Book Review: Knight Fall by Joe Ducie

In the third instalment of Joe Ducie’s Reminiscent Exile series, readers find a high current of fast-paced action, clever dialogue and fantastic world (multiverse) building. Knight Fall stands on its own as an entertaining, but all too quick, read and a fine continuation of the overall series.

The narrative uses various in-story tropes to weave together the past and present, from visions and flashbacks to magical means. The significance of the past, and history as a whole, works as a prominent motif in the story, massively influencing the plot. This novel is full of surprises and beautifully constructed scenes. The trick, and challenge, is to read it slowly, to pace yourself, because the urge to finish it in one setting is all-too-compelling.

Declan Hale, our brooding protagonist, returns in all his one-eyed splendour. His actions throughout the novel demonstrate how utterly formidable he is, why people are right to fear him, and the devastating consequences that hinge on his every action. Despite displaying more raw, brute force in the scenes in Voraskel than in the previous two novels, most of the confrontations work like puzzle pieces, solved by a clever dose of wit and ingenuity rather than hammering away with Will. I think this is the best approach that Ducie could have taken with his fight scenes. An epic battle between two colossal forces, while memorable and fantastic, can only be done so many times; and should probably only be reserved for the most significant moments.

Emily Grace, the immortal queen, returns in this novel, not so much a villain but as a companion to our protagonist. Emily is still ruthless and cold and calculating, but there’s a certain charm to her every action, of quality of character that can only described as “graceful.” I quite liked Emily Grace as a villain, or at least as an antihero. It was amusing to find that she had such chemistry with Declan despite the fact that she was the queen of the faction that the hero fought and killed and shed blood to defeat. Her scenes with Declan in the first two books showed promise of being a great recurring villain with the kind of cunning, manipulative force that trumps brute strength.

In a previous review, I said that the Reminiscence Exile is, at its heart, a romance story. With Knight Fall, that assessment remains unchanged. Declan will always carry the women he loved with him, as intangible as the merry band of literary ghosts in his bookstore. His reminiscences, his longing, his nostalgia are all a significant aspect of his makeup, as real as the idea of love lost, of pain endured, sacrifices rendered, and guilt everlasting.

Speaking of the Everlasting, we find out more about them than ever have before. We learn a childhood song sung in fear of them, we learn how many there are and what their qualities entail. Ducie creates these cosmic entities, great and powerful gods and goddesses, and he pits our single, lonely, drunken hero against them. At least it promises to be an amusing ride.
There are a couple things that I didn’t like about Knight Fall. One, there was not enough Annie Brie. Her characterization was one of the highlights in Broken Quill, one of its goddamn strengths, and her fleeting appearances here are notable. Two, in some of the battle scenes, Declan came off too all-powerful. Not to say that Declan’s weaknesses didn’t shine through with brilliance. This isn’t titled Knight Fall for nothing.

Knight Fall is a great installment to an already fantastic series. Ducie has carved a name for himself as a talented writer able to seamlessly blend the mythic with the urban, the ordinary with extraordinary and the mundane with the marvellous. I hope he keeps writing, the longer works the better.

Book Review: Godspeed: A Kurt Cobain Graphic Novel by Barnaby Legg and Jim McCarthy

I’ve been a Nirvana fan for about five, maybe six years. I was born in 1992 but I can’t pretend I identify with the alternative metal, grunge, post-grunge movement. I can barely call myself a Nineties kid at all when it comes to cultural identification. But it doesn’t mean I didn’t appreciate Cobain in my own way. And while I know some details about his life and tragic death, I’m not clumsy or naïve enough to interpret a comic book expression of his journey as his Word-of-God biography.

Let’s get it right off the bat that I don’t believe this graphic novel is completely true. But it’s a subjective artistic interpretation of another’s man life and the perspective it offers is still valuable. Legg and McCarthy are talented writers. They capture the burgeoning confusion and displacement of a preadolescent Kurt, the angst and depression of a teenage Cobain, and the chaos and pandemonium of the rock star he eventually becomes. Flameboy’s artwork here is gritty and messy, full of hard lines and sharp colors, bringing out something essentially Nineties in flavor and tone.

There is a scene in the novel that I found rather touching. It was where he had achieved everything he had ever dreamed of in his youth, where his accomplishments had become a reality, and he at last decided to let go of this dream, and let others follow. It’s a heartbreaking scene that doesn’t need melodrama or painstaking detail to be succinctly true. This novel can be true without being accurate.

