as the epic grows beyond what can be contained in a single volume. New characters appear, like the eunuch Jung, and Siew Ren, of whom we only heard tangentially in the first book. It soon becomes difficult to remember who everyone is in this vast cast of characters. It is difficult to pay the close attention necessary to keep everyone in his or her place, as the story sags under its own weight and, it must be said, even becomes boring through the middle half of the book. Things pick up considerably as we approach the final battle, but until then, there is much squabbling and talking with little action, and little resolved.

This is so common in trilogies that it is almost not worth reporting. But one must wonder: why do writers write trilogies if they don’t have enough story to fill two books? Why not write a duology and keep it exciting throughout? I’m quite sure that the answer is simply financial, the theory being that three books will earn more money than two, but (while I am not privy to publishing figures on the question) I tend to doubt that that is the case. Surely readers who are disappointed in the second book will not buy the third.

I enjoy that Fox’s trilogy is sent in the Far East, a culture with which I have little familiarity, either in life or in fiction (or even in fantasy). I enjoy the magic system at work here, and I particularly enjoy the realization that Chinese dragons do not have wings, though they fly. Think about the depictions of Chinese dragons you’ve seen on scrolls or kimonos; no wings, see? For all my life, that has eluded me somehow, and now it’s clear to me that Chinese dragons seem to swim through the air, flying by a means of propulsion unknown in the West. Even if I did not enjoy the problems that arise in the romance between Mei Feng and Chien Hua (though I did); even if I did not enjoy Chung’s romantic dilemma (though I did); even if I were not interested in Han’s relationship with the dragon (though I was); I would find the time I put into reading this book repaid by this new knowledge of Chinese dragons. Sometimes the smallest details can enchant completely. And certainly, any trilogy will provide any reader with a plethora of details; it only takes one to fascinate.

Most epic fantasy written in English has its basis in Western culture. While the worlds created in these books are not our world, they are generally recognizable: the use of language is comfortable, the foods are what we or our ancestors ate, the customs are basically familiar. Even mythological creatures look the way we expect them to, so that unicorns have horns and dragons have wings. When there are exceptions to these rules, the author is certain to provide an explanation, and the exception is often integral to the tale.

In recent years, however, the Far East has begun to appear in fantasy more and more often. Daniel Abraham’s Long Price Quartet, for instance, is set in a vaguely Far Eastern milieu. R. Scott Bakker’s The Prince of Nothing series has a Far Eastern feel. And now Daniel Fox’s new series, Moshui: The Books of Stone and Water is explicitly set in China – not quite our China, and not quite Pu-Yi, the last emperor in our universe, but in China in some alternate universe. A I have learned for the first time that Chinese dragons can fly, but do not have wings.

The first book of the series, Dragon in Chains, is set in Taiwan and the strait in between in and mainland China. The young emperor has fled to this island in the face of a rebellion by one of his generals, who has considerable military backing. Taiwan – here called Taishu-island – is his last refuge. It is not at all clear how or even if he will be able to reclaim his empire, even though he has the Jade Throne with him, a furnishing that is essential to anyone who would claim to be emperor.

Although the rebellion is the frame for this novel, the picture in the frame is considerably more complex and populated by numerous interesting characters and subplots. One such character is Han, who is a scribe’s servant when the book opens but quickly becomes both more and less than that as fate wraps its arms around him. Old Yen and his granddaughter, Mei Feng, fish in the strait on the boat that is their family’s only valuable possession – even more valuable in a time of war, and especially when commandeered to carry the emperor. Li Ton, a brutal pirate, has his own agenda that seems to have nothing to do with the rebellion, politics or the emperor, but looks can be deceiving – especially in his case. Yu Shan is a member of a clan that mines jade in the interior of the island; all jade belongs to the emperor, by law, but Yu Shan is part of jade, and jade a part of him, and it has properties that make him an unusual young man. And overlying all of them is the dragon, chained to the bottom of the sea, angry at her captivity and eager to take her revenge.

The stories of all these characters, and several more, are woven together with skill by Fox. He is able to follow several related themes at once without confusing the reader, and ultimately to bring them together in a conclusion that, upon reading, seems inevitable.

Fox writes especially well about how war affects the people who live in a city that comes under attack. I found it difficult to read about Ma Lin and her family, and came away from the book admiring her most greatly among the characters. In fact, Fox’s women seem generally to be very resilient individuals, smart beyond their apparent stations in life, and very much survivors no matter what the odds. Fox’s men seem often to be led by the women, usually without their knowledge, giving the women in this patriarchal society much more power than is immediately apparent.

I was not surprised to read that Fox has written several dozen books, hundreds of short stories, poetry and plays, because he is clearly not a new writer; the assurance with which this book is written makes that clear. I assume that “Daniel Fox” is a pseudonym, because I cannot seem to find any of these books, stories, etc., which is rather a pity because I’d seek them, having so much enjoyed Dragon in Chains.

