Thoughts on "El Prisionero del Cielo" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon and "The Lover's Dictionary" by David Levithan (by Liviu Suciu)

Some weeks ago the third installment of the awesome series that started with The Shadow of the Wind and continued with The Angel's Game has been published in Spain. As FBC is an English language site, I usually refrain from talking about books that are not available in English, but in this case as the UK publication of "El Prisionero del Cielo" has been tentatively set on June 2nd, 2012 and presumably the US publication will soon follow, I will note several things about the novel with a full review to follow next year as I sometimes do with (English language) advance review copies of great interest.

"El Prisionero del Cielo" is shorter than the previous offerings in the series and is also thematically different, forgoing the dual - past/present - love affairs of the first two books. However the novel keeps the past/present threads but this time they are more political than anything else and they are clearly divided with Daniel and Fermin - narrator and sidekick of The Shadow of the Wind - as the respective narrators.

Since the title character is David Martin (!) - the narrator of The Angel's Game - it should be clear that familiarity with both earlier installments is necessary and I found myself darting back and forth through The Shadow of the Wind and The Angel's Game too.

Great prose, great characters and all that you expect from a CR Zafon novel, the one niggle I had is that "El Prisionero del Cielo" is the least self-contained of the novels so far both as backstory goes which I noted above and with an ending that while not quite a cliffhanger, definitely begs the fourth and presumably last "Cemetery of Forgotten Books" novel.

Still a clear Top 25 novel of 2011 for me and I am really looking forward to the English language version to see the subtleties I missed.

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As it somewhat unexpectedly for me, "The Lover's Dictionary" made the Goodreads Choice final ten fiction category and was my second choice there, I decided to talk a little about it here. Written in short non-linear chunks arranged as alphabetical definitions, the book is extremely compelling. The prose is lyrical and the book just took over my reading unexpectedly when I opened it and could not put it down.

The story itself is less of importance than the way it is told; the atmosphere - two relatively young professional Manhattanites meeting on a dating site, moving together, etc, etc reproduces the joys and frustrations of living there as I experienced them years ago also, so that was an added bonus.

I think the book could have worked in a different location so from that point of view the location is not crucial, but on the other hand Manhattan gives a specific flavor to the novel that is harder to reproduce in other places.

Highly recommended for a fast, lyrical read that will stay with you; the first entry in the novel gives a flavor of how it goes and I really found myself turning the pages after this until the end; there is joy and sorrow, mundanity and exceptional, and generally life happening.

"aberrant, adj. “I don’t normally do this kind of thing,” you said. “Neither do I,” I assured you. Later it turned out we had both met people online before, and we had both slept with people on first dates before, and we had both found ourselves falling too fast before. But we comforted ourselves with what we really meant to say, which was: “I don’t normally feel this good about what I’m doing.” Measure the hope of that moment, that feeling. Everything else will be measured against it"

Spectyr by Philippa Ballantine (Reviewed by Mihir Wanchoo)

Official Philippa Ballantine Website

Order “Spectyr” HERE

Read the first chapter HERE

Read FBC’s review of Geist

Read FBC interview with Phillipa Ballantine

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Philippa Ballantine was born and brought up in New Zelaland. Shen then graduated from Victoria University of Wellington with a BA in English and Political Science. She also holds a Bachelor of Applied Science in Library Studies from The Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. She is an avid Podcaster and has often released podcasts of her own books. Her podcasts have been short listed for the Parsec Awards, and won a Sir Julius Vogel award. She has had three books published before this one. She is married to Tee Morris, the co-author of the Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences series. They both currently reside in Virginia.

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: Though one of the most powerful Deacons, Sorcha Faris has a tarnished reputation to overcome. She and her partner, Deacon Merrick Chambers, find themselves chasing down rumors of geists, but long for a return to real action. So they jump at the chance to escort a delegation sent to negotiate the terms of the Emperor’s engagement. Their destination: the exotic city of Orinthal.

