Where Kate Fights her Fate

The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Marie Pope
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Out of favor with Queen Mary, young Kate Sutton gets banished to an out-of-the-way castle called Perilous Gard. Strange things happen there, and it's not much of spoiler to say that she discovers that the world of fairies is very real and very dangerous. She's in danger, and so is the lord's brother and daughter, both of whom Kate wants to help. It's a clever story with a great sense of place, putting the reader in a closed-off corner of forest and rocky hills where magic is still possible, and I feel it's pretty successful.

The middle section of the book drags more than I like, and sense of mystery is damaged by too much familiarity, but the ending(s) are satisfying enough to make allowances.

This is meant to be a MG (supposedly) or YA novel, and it was a Newberry Honor book after it was first published, so it has credentials. Nice cover; interesting premise; some age-appropriate art inside; this seems like it should still do well with young people. I couldn't interest any of my students in it over the years while it was in my class library, which was a disappointment, but I get it now; it looks at first like it would be in reach of struggling or disaffected readers, something like Cooper's Dark is Rising, but when you start you find that it reads harder than that (IMO), and is about 10,000 words longer. Not quite right for the bulk of my population.

Anyway, it's a good historical fantasy that really should appeal to many readers, and even after all these years (as it was first published 1974), it deserves to find an audience.

Recommended for old people like me, sturdy MG readers, and lots of people in between.

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Where I Discover Sexy-Time Romance in My Fantasy, and I Like It

Arcana by Jessica Leake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a fun fantasy that hits a lot of the right notes for me. I enjoy stories of female protagonists making their way in the formal society of an earlier England--Regency, or Victorian, or, as here, Edwardian England--and fighting to be their own person despite the restrictions of the age, especially regarding their decisions about marriage. I like settings that mix the historic as well as the fantastic, where a world looks much like ours but includes magic or magical beings. And well-done coming of age stories are always welcome.

Fantasy and romance are two great tastes that taste great together, though this novel leans a little harder toward romance than most fantasies I choose--on the Reese's scale, I think that's a little more chocolate in the peanut butter--but rather than being disappointed, I enjoyed the novel very much. This is an entertaining story with interesting characters, and if it is a bit melodramatic in parts, well... there are reasons why melodrama (of the A Star is Born or Wuthering Heights type) has been so successful for so long. Sometimes you want your heroes heroic, your lovers lovely, your villains villainish, and your nemesis truly nemetical.

(I'm confident these are the right words and I stand by them.)

I accidentally bought the second book first and had to hunt down this first one. I'm glad I did. I liked it, and I think it sets up a series nicely. The actual books are a different size, so that's gonna bug me, looking at them on the shelf, but I'm gonna have to just get over that. ;)

Recommended for those fantasy readers who like a novel of manners and enjoy a bit of sexy romance; recommended for those romance readers who like a bit of literal magic in their love story. Perhaps we can shake hands here in the middle.

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Where Guy Gavriel Kay Sets a Few Stars in the Sky

Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is another beautiful piece of fantasy writing by Guy Gavriel Kay.

Set in a sort-of Byzantium, this is the conclusion of the Sarantine Mosaic, his homage to Byzantium and the artists who created enduring mosaic masterpieces from colored tiles. The novel (both novels) has its share of exciting action, but Kay is a master of the small moment, the touching scene, which is what I love most in his books.

Like this moment, where a confident young boy is reunited with is father at the end of a long journey:

Shaski made a sound--a wail, a heart's cry--and ran to his father then, a small bundle of spent force, to be gathered and held. He began to weep, desperately, like the child he still was, despite everything else he was and would be.

This scene is not central to the story--just sweet, and well rendered.

Like this passage as well, from near the end (with slight spoilers, reader, but you'll get over it) when Crispin inspects a space with an artist's eye:

The chapel was at least four hun­dred years old, dating to the beginnings of the sanctioned worship of Jad in Rhodias. The light entering was soft and mild, falling cool as pale wine on stone.

Martinian, seeing his colleague's gaze move from surface to surface, tracking the fall of sunlight through the smeared and broken windows above (windows could be cleaned, panes replaced), began to look about for himself. And then, after a time, in a silence that aspired to simple hap­piness, he just watched Crispin as he turned and turned about.

Look for many such passages, filled with imagery and emotion, twined together.

Both novels (the previous, Sailing to Sarantium, and this one, Lord of Emperors) deal with political events and the interplay of multiple social forces in Sarantium, with a plot which connects the common people of this great city with soldiers, physicians, and the stars of the hippodrome, as well the emperor, empress, and other members of the court, and these disparate characters are presented in a way that is reminiscent, metaphorically, of an ambitious, city-spanning mosaic. Crispin himself is connected to many key figures, standing on the edge of the stories of more important people, and it's mostly his participation in events of historical import (in his world) that allows the reader to observe them, a commoner spying on the great--a fly on the emperor's wall.

I believe this works, for the most part, but I'll admit to losing the thread at some point and setting the book aside. For quite a while. When I came back to it a short time ago (having left the bookmark in its place, thankfully) I found a lot to enjoy, along with more patience for the pacing. So, while I can happily recommend the novel, scrupulous honesty requires me to do so with a tad less enthusiasm than usual.

★★★★ Fine novel, with gorgeous prose. And if the pacing, somewhat slower than some of his other books, did not perfectly suit me, I'm sure there are still many readers who will prefer it.

In the end, you feel the author's love for the original, the Byzantium of history, and those long-forgotten artists. This novel feels like a tribute to them, a window shaped for us in words:

"The heart cannot say, sometimes, but the hand and eye--if steady enough and clear enough--may shape a window for those who come after. Someone might look up one day, when all those awake or asleep in Sarantium tonight are long dead, and know that this woman was fair, and very greatly loved by the unknown man who placed her overhead, the way the ancient Trakesian gods were said to have set their mortal loves in the sky, as stars."

Greatly loved, for certain.

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