June 14, 2005
Book Reviews 2005 (25-27)
A trio of books this time around, as I make the halfway point of my goal of 50 books read this year:
Thraxas, by Martin Scott
The Enchanter Completed, Ed. by Harry Turtledove
and
The Wizard Hunters, by Martha Wells
An import from merrie old Englande, Martin Scott has been writing novels for some time about a Nero Wolfe-like detective in a fantasy city. He won a World Fantasy Award for one of them, and thus, Baen Books has saw fit to start republishing the Thraxas novels here in the US. This first volume compiles the first two novels in the series.
Thraxas is a down on his luck investigator, having gone from a plum position in the Royal Palace to a rough and tumble neighborhood where he scratches a living as best he can. With his allies and friends, most notably a crossbreed former slave whose deadliness with an axe is matched by her determination to get an education, Thraxas tries to get back on his feet.
The world is moderately interesting, if typical of a fantasy world. Elves, Orcs, Humans jostle and jockey each other. Sorcery is unreliable (A good thing, Thraxas is not very good at it), and so a good blade, and wits, get you as far, if not farther.
It was a pleasant, diverting read. I don't strongly recommend it, but, then, I have no major animus against it, either.
Neutral to mildly recommended.
The Enchanter Completed by Harry Turtledove
It seems de rigeur that when a popular SF/Fantasy writer passes on, a tribute anthology inevitably follows. I recall reading ones for Heinlein, Azimov and of course Zelazny. Enchanter Completed is devoted to De Camp.
Such anthologies are, as always, mixed bags, this one even more so. There is the obligatory "author as character" story, there are a couple of stories set in the same worlds as some of De Camp's work, and there are stories set in the same vein.
The stories themselves are for the most part disposable, and I wasn't highly impressed with any of them. Give it a pass. You're better off with simply buying some De Camp, as tribute to his genius.
Not Recommended
The Wizard Hunters (The Fall of Ile-Rien, Book 1) by Martha Wells
First in a new series of novels about the Kingdom of Ile-Rien, Wizard Hunters takes place some years after The Death of the Necromancer
Ile-Rien, however, is not doing well as this latest novel opens. A mysterious enemy, attacking using Gates from another part of the world or another world entirely, called the Gardier, are reducing the proud kingdom to ruin. Defeat seems to be only a matter of time, until the daughter of Nicholas Valiarde (from Necromancer) brings forth a prototype of a magical artifact that might be able to bring the fight against the Gardier itself. What Tremaine and her companions find is another world entirely, and another set of people who mistrust magic, and the Gardier in the bargain.
While not up to the standard of Necromancer, Wizard Hunters is a good and solid read. There are many mysteries revolving around the sphere, Tremaine's connection to it, and the Gardier, and Wells solves a couple of these mysteries by novel's end, while setting up for the sequels.
Recommended, but you might like to read Death of the Necromancer first, to get an introduction to Ile-Rien.