But a string of murders has Orinthal on edge, and Sorcha and Merrick are asked to investigate. Meanwhile the Emperor’s sister has unwittingly released a cruel and vengeful goddess, one who it bent on destroying her enemies, including the geistlord who resides inside the shapeshifting rival to the throne—Sorcha’s lover….

FORMAT/INFO: Spectyr is 310 pages long divided over thirty numbered/titled chapters. Narration is in the third-person omniscient view via Sorcha Faris, Merrick Chambers, the Young Pretender Raed Rossin, Grand Duchess Zofiya, the Goddess Hatipai and the Rossin. Spectyr is the second book in the Chronicles of the Order and contains a lot of references to its predecessor hence its important to read it only after Geist.

June 28, 2011 marked the North American paperback and e-book publication of Geist via ACE books. Cover art is done by Jason Chan.

ANALYSIS: After thoroughly enjoying Geist , the first book in the Chronicles of the Order by Philippa Ballantine. I was eagerly looking forward to Spectyr and since I had bought both books together, it wasn’t a long wait at all. The book's blurb promised another exotic journey and further revelations in to the world of Arkaym and for me the expectations were heightened.

The story begins with Grand Duchess Zofiya, sister to the new Emperor Kaleva, who is a follower of one of the small Gods. Her object of worship is a entity known as Hatipai. Zofiya had a crucial role to play in the climax of Geist and now ascends to the status of POV character. She however feels a metaphysical pull and soon is introduced to the person whom all her prayers are directed to. Hatipai deems her mortal appearance necessary to save this world from the Rossin and all other Geistlords. She demands that the Rossin and his mortal shell must die and Zofiya is to be her instrument through which the evil will be vanquished. Sorcha Faris and Merrick Chambers return hardened and wiser from their previous sojourn, however Sorcha is surprised to find her husband recovering and willing to claim his spousal status. To add to this complicated point, Raed Rossin finds himself forced to do what he hasn’t done before and try to regain his family as someone is trying to gain revenge on the Rossin family. Lastly to add to it all, the Emperor is also seeking a bride and princess Chioma of Orinthal is the most eligible contender, so the stage shifts to the city of Orinthal and it will be here that the fate of worlds, past and present will be decided.

To begin with Spectyr is easily the better book than its predecessor. It again has a twisted storyline that serves surprise after surprise and in the end manages to end on a terrific note making sure that readers will be left anticipating Wrayth desperately. The pace is also another strength which adds to the story as it never loses its zip. Making sure that the reader is constantly surging ahead. A crucial part of the story also deals with a certain character who appeared in Geist and also makes this story a prequel and sequel at the same time. This part of the story was something which made tremendous sense and also gives a rather long look into the past of the world which deepens the dangers inherent within. The cover art again is by Jason Chan and is possibly better than his freshman effort, we get another close look at the lead pair and this time it’s the turn of another rune, possibly one which is close to Sorcha’s heart. Lastly the magic system as well as the world history is better explained and this only serves to raise the stakes for the next two books.

In the last book, I thought that the characterization wasn’t up to the its optimal standard, however the characterization in this book is degrees better and of course helps the reader gain a closer understanding of the characters and their motivations. Another funny point which I noticed was that the Rossin has made appearances in both books and has never properly shown his true potential in crucial situations exactly. In both books there have been instances wherein the Rossin passes the buck to Raed and I hope this trend doesn’t continue in the remaining two books as well. To better put it, its like watching the Hulk make an appearance and just when you hope that he does what he does best, all you get is Bruce Banner, this confusion might seem feasible a couple of times but should it occur any more, it could be considered as a narrative weakness. This book was an excellent page turner and it was very hard for me to point deficiencies in this one.

CONCLUSION: Spectyr further raises the standards first encountered in Geist. It’s a page turner and a book which will make the wait for the next one a bit harder. Philippa Ballantine’s Chronicles of the Order is a series which is action packed, cleverly plotted and an entertaining one as well. Give it a try if you are a fan of thrilling action and an enticing plot.

