Mervi's Book reviews

A stand-alone historical fantasy book set in 12th century Egypt.

Publication year: 1989
Format: print
Page count: 260
Publisher: Bantam

This is a book for horse lovers. It’s a fairy tale expanded to a fantasy.

Hasan is the pampered only son of a rich emir and a thoroughly self-centered, gambling, drunken womanizer. He also lives in Egypt in a time when all decent women live in harems. When he finally gambles away his father’s prized mares, his father has had enough and just tells Hasan that he’s going to be sent for a Beduin who will make a man out of Hasan. Hasan escapes. But instead of doing anything useful, he spends the night drinking, womanizing, and spending the last of his money. After he’s robbed and beaten, he staggers to the house of an old man who nurses him back to health. Recovering, Hasan meets the beautiful young woman who has been nursing him and rapes her. She’s the old man’s daughter. The old man turns out to be a magus and he transforms Hasan to a horse, a red stallion. The magus tells Hasan that he will be a slave to a woman and will die in the horse form.

Soon, a girl does buy Hasan the stallion. She’s Zamaniyah who is around 14 but already has a great eye for horses. She’s also the only daughter of Hasan’s father’s mortal enemy. She names Hasan Khamsin and starts to train him together with her father’s horsemaster, a Greek slave.

The POV characters are Hasan/Khamsin, Zamaniyah, and her eunuch slave Jaffar. Because all of Zamaniyah’s brothers have been slain (by Hasan’s father), her father had decided to raise her has a boy and his heir. She’s forbidden to enter harem, where all of her father’s women, including concubines, live and she’s forbidden to wear women’s clothing or makeup or anything that rich women of that time had. Instead, she’s taught to ride, fight, hunt, and care for horses.

The first half of the book is mostly about Zamaniyah training the horse Khamsin. The second half is set during the sultan Salah ad-Din Yusuf’s war campaign and is quite different from the first.

Zamaniyah is a great character. She always obeys her father, even though sometimes she wishes that she could be an ordinary girl. But on the other hand, she enjoys horse and knows that this is the only way she can train and ride them. But when she’s angry, she forgets to be obedient and quiet, so that nobody will notice how strange she is. She takes a liking to Khamsin and uses a gentle “Greek” way to train him as a warhorse. The women scorn her and the men can’t be friends with her, so her only friend is Jaffar, her eunuch slave who is devoted to her. She also befriends one of her father’s concubines who is a captured Frankish woman.

Tarr doesn’t shy away from showing us the Islamic world at the time, which includes (rich) women shut away to harems, slavery, eunuchs, and that woman are chattel to men. Most men don’t accept Zamaniyah but they must respect that it was her father’s choice to raise her as a boy. Also, the book dealt with surprising amount of rape, although not in any titillating way. So, despite Zamaniyah’s age, this is definitely not YA.

I thoroughly enjoyed Zamaniyah and Khamsin was mostly entertaining, too. I mostly enjoyed this story and except for the fantasy bits, I think it’s fairly accurate description of the times.

Bone is a black and white fantasy comic about three cousins called Bone. They all look rather strange, but humanoid, and they don’t wear much clothing. Fone only wears gloves, Phoney wears a shirt with a star, and Smiley wears a vest. Fone Bone is the main hero: a dependable and decent man. Phoncible “Phoney” is the opposite of Fone: a ruthless and opportunistic business man/cheater. Smiley is an easy-going man but thoughtless and Phoney can often drag him into helping in his newest scheme.

The three cousins are driven out of their home time Boneville when Phoney’s latest scheme goes wrong. They’re wandering in a desert and are separated when a huge cloud of locusts attack. After the attack, we follow Fone who is increasingly desperate to find water. Luckily, Fone finds the Valley. Two large rat creatures try to eat him but he manages to escape and he sees a red dragon. In the end, he make a few friends among the talking animals and must spend the winter. Then, he find a human looking girl Thorn and immediately falls in love with her. Thorn lives with her eccentric grandmother and cows in a small hut in the forest. She welcomes Fone and agrees to help him find his cousins. But the rat creatures and their leaders really want to get their hands on the Bone cousins.