Right now, though, I’m happy enough to be able to read Jade Man's Skin, which will be followed this coming March by Hidden Cities. Ably written and with an uncommon setting, this fantasy series is worth reading.

Very readable sequel to "Dead of Light". Ben Macallan returns home after a couple of years abroad, to reconcile with his magically-talented, Mafia-like family and sort out the latest catastrophic situation they've got themselves into.½

Ben Macallan, the disowned, prodigal son of a Mafia-like magically-talented family, is drawn back home by the supernaturally gruesome murder of his cousin Marty. Very readable fantasy crime novel.½

This I really should have launched into after finishing the first one, there were bits I was groping for recollection of as I started reading this one, definitely a bridging novel.

It's an interesting story of a slightly different world but with similarities. Medieval Outremer with war and magic. Djinn and ghouls abound and people try to live with some of the stronger magics. The tensions between some of the characters build and the road that Marron walks takes a few more twists.

It's interesting but a world you would need to almost make notes about as you read. I found myself somewhat lost with what had happened before and sometimes wanting things to move a little quicker.½

Disclaimer: Daniel Fox is a friend of mine. However, I didn’t review the book just because he’s a friend — I whined shamelessly for an ARC because having read the first book in the trilogy, I very badly wanted to read the next one as soon as it was available in edited form, rather than waiting until it was on sale.

~~~

Daniel Fox keeps up the quality and the pace in the second volume of his fantasy trilogy inspired by mediaeval China. The first volume, “Dragon In Chains”, told the tale of the boy Emperor’s flight from a rebel army, and the stories of some of those touched by the war. Now the Emperor has reached safety on the remote island of Taishu on the very fringe of the Empire.

Taishu may be remote, but no would-be usurper can afford to leave the Emperor there in exile. The island holds the jade mines that are the source of imperial power — and in this world, that isn’t just symbolic. This volume explores in greater depth the subtle magic that underpins imperial rule. And there is more than imperial magic. There are other intelligences in this world, and the human forces which are arrayed against one another are starting to learn just what it means to tangle such creatures into human battles.

It’s hard to review this book in any depth without giving major spoilers for the first one (which I’ve reviewed previously), because this trilogy really is a single novel in three volumes, not a series of three interlinked novels. But what I can say is that it follows each of the major characters and threads from the first volume, developing each strand of the story in a satisfying way. This is no wish-fulfillment story wherein the Hero is noble simply because he is the Hero, but a careful consideration of the cumulative effects of power — on those who have it, whether in name only or in reality, on those who desire it, and on those who are simply in its path. And like the first volume, it neither flinches from showing the horror of war, nor wallows in gratuituous gore.

This is a complex story with equally complex characters, which genuinely needs the three volumes to do justice to the tales it has to tell. But it’s beautifully constructed, and told in stunningly good prose. If you’ve not read the first book, don’t start with this one. It really is worth your while finding “Dragon in Chains” and reading that first, not least because part of the pleasure is watching how the characters are changing and growing in response to the upheavals in their world. But there’s no need to wait for the final book to come out, as “Jade Man’s Skin” offers enough intermediate resolution of plot threads to leave a reader feeling satisfied while still wanting to hear the end of the story. Go buy them now — this series is breathtaking, in concepts, in story and in prose.

Comment thread for this review at my Livejournal.

Whilst the trilogy was long in the reading, I enjoyed it as I knew it was loosely based upon a reality. Those not familiar with the Crusades would find this - and its sister books - a little tedious.

"The Kingdom of Outremer was born of blood and pain and passion; forty years on, enemies still threaten its borders and heresy still threatens its peace."

The First Book of Outremer is loosely based upon the first years of European settlement in the Holy Land after the First Crusade. It mixes a combination of magic and fantasy with the right amount of near history.

A private detective takes on a case of a rich girl who says her father is 'a fake'. It proves to be even more complex than it first appears.

This starts off quite slowly but it builds into a very interesting story of a group of people in a world something like ours where magic is a reality and is set in something that resembles the Middle East during a period not unlike the crusades.

Marron is a young man who is trying to come to terms with the terrible things he has done in the name of his religion and trying to find a way to make a role for himself in the brotherhood, the Society of Ransom. As a lowly soldier he has done things he would rather forget.

Julianne is the daughter of the King's Shadow, in the Roq de Rancon, en route to her marriage. Along the way she was joined by Elessi, a woman who has some secrets. Joined by others they have to face up to legend and strangeness and try to come out the other side alive.

There were times when it felt like a quest novel where the author was trying to get the various people in a role-playing group together but in the end it turned very interesting and the characters became quite likeable. I look forward to the sequels.