Kiss of Frost by Jennifer Estep w/Bonus Review of Halloween Frost (Reviewed by Mihir Wanchoo)

Official Author Website

Read FBC's review of Touch of Frost

Read FBC'S review of First Frost and Q/A with the author about the series

Read the first two chapters HERE

Order the Book HERE

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Jennifer Estep has a Bachelor’s degree in English & Journalism, and a Master's in Professional Communications. Her bibliography includes the Elemental Assassin urban fantasy series, the Mythos Academy YA urban fantasy series, and the Bigtime paranormal romance series. She is also a member of Romance Writers of America, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and other writing groups.

PLOT SYNOPSIS: At Mythos Academy, teen warriors in the making train to take up their roles protecting humankind. With her snarky, self-deprecating voice and strange gift of psychometry - the ability to know an object's history just by touching it - Gwen Frost is an outsider both to the students of the Academy and the rest of the world. But now that she's taking private tutoring with the Academy's most notorious young Spartan, and has Nike's own sword to protect her, she's ready to make mark....

Gwen also has to deal with the fallout of what happened in Touch of Frost and the various changes it has brought into her life. To add to the overall pressure Gwen realizes that a Reaper of Chaos is trying to kill her, and that if she doesn’t figure out who it is, the Reaper just might succeed...

FORMAT/INFO: The e-ARC of Kiss of Frost is 296 pages long divided over twenty-eight chapters. Narration is in the first-person, exclusively via the protagonist Gwen Frost. Kiss of Frost is the second volume in the Mythos Academy series and can be read separately as the author provides enough of the backstory through out the story. The book also contains Gwen’s schedule of the Winter carnival as well as a Who’s Who reference guide of the people, places and mythology of the series which can be useful as a quick reference.

Kiss of Frost will be released in paperback and e-book format on November 29, 2011 via Kensington Books.

ANALYSIS: I thought the first book Touch of Frost was a decent start to a YA series about a gypsy girl who has the gift of pyschometry. Gwendolyn Frost is the protagonist and narrator of the series so far and has faced a very traumatic event in her life which changed all her perceptions and forced her to go to Mythos Academy, a place which is out of her imagination. In the review below there might be minor spoilers for the first book so proceed ahead if you have read the first book or if you don’t mind minor spoilers.

The second book Kiss of Frost opens up a few weeks after the events of the first book, Gwen has now been thoroughly exposed to the problems which are caused by Loki and his Reapers. She learns after the events of the climax in the previous book, of her role as a champion to her Goddess and what is required of her. Thus set with a task of sorts she will have to undergo training and learn more about the martial arts to better deal with Reapers who are trying to kill her. She of course is flummoxed when the person chosen to train her is Logan Quinn, the apple of her eye. Another fact which isn’t helping is the fact that her friends Daphne and Carson are going steady and have no reluctance in displaying their affections. Lastly to stir up the pot, at the upcoming Winter Carnival she discovers that there’s a new Reaper of chaos who is trying to kill her. So it will be up to her to sharpen her detective skills if she has any wish to survive.

The second book opens the world of Mythos academy and gives us a sort of panoramic view into the events of the world. The background of the world is explained a bit and especially what is currently happening and why the Reapers are in so much of a tizzy. There are also further revelations on Gwen’s role as a champion. Particular details are revealed about the events of First Frost which I’m sure will be of severe importance in the future books of the series. Characterization is a particular strength of Jennifer Estep's books and it is no different in the Mythos Academy series. However in this book this positive becomes a negative of sorts as Gwen’s character comes across as a bit annoying due to her constant fretting over whether Logan will return her affection. But this particular thread also powers the story as this attraction is a main part of the story and fans will get a particular wish fulfilled. The author has also carefully introduced a third angle to this plot and thereby increasing the tension. The character cast is also increased and the other characters such as Daphne, Logan & professor Metis are given more face time. I believe this is a good thing as they will play prominent roles in the future volumes.

The biggest fallacy I noticed of this book and the series so far, is its utter predictability. From the start of the book to its emotional climax, events occur and with clockwork precision most readers will be able to guess what happens next. This robbed much of my reading pleasure and I realize that this book is aimed at YA readers but sometimes I think the author can definitely up the ante by introducing a few more plot twists. There’s also the constant repeating of facts about many of the characters, which though from the mind of a sixteen year old girl might be explanatory but can be curbed as it occurs all too frequently. This curious habit is also seen in the author’s other books which I have read however it is a bit limited in those books and therefore wasn't much of an issue.

