A Lion Among Men, by Gregory Maguire (novel)

A Lion Among Men is the sequel to Wicked and Son of a Witch. Wicked is a brilliant, brilliant book, but it was such a tragedy I swore not to ever re-read it. Son and Lion have been sitting on the to-be-read shelf for years, and with Out of Oz described as the conclusion to the cycle, it seemed time to read them (see my review of Son for more detail).

A Lion Among Men has a lot of the same flaws as Son of a Witch. It rambles, and the narrative is mostly a series of flashbacks. But when taken together with Son, it very much appears that the two are essentially the third book of a trilogy. Middle books of trilogies are usually the weakest, and in some ways their task is to set up the final book. I won't know if this assessment is true until reading Out of Oz, but the idea is promising enough that I'm unwilling to write the book off.

As standalone novels, neither Lion nor Son are up to the level of Maguire's other work. They both ramble, they both have an odd narrative focus, and neither resolves the story well. Further, they take place largely in parallel and end at about the same point in time, but with little interaction between them. That's not a particularly good thing, and under other circumstances it would be enough such that I would not pursue the series further.

Note, though, that this is almost exactly the same structure that The Two Towers has as part of the Lord of the Rings. No, I'm not comparing Wicked Years to LoTR in any way; aside from the two both being fantasies they have little in common. But if The Two Towers had been released as two short novels following Fellowship of the Ring, I'd have the same criticism.

So should you read this book? Maybe. If Out of Oz serves Wicked Years as well as Return of the King did Lord of the Rings, the answer will be an unquestioning 'yes.' if not . . . then it has to be judged strict on its own merits. Fortunately, it has merits, and more merits than Son of a Witch. Telling much of the story in flashback serves this book better than Son, with there being more tension in the plot and better coherence to the story over all. In on particular plot twist, the flashback actually improves the reveal. In Son, Liir is far more acted upon than he actually acts. In Lion, Brrr grows and changes convincingly over time. The novel ends with him in a much different frame of mind, and there is promise of an interesting result to come of it. But that's also a weakness, as it seem to just be setting the stage for Out of Oz. Whether that's good or bad will depend on whether Out of Oz is actually a conclusion to a trilogy or 'just' another story.

But before reading Out of Oz, I'm going to break my vow and re-read Wicked. Wish me luck.

Son of a Witch by Gregory Maguire

This is the sequel to Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. I adored Wicked, but it was such a tragedy I swore not to ever re-read it. When Son came out I picked it up with some trepidation, but a series of mediocre reviews and the advent of more good books by other folks pushed it further and further back into the to-be-read shelf. Eventually it was completely buried.

Recently the fourth and final volume of what's now called The Wicked Years has been published, so when stumbling across Son it was clear the time to read it had come. Verdict: not as good as Wicked, not as bad as I'd feared. It rambles, but so did Wicked. The difference is that Wicked was intensely involving both for the story and how it mirrored our contemporary world, and thus those rambles mattered. Son lacks the intensity of the events and the tragic fascination you develop for the main character, and thus is merely acceptable. If it were the first novel of the series rather than the second, I'd not pursue them any further. But since Wicked was so good and I found both of the other two books in remaindered hardback, I'll be diving into A Lion Among Men and Out of Oz shortly.

Update: I've just finished reading A Lion Among Men, and it's caused me to revise my opinion somewhat. A review of Lion will be up soon, I'll put a link here once it has jelled.

Gun Machine, by Warren Ellis (novel)

Warren Ellis' first novel, Crooked Little Vein, had problems. It was somewhat confused, the descriptive prose had problems, and it kind of petered out rather than having a climax. But the dialog was great, the characters involving, and overall it was good enough that I said I'd read the next thing he wrote. That was a good decision, because most of the things I complained about are much better in his second novel, Gun Machine. The things I liked about Vein are also better in Gun Machine. How much better?

I started it about 4:00 this afternoon and finished in under three hours of reading time. Yeah. Better.

The non-spoiler plot summary: Police are called to investigate a naked man with a shotgun in a New York City apartment. Things go very badly. As part of this, the police break into an apartment and find it's full of guns. Hundreds, maybe thousands of guns. Each one seems to have been used in an unsolved homicide, one apiece. They're not just lined up, they're carefully arranged in some clearly incomplete pattern.