Bone is a mixture of comic scenes and fantasy. The Valley seems to have medieval type (lack of) tech: the locals don’t use money but barter and they use horses and cows instead of motorized vehicles. Also, the Valley seems to be the only place which has the rat creatures and dragon. Fone’s favorite book is Moby Dick and he brought comics with him. But we don’t really know much about Boneville.

The fantasy parts in the book can be quite dark at times, which is a sharp contrast between the cute talking animals and the funny parts. However, for me, that’s part of the charm. But I still don’t really care for the romance.

The comic has several endearing and eccentric characters. Thorn’s grandmother is one: she runs fo 20 kilometers a day for fun and competes in the cow races. She clearly knows more than she’s telling to Thorn and Fone. There are also the two rat creatures. While the rest of their species are clearly a Horde of Evil, the two we keep meeting are the bumbling fools of the pack.

I read this comic when it was first released here in Finland in the 1990s. The reread is proving to be just as enjoyable as the first read.

Part of the Wyrd and Wonder month.

I’m a reader and I love books about books. Not just Giles and the gang reading books to find out how to defeat the big bad or Morpheus talking with Lucien in Dream’s library (as delightful as those scenes are) but books playing a bigger part in the story. So far, I’ve found three such fantasy series:

The Invisible Library series by Genevieve Cogman
This series has many, many parallel worlds. They’re all joined by the Library and the Librarians can travel from one world to the next… by using mortal libraries! The Librarians also steal, ahem, acquire certain books.

The worlds influence and are influenced by two powerful groups: the dragons, representing order, and the fae who are chaos. The worlds themselves run from steampunk worlds to medieval worlds to our current technology, and more. The more chaotic a world is, the more likely it is that it has magic. This is a series with both dragons and fae and lots of books!

Irene Adler is the main character and POV character. She starts as a junior Librarian who is assigned her first trainee, Kai. Irene is used to working alone and she doesn’t want a trainee tagging at her heels. Irene’s main duty is the acquire books.

Thursday Next series by Jasper Fforde
This is an alternative universe where the people are very enthusiastic about art, especially literature, to the point that people change their names to classical poets and instead of door-to-door missionaries, they have the Baconists who go door-to-door and try to convince people that Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare’s plays. Thursday herself is a literature detective; she goes after stolen books.

She’s sent to Swindon where the SO-5 office has two officers who specialize on Shakespeare related crimes: “They keep an eye on forgery, illegal dealing and overtly free thespian interpretations. The actor with them was Graham Huxtable. He was putting on a felonious one-man performance of Twelfth Night.”

Thursday’s uncle has invented the Prose Portal through which a real person is able to actually enter in books. In this case, Jane Eyre.

Magic Ex Libris series by Jim C. Hines
This series is set in modern times but it has wizards who can pull objects out of books. The main character Isaac Vainio is such a libriomancer. However, the wizards can only pull out objects which are small enough to come out of a book, so no X-Wings or Enterprise but Excalibur and fasta-penta qualify! The books also need enough readers before magic happens, so the wizards can’t just write their own books. And ebooks don’t count.

The wizards are an organization which has been secretly protecting humans from vampires and other baddies for centuries. Johannes Gutenberg founded them and he is still alive and running them. Isaac himself works as a librarian in small town library. He’s also an SFF fan and wears a long brown coat because of Captain Mal Reynolds! And he has a pet fire spider Smudge.

I know that Rachel Caine has the Great Library series but I haven’t started it yet.
Any other similar series?

A fantasy book centering on horses. It was part of the Weird Western Storybundle I bought in 2016.

Publication year: 2016
Format: ebook
Page count at GoodReads: 160
Publisher: Book View Cafe

Claire Bernardi calls herself a “failed academic”; she has a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies but hasn’t gotten an academic job nor been able to write anything for a while. Instead, she lives on her friend Dorrie’s half-abandoned horse farm in Arizona with two horses, a mule, and cats. She uses her psychic ability to communicate with animals to get a small amount of money. However, even that is dwindling because the owners’ of the animals aren’t happy when she honestly tells them what their animals feel. Claire can also sense all sorts of spirits and can’t live long-term in a town.