CONCLUSION: Kiss of Frost delivers in its promise of exciting romance tinged with action and continues to give the readers a fun tale. Jennifer Estep nicely shows her skills whilst entertaining and drawing the reader in the world of the Mythos Academy. If a few of the aforementioned fallacies can be eliminated then surely this series will be a better one. Recommended for readers who want a light-hearted read and for Paranormal Romance readers.

Read An Excerpt HERE

Order the Book HERE

OVERVIEW: Halloween Frost is a short story which was featured in the Entangled anthology which is a special story collection wherein all the proceeds go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation. More information about the collection including the contents of the collection as well as the official press release can be found over here.

Halloween Frost is a short story which is set after the events of Touch of Frost, the first book of the series. It is roughly 15 pages long in the e-book form. The book details a small event which occurs around Halloween. Gwen and Daphne are on their way from a Halloween party and suddenly attacked by a mythical creature. Faced with near impossible odds and possibly no warrior backup, it will be up to Gwen to use her wits to save their lives.

This short story again follows the pattern of the earlier Frost short story giving the readers a small view in to the world of Gwendolyn Frost and showcasing a brief but important event. In this case it shows how she has been coping with her recent introduction to the new world and especially after the events of Touch of Frost, where she stands in Logan Quinn’s eyes. The story gives an important indicator for the events of Kiss of Frost and like the previous story, it's not mandatory reading for understanding the overall story however for readers who have enjoyed the series. Its something which serves as an excellent extra to the overall story and more importantly this story is a part of an initiative for an extremely important cause.

Rest In Peace, Anne McCaffrey (1926-2011)

It’s been years since I last read an Anne McCaffrey novel, but her Pern stories have always held a special place in my heart. So it was quite sad to hear of the author’s passing yesterday, especially considering what she meant to science fiction and fantasy. Anne McCaffrey was a pioneer of the genres. Not only was she the first woman to ever win a Hugo or Nebula Award, but her book, The White Dragon, became the first science fiction novel to reach the New York Times' Hardcover Bestseller List. In 2005, McCaffrey was awarded the 22^nd Grand Master Award by the Science Fiction Writers of America and was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2006. In short, Anne McCaffrey will be sorely missed, though never forgotten...

GUEST POST: Beyond Percepliquis by Michael Sullivan

Beyond Percepliquis

Right now the majority of you are thinking…Per—what? But since you are reading Fantasy Book Critic, and the fine folks here have been so supportive over the years, you may have heard of me. I’m Michael J. Sullivan (the J. because there was already five authors sharing my name—and even by adding the initial, two of us still look identical) an indie-published author who rode last year’s digital tsunami and sold more books than I ever dreamed possible. Liviu Suciu was among the first to discover and pluck me from absolute obscurity, and now my books are being published by Orbit (the fantasy imprint of Hachette Book Group, one of the largest publishers in the world).

So now that you know who I am, you’re probably still wondering what that ridiculous perpendicular, Pentecostal, pterodactyl word is? First it is pronounced: Purr-sep-la-kwiss, and it’s the title of the last book of The Riyria Revelations, my epic fantasy series.

For those that don’t know, I wrote all six books (crazy as that sounds…but I wanted to ensure the stories would fit together) before the first one was released. My books are not a series of sequels; instead they are individual episodes with intertwining story arcs. Each book has its own conflict and resolution, but when read together, the whole is greater than the sum of the individual pieces.

Although I had written thirteen novels before starting The Riyria Revelations it was these books that finally made it to market, which is ironic since I had no intention of publishing then when I started. People in the business say that you need to make your first book the absolute best it can be, but I rarely do things the way others suggest, and I purposefully made my first book the weakest. Doing this was a huge risk. There will be people who quit early saying, “There’s no depth here,”—or—“the characters are shallow and ill-defined” and to this I’d reply, “You are absolutely correct.” But just like Inigo Montoya in The Prince Bride I know something they do not…I’m not left handed. In other words, I could have made them stronger but chose not to. Let me tell you why.