Book Review: Foundation and Empire by Isaac Asimov

The second installment in Asimov’s classic trilogy is Foundation and Empire. The people of the Foundation face their greatest threat yet as Bel Riose, charismatic and brilliant general of the Empire wages a bloody war of conquest. At this time the Foundation’s influence has strengthened in the Periphery while the Empire wanes and decays. Rumors of the Foundation’s ‘magicians’ spread throughout the remnants of the old Empire. General Riose is thirsty for battle and glory. Knowing his prospects for conquest are poor throughout the galaxy, he turns his eyes towards the rumors of the Foundation and seeks to spark a war that will turn him into a legend.
Asimov takes the first half of the novel to build the atmosphere of assurance and invincibility that underlies the people of the Foundation. Hari Seldon’s psychohistoric predictions have gained religious faith and dogmatic certainty. Nothing, they believe, can threaten them now. But as Riose marches from victory to victory, the confidence is slowly chipped away. Individual actions lead nowhere. Time is slipping and it seems as though Seldon’s plans might be thwarted. Asimov establishes the nigh-inevitability of Seldon’s predictions, under normal circumstances, when the psychohistoric trends of the past generations turn against Bel Riose in a way that no heroic undertaking by any mere individual could have.

The first half of this book was enjoyable, pact with intellect and suspense and delightful scenes of action. It was a great way for Asimov to open this chapter in the saga of the Foundation, but it pales in comparison to the second act, where Asimov moves out of our comfort zone into less hospitable territory.

The second story is an inversion of everything we have been taught to expect. The antagonist is a mutant called the Mule who exhibits immense and mysterious powers that he uses in his aims to build his own empire. To accomplish such a feat, he wants, of course, the Foundation. Psychohistory predicts the behaviour and patterns of millions and billions of ordinary humans. The theme underpinning the previous Foundation stories concerns the unbeatable course of history and patterns over the actions of any one man. The rise of the Mule, however, who isn’t an ordinary human, derails Seldon’s plan with alarming swiftness.

Isaac Asimov crafts an intriguing novel and breaks patterns with his previous ventures into the Foundation universe. While I was not as enthralled overall by this episode as I was of Foundation, Asimov sets the stage for a turning point in his narrative, one full of potential and uncertainty. The story of the Mule is easily the most captivating of both the two stories in Foundation and Empire and the first novel.

Book Review: Tweak3nd by O.R.N.

Consider this neat little scene in the sort-of prologue: the narrator is in the bathroom, checking herself from every conceivable angle only to find that she cannot perceive her reflection. This event serves dual roles. First, it illustrates the loss of identity that these characters, this disillusioned slice of a generation, inevitably experience. Their constant and gratuitous exploitation of drugs and alcohol, not only numbs and alters a pervading reality of bland meaningless existence that they desperately try to escape from, but also numbs them from any grip on the meaning of Self. They lose themselves, and further their substance abuse to flee from that too, entrenching themselves in an uncertain ouroboros, spiraling towards despair. Second, the metaphor of the missing reflection illustrates the status of the narrator. She is a placeholder for us. We see through her eyes, into her world, with or without her prejudices. She plays no significant role here, despite an amusing, yet misleading opening chapter.

These characters are quite infuriating to think about, with their copious intake of alcohol, toxic nihilism, and extreme ways of avoiding their purposeless lives. It’s just as disappointing to realize that these people exist, that their lives, while exaggerated, are inevitably real. O.R.N. provides a mirror for us to examine a few days of their amoral lives and see aspects of our own reflected back. This is unromanticized reality, complete with Facebook statuses, BBMs, and tweets.

O.R.N. maintains a steady dubstep-infused tempo of witty irony through a flow of music, situations, and steam-of-consciousness monologues. Dave piles on the entertainment and waxes philosophy with almost tireless energy, creating this short novel featuring more liquor consumption than some pubs. Yet, in spite of the captivating style, there’s hardly a plot. The conflicts are mostly internal struggles, but by the end, there is no resolution, no conclusion to these kids’ meandering existences. Well, how can you end a book like this? I don’t know, so I don’t fault the author for it.

In many ways, Tweak3nd mirrors Ellis’s Rules of Attraction, which in a scene it even alludes to. The hedonistic party college culture seems an extension of this earlier novel, to the point that it seems, at times, like Tweak3nd is this generation’s version of Ellis’ work. Some chapters, particularly the opening segment, remind me vaguely of Chuck Palahniuk’s satiric writing. They are humorous, sarcastic, and transgressional. It was surprisingly clever and well-written for a self-published work. Tweak3nd is worth a shot or two, like good scotch, and though it might not be to everybody’s tastes, it will either open your eyes to the kind of debaucheries our youth are up to, or at least give us a viewpoint into understanding the psychological reasons behind this behavior or the mentalities of kids that partake in this. Either way, as twentysomethings, we all learn to hate the cool kids a little more (or feel sorry for ourselves, if we are like them).

Book Review: Broken Quill by Joe Ducie

“Broken Quill” is longer and more epic than its predecessor. There’s a car chase. In Perth, Austrailia, a series of atrocities circles around Declan Hale, the Immortal King and Shadowless Arbiter. Declan is being stalked by an unfathomable and seeming unbeatable foe while across True Earth, the Knights Infernal retreat to Ascension City, leaving the world unprotected. After a harrowing battle with Emissary, the one responsible for brutal murders around Perth, Declan leaves Earth to have his questions answered. Sophie and Ethan return from “Distant Star” and Detective Annie Brie joins him on his journey across the literary worlds. From here onwards, it’s epic madness, majestic landscapes, and devastating battles.