But everything changes when Dorrie sends two clients to the ranch. They want Claire to look after their herd of six mares and a stallion. Claire is suspicious because they offer her more money for a month than she should get in a year. But she agrees. Of course, things aren’t as they seem.

This is a lovely story about horses and nature spirits with some mythology thrown in. Claire can sense spirits in the earth, water, and air, all around her. She’s a middle-aged woman which was great. She considers herself a loner but she gets along well with her best friend Dorrie (who is a TV-series writer/creator) and Emma who helps her around the ranch. Claire doesn’t have much confidence in herself or her abilities.

The horses are the stars of the book. Claire has an ancient mare Aziza and a spirited gelding Ricky but the new horses steal the show. Tarr has horses and understands them very well, which shows in the writing. Also, the gorgeous Arizonan desert is very much part of the book.

This isn’t an adventure book. The plot doesn’t really kick in until near the end.

A six issue limited series.

Publication year: 1985
Publisher: Epic Comics, reprinted as a collection by Dark Horse

This is a very interesting mix of English myths, fairy tales, and history.

King Henry II has died recently. His country is divided and his heir Richard the Lionheart is away at war. James Dunreith, Duke of Ca’rynth, has been in exile for 25 years but because of Henry’s death, he thinks it’s safe to return. He’s wrong. He has barely stepped to England’s shore when knights capture him and bring him to a monastery as a prisoner. There, he’s tortured because the Church thinks that he’s a heretic and a sorcerer. However, a group of mysterious knights rescue him, but none too gently.

It turns out, that Queen Eleanor knows that James is back and needs his services. James’ childhood friend, a powerful Earl, is suspected not just of treason but of black magic. Eleanor sends James to find out what’s going on. James is reluctant but feels duty-bound to obey. On the way, James is reunited with his old friend Brian Griffin and they rescue a young lady from outlaws.

James has traveled a lot, all the way to Cathay. He’s a man of reason and doesn’t even believe in magic, even though the Church claims he uses it. However, he’s not aged while away from England and right in the first issue, he sees a dream (or is it a dream) of a huge black dragon who heals James’ tortured body. So, it’s clear that something supernatural is going on.

The story uses a lot of English myths. Robin Hood is a major secondary character, which was a pleasant surprise to me. Various fairies also appear.

Bolton’s art fits the story well. The English countryside looks gorgeous. The art reminds me of Hal Foster’s Prince Valiant.

However, this is a very dark tale, full of betrayal, blood, and dark magic. It’s very different in tone from his X-Men work.

The first book in the fantasy series Long Price Quartet.

Publication year: 2006
Format: Print
Page count: 331
Publisher: TOR

This is book is centered on political scheming. It doesn’t have adventure or fight scenes. Instead, it focuses on characters.

The story starts with a prologue which is set in a cold and cruel school for young boys. It’s also very necessary in order to understand some of the characters and the magic system.

Amat Kyaan is the senior overseer, an accountant of sorts, for one of the large trading houses in the city of Saraykeht. She’s an elderly woman who has dedicated her whole life to her career. When she realizes that her employer is going behind her back with one deal, she makes sure she knows what’s going on. That turns her life upside down.

Liat is Amat’s young apprentice. She’s just seventeen but has ambitions of rising to Amat’s position. Her lover Itani is a common laborer and Liat is worried that his low station will reflect poorly on her. So, when Amat gives Itani a chance to do a small favor for her (and Liat’s) employer, Liat makes sure Itani takes it.

Itani is, indeed, a laborer. He has also a secret and isn’t interested in rising to higher position in life, but wants to please Liat whom he loves.

Maati is a young man who has just come to the city. He’s the apprentice of the poet (the equivalent of magician in this world) and he has spent most of his life in a male-only school learning as much as he can. The court and the politics are all new to him.

Eventually, we also get the POV of Amat’s employer, Marchat Wilsin. Marchat isn’t a native of Saraykeht but a barbarian from the North. His superiors are forcing him to a scheme that makes him loose sleep at night.