I hate series that start off fantastic, have a mediocre middle, and stay around long past their prime. So for me my eye was always on the prize of the last book. I carefully constructed the series by slowly building mysteries and exposing character backgrounds a little at a time. My world building is the proverbial iceberg and you are exposed to it organically through the eyes of the characters and in the context of the plots. My thought process was that if you start at the top you have nowhere to go but down, so I choose to start at the bottom and work my way up. My hope is that people will have enough fun along the way that they’ll give the next one a try.

It’s an interesting time for me right now because I’m having both my nationwide debut and my concluding volume hitting the street within just a few short weeks of one another…68 days to be exact. There are already many people who are expressing both excitement and impending disappointment because the series is ending, which brings me to the real point of this post…is there the possibility for more Riyria stories past Percepliquis?

The answer is…no…yes…maybe. No, because I won’t tack on another story. The series concludes exactly the way I want it to and I think (and hope) that upon reading most will agree with my decision. To try to add anything else would only cheapen and diminish Percepliquis and I won’t be a party to that.

Yes, because I never expected anyone to care, but it seems a few folks have taken a liking to Royce and Hadrian and will be sorry to see them go. My wife is one of those. Upon finishing Percepliquis, she fell into a two week depression because she missed her friends. To her they live in some netherworld in a state of suspended animation. “You can bring them back—make them live again—whenever you want to,” she said to me one day, with eyes that added, and if you really loved me you would. I’m pretty sure your average husband doesn’t get this sort of re-animation demands from their spouses—just me and Victor Frankenstein.

I can write other books and still keep my promise of leaving Percepliquis at its own apex. The two thieves were together for twelve years, before that cold autumn day when they set out to steal a sword and got themselves into so much trouble. I could go back in time, and write up some of their previous adventures—The Riyria Chronicles: Royce and Hadrian the Early Years.

I could also do spin-offs (but hopefully better than all those terrible sitcoms of the 70’s) The story of Novron (the God of Man) could explore how mythologies are created and reveal that everything did not occur the way the people of Elan thought it did. Also because I like buddy-stories I could tell the tale of Esrahaddon and Jerish who would be very different than Royce and Hadrian. The Novron books would be a trilogy, where the Esrahaddon story might be a long single novel.

Lastly, I have to admit that even seven years ago when I was alone in my room with no hope or any intention of publishing the stories about these two thieves, I did allow myself a moment of conceited optimism. I imagined a day when the books were read and loved and people wanted more. And because of this I planted a tiny plotline into the series. It is all but invisible to the reader, but it is there, a hidden thread that if I chose to, I could pull on to create a new series that is linked to the old. But that would be a huge undertaking, and I’m not sure I am up to trying that any time soon.

So maybe is the answer we are at right now. A lot will be determined in the next few months as Theft of Swords, Rise of Empire, and Heir of Novron hit the streets. If people like the books and want more I’d love to oblige. I know what my wife is hoping for, now I just need to know what everyone else thinks.

I want to thank the folks at Fantasy Book Critic for having me here today. This site has been one of the few selected to receive exclusive advanced copies of Percepliquis in December, so keep an eye out in January for first impressions of the final book.

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ABOUT MICHAEL SULLIVAN:

Official Michael Sullivan Website
Order Theft of Swords HERE
Read FBC Review of Theft of Swords
Read FBC Review of The Crown Conspiracy
Read FBC Review of Avempartha
Read FBC Review of Nyphron Rising
Read FBC Review of The Emerald Storm
Read FBC Review of Wintertide
Read FBC Review of The Viscount and the Witch

In the space of two years, Michael Sullivan has moved from a small press debut author who was featured in one of our first "Indie Spotlight Reviews" to a "name" in the fantasy field whose wonderful Ryria Revelations is being published by Orbit Books in three consecutive omnibuses starting with Theft of Swords, followed by Rise of Empire and concluded in Heir of Novron.