Some of the guns are over a century old.

Ellis handles all of this cleverly, sensibly, and coherently. There are apparent red herrings everywhere, yet each turns out to be either literally true or completely fair. Point builds on point logically and compellingly. The resolution is satisfying and self-consistent - something I didn't think he (or anyone else) would pull off given the situation lain out.

The pacing is brilliant. After a bit of scene setting, the action slowly ramps up to a huge climax that several times had me going "no, no, he's not going to do that" followed by him doing exactly that - but not always in the way expected, or for the reason expected.


Ellis fills this book with a fascinating and varied cast of characters. Even the minor ones are fully realized. One doesn't expect a lot of character development in the course of a single relatively short (310 pages) police procedural, but some of the major ones progress in interesting and believable way. The dialog is excellent, and with the exceptions of a few Britishisms, it all rings true.

This isn't to say there aren't problems. Ellis' descriptive prose is weak and sometimes clumsy, possibly because he's mostly been writing comic books (really really good ones) and has been able to rely on the artist to provide that sort of description. But given the improvement from Vein to Gun Machine, I suspect we'll see further improvement in his exposition as well. Hell, for all I know that exposition got better as the book went along and I was just too wrapped up in the people and plot to notice it.

How much did I like it overall? I wish his next book would be published tomorrow. Strongly recommended.

Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone by Ian McDonald (novel)

I bought Ian McDonald's Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone because of the cover. Usually this results in disaster; this time was a happy exception. I picked it up in paperback in 1994, and that's the cover you see below. The story has been sticking in my head for years, and after the clunker that was my previous read, something quick and tasty was called for. This was a good choice.

Scissors is a very short novel, only 136 pages.  Loosely, its the story of a man on a pilgrimage to a variety of sites in Japan, with looks back at why he is making the pilgrimage and how those events still follow him.

In someone elses hands this might have been an action-story brick of a book. Instead McDonald pares the past events to their bare essentials and focuses on their meanings. It's a pretty chilling backstory, and reading it in linear order would have made for an entirely different book.

The good parts? There are interesting characters, well-done parallels and non-parallels between past and present events, and some wonderful prose. The story carries you along quite nicely, with enough foreshadowing to keep you digging for the next nugget and with rewarding reveals when you do.

On the other hand, parts of this story have not aged well. The resolution was as plausible as the premise in '94. In 2013 the premise is a bit harder to swallow, and some of the more important parts of the resolution simply wouldn't work. If this had been my first exposure, those plot issues might have overshadowed the books virtues. But if McDonald were writing this today, he'd probably have chosen different mechanisms to reach the same resolution. I am glad to have re-read it, and still appreciate it as quality prose and construction. If those qualities are high on your list, you should forgive what time has done to the plot and enjoy it as what it is.

Helluva cover, too.

The Woman Who Died A Lot by Jasper Fforde (novel)

The Woman Who Died A Lot is the latest of Jasper Ffordes Thursday Next books. There's a lot of good to be said about it. Fforde restricts his scope by having little or nothing to do with the Bookworld in this book, and that tightens the story wonderfully. The focus on the 'real world' (whatever that means in a Thursday Next novel) gave Fforde more scope for satirizing England and the world we live in today, and in that it does well. The plot is strong and coherent: Ffordes plotting continue to improve even after 10+ books, which is an excellent sign. Fforde has allowed Thursday to grow and age, and in some areas to actually decline. Overall, it was well-written and quite engaging. 

But.

This book was good, but not great. If it sounds like praising with faint damns, yeah, that's what it is. Fforde has set the bar so high with some of this other work that I approach each new books with huge expectations. Woman was a lot of fun, and reading it was time well-spent. But IMHO the series is getting a bit stale, and it may soon be time to let Thursday go into that great Library in the . . . well, wherever the hell it is. While another Next novel is in the queue, I'm looking forward more to his next Nursery Crime novel and the next two in the Shades of Grey series.

Overall, The Woman Who Died A Lot is worth reading for any Thursday Next or Jasper Fforde fan, but you might want to wait for the paperback.