Two books in and if there ever was a more apt theme to assign to this series it would be that while our regrets may be inescapable, still we soldier on, and mayhaps find redemption along the road. Declan’s guilt seems to weigh heavily on him, so much so that his finest ability is his invulnerable liver. But the true arc of our protagonist is his emotional and mental shift from reactive guilt to walking on the perpetual road to redemption.

As usual, Ducie illustrates otherworldly landscapes with a masterful hand. He lends his descriptive powers to a slew of colourful worlds, strange characters, and vividly depicted scenes. We glimpse a little of Hale’s past in “Broken Quill”, from his time as a commander during the Tome Wars. The scene reminded me a little of Star Trek, maybe Firefly. These flashback scenes are a treat to watch and spliced within the present narrative gives a juxtaposing weight to the story, compelling readers to compare Declan’s situation now with the glory of his past. It accentuates his regrets and guilt and gives us a deeper insight to his nature.

Ducie teases us with Annie Brie’s character. She’s an anomaly, an enigma. She shares Ethan’s role in serving as the reader stand-in for exposition and questions, but she is more significant than that, but in what ways we don’t know. As a character, Annie is well-crafted. She is sweet and bold, brave and daring. She is an excellent companion for Declan, the Amy Pond to his waistcoat-wearing Doctor. They have chemistry and balance. Her innocence and wonder are foils to Declan’s deepened cynicism and experience. Whether their relationship remains platonic is up in the air. Ducie gives evidence for either direction.

Whether intended by the author or not, I think on a deeper level, The Reminiscent Exile serves as a poignant metaphor for the metafictional, self-reflexive, and intertextual nature of pop culture in general, and popular literature in particular. Like the breadth of popular culture, “Distant Star”, and more so “Broken Quill”, permits a host of self-referencing remarks for the reader to catch and literary allusions to its intertextual predecessors. The notion that Declan and his friends can pull out aspects from books is a clever reference to real-life authors borrowing genre conventions and concepts from other authors. But dig deeper and it gets more complex. The characters take their own reality and shine a light on it, forcing us readers to question our presumptions about Declan’s multiverse and the essence of reality. Take, for example, a conversation Annie Brie has with the protagonist. She remarks that this “feels as if we’re in a storybook ourselves.” This metafic snippet made me a little giddy inside. I had a déjà vu moment, reminding me of the time Roland Deschain and the ka-tet learnt they were characters in a Stephen King series. I almost expected Ducie’s characters to learn they were written in a blaze of scotch- fuelled madness.

The conflict and drama in “Broken Quill” open up the mythology and universe to the reader. Threads started in “Distant Star” ascend to the fore in this second novel and set the way for future stories and future battles. In hindsight, “Distant Star” feels like an extended prologue placing characters into position and setting the field for battle. “Broken Quill”, therefore, is the opening salvo of an inevitable war that has been long in the making.

Book Review: Bleachers by John Grisham

John Grisham has written books outside his field of legal thrillers before. The first one I read in 2011 was “Skipping Christmas” which they adapted into a movie some years back. I wasn’t very pleased with the story and came away thinking Grisham should stick to novels like “Runaway Jury” or “Innocent Man”. But Grisham isn’t a bad writer himself and I had a copy of “Bleachers” on my shelf from an impulse purchase at a second-hand store, so I committed myself to engaging his tiny novella. Unlike “Skipping Christmas”, Grisham explores much more personal themes concerning forgiveness, the measure of greatness, the unfairness of life, and finality of our choices.

Eddie Rake, the dying coach, for whom many of his former players return to their hometown to pay their respects, was something of a hard ass. They all hate Coach Rake at some point, but come to grudgingly respect him for all he has taught them. One of his players, Neely Creenshaw, harbours a secret about a violent altercation between the coach and himself. After that fight, Neely has been bitter and distant, and the vigil he gives his coach is also a vigil for the man he used to be, and the man he could have become. Grisham works to deconstruct the legend that is Eddie Rake through the collective experiences of his players. Rake’s reputation of greatness is undisputed, but like everyone else, he is just a flawed human being prone to the same mistakes. The vigil his players hold for him illustrate that despite his cruel regimes, gruff exterior, and rough countenance, he has a man who loved his players but couldn’t show it; adored his family, but dominated them, and loved to triumph, but couldn’t fathom defeat.

Neely spends fifteen years drifting through life in bitter stupor after he suffers a knee injury that ends professional football career. His wife leaves him after two miscarriages. But the shadow that hangs over his life is the confrontation with Coach Rake in the locker room of their 1987 championship game. He never forgave the man until he returns to his hometown for the first time in fifteen years to sit vigil for his coach. Grisham paints a sombre man lost in his reverie, longing for the better times after having fallen on hard ones. Neely’s air is permeated with a sense of loss and grieving, both for his own soul and for his fallen coach. He is man of