All the characters are very deep and I found them interesting, especially Amat because there aren’t many older women in fantasy books and even fewer as POV characters. The culture where the story is set has been inspired by Asian cultures rather than the usual Western Middle-Ages. It’s also a culture based on indentured servitude and downright slavery.

The magic system is unique and can’t really be summed up quickly. Briefly, a poet (the magician) forces an artistic idea to a human form. Then the poet controls the resulting creature and does magic through it. This isn’t easy and many prospective poets fail (and die). The creature, called an andat, develops human feelings and thoughts.

The writing is beautiful, full of great images. It also explores ideas. However, the pacing is pretty slow at times.

The world-building was very interesting and I didn’t mind the slow plot too badly. But I really didn’t care for the love triangle or some of the other stuff that happened later. I guess it’s just too depressing to read right now.

Abraham is half of the writing team of James S. A. Corey who write the Expanse SF series. However, that style is a very different from this book.

A reprint of the Modesty Blaise comic strips 16, 17, and 18.

Publisher: Titan
Original publication years: 1969-1970
Titan publication year: 2005

This collection ends Holdaway’s MB comics. He died suddenly in the middle of drawing “the War-Lords of Phoenix” and Romero was selected to take over. Romero has a distinctive style and he makes Modesty even sexier than Holdaway.

“The Hell Makers” starts with Willie kidnapped by a shadowy organization. They want to use him to put leverage on Modesty. This is a wonderful tale which (again) showcases the absolute faith that Modesty and Willie have on each other. It also includes one of the more eccentric, and entertaining, side characters ever on this comic.

In “Take Over” Italian mafia tries to take over the British underworld. The strip starts with mafia’s men training a group of British thugs to rob a bank properly. Then inspector Brooke asks Modesty to look into several robberies which have been done very precisely. Modesty declines, stating that she isn’t Batman, on a crusade against crime. But later, when Modesty is in a bank, that bank is robbed by just such a crew. They kill the security guard who Modesty knows. Now, she and Willie make it their business to find out who is behind it and stop them.

The short discussion between Brooke and Modesty makes it very clear who she is. Every adventure affects Modesty personally somehow. Even though MB strips are often marketed as “spy adventure” Modesty doesn’t work for any country. She gets involved when bad things happen to to people she cares about or some people from her past threaten her or people close to her.

“The War-Lords of Phoenix” begins with Willie and Modesty in Japan, working out with a seventy-year old master of all martial arts, Kazumi. They talk about Kazumi’s granddaughter who is about to get married. On their way to the hotel, Willie, Modesty, and Kazumi see a woman get stabbed. She’s Kazumi’s granddaughter and the man who stabbed her is her fiancee! Of course, Modesty and Willie investigate.

This is another great collection with O’Donnell at the top of his craft.

The second book in the contemporary cozy mystery series Whispering Pines.

Publication year: 2017
Format: ebook
Page count at GoodReads: 244
Publisher: Brown Bag Books

Jayne O’Shea came to the small Whispering Pines village to repair her grandparents’ house for selling. She’s a former police detective from Madison who had to quit her job. She was looking for some peace and quiet in a tranquil village. Now, she’s exploring the resident circus. She and Tripp, who is just a friend, really, enjoy a great night at the circus. But the next morning, one of the performers is found dead. Whispering Pines doesn’t have a sheriff currently and so Jayne uses her skills to stop anyone from getting to the crime scene and to investigate it initially. But the county sheriff takes over and everyone near Jayne tells her not to investigate further. Of course, she has her hands full trying to clear the huge house with just herself and Tripp. She also wants to turn the house to a bed&breakfast place, but needs her parents’ permission to do that.

Meanwhile, the mysteries in the closely knit community continue.

This was another great read in the cozy mystery series. The combination of local Wiccan practices and the police procedural works well for me and is very interesting. Jayne’s best friend Morgan owns the local witch shop and is a practicing Wiccan. The villagers are very eclectic bunch. I also love Jayne’s dog Meeka which is a white Westie. Meeka used to be a narcotics dog but is now an emotional support dog. The carnies, as they call themselves, are quirky people. Many of them have physical disabilities so they’re even more misfits than the other Whispering Pines villagers.

We’re introduced to two new characters. Lupe is a reporter who want to do a series of feel-good pieces about the thriving tourist village and the circus. She’s, of course, very curious and wants to talk with everyone. The village also gets a new sheriff’s who is very young… and brings with him his mother as a deputy.

I found it a bit strange that both of Jayne’s closest friends, Morgan and Tripp, are against her investigating the murder now and in the previous book. However, most likely that was done to bring some more conflict in their relationships. I’m very curious to see what happens in the next book.

The ending was satisfying but the village’s mysteries still continue.

A reprint of the Modesty Blaise comic strips 13, 14B, and 15,

Publisher: Titan
Original publication years: 1968-1969
Titan publication year: 2005

The title story, Bad Suki, unfortunately shows its age: it’s about hippies who use drugs. Modesty, of course, is against all drugs (except tobacco and alcohol which they both use a lot). Willie saves a teenaged girl from diving to her death. She’s dirty and high. He takes her to Modesty’s place. Modesty bathes her and washes her clothing which the girl, Amanda, doesn’t like. However, Modesty knows that she can’t help her or anyone else who doesn’t want help. So, when Amanda briefly lectures to Modesty and Willie about their too safe lives, Modesty doesn’t say anything. Amanda leaves. But Modesty wants to know more about London’s illegal drug trade. So, she and Willie put on hippie clothes and infiltrate the scene.

The Galley Slaves: Modesty and Willie are on a cruise on a ship which is owned by Modesty’s friend. However, the owner’s friends are terrible snobs and they put down Willie at every opportunity. Ten days later, Modesty can’t stand them any longer. She and Willie simply swim away from the ship to a small island near Tahiti. They have minimal supplies but manage just fine. Willie is building a raft when they suddenly see a Roman style trireme sailing to the island.

The Red Gryphon is set in Venice. Modesty has made a new conquest, a young architect Max who is renovating an old estate for a millionaire. Modesty spots a ragged, eleven or twelve year old boy who who is running from the police. She helps him and gives a meal to him and his best friend. Meanwhile, Max starts to behave in a secretive way, saying that he found something he’s sure Modesty will love but he won’t yet talk about. But that morning, he’s found dead. Modesty must get to the bottom of it.

This story is perhaps the most “usual” of Modesty stories. But the inclusion of the two runaways who live on the streets, stealing and scamming, makes this more personal.

All the stories have great character moments. We already know that Modesty hates drugs and in Bad Suki O’Donnell really digs deep to this side of her. Galley Slaves shows the duo’s unique ethics, concerning the people they used to work with. The duo used to be criminals but even then they were only after money and didn’t hurt people unless they had to. They didn’t and still don’t respect violent criminals or people who exploit or abuse others. In the last story, the two street urchins remind Modesty (and us readers) about her childhood. On the other hand, Modesty and Willie are ruthless to their enemies in this collection.

Collects Captain Marvel issues 1-6 (2014).

Writer: Kelly Sue DeConnick
Artist: David Lopez

Carol is looking for her own place in the world – so she goes to space. In the first issue we get a glimpse of her supporting characters from her previous run, but she leaves all of them behind. Well, except her cat Chewie which she takes with her. I’m not sure I agree with her choice, in fact it seems pretty strange one and was mostly like done at Marvel at editorial level. But I really like the space adventures she gets into.

An alien girl lands on Earth in a rocket and Carol essentially saves her. Now Carol must take the girl, Tic, back. But Tic doesn’t have a home wold anymore because it was destroyed by Builders (in the 2013 Infinity event). Her race, the Nowlians, were given a planet but for some time now many of them are getting sick. Apparently, the planet is killing them. The Galactic Council wants to relocate the Nowlians but they don’t want to leave again. The girl Tic wants to bring back a hero to rescue her people.

Carol is thrust to a complex situation. She tries diplomacy and helping the Nowlians any way she can. This being a superhero comic, the situation does have a simple solution, though. Along the way, Carol makes some new friends and a pretty powerful enemy, too.

I enjoyed the comic a lot, even though I didn’t care for Carol’s reasons for leaving Earth. This is also a good place to start reading Captain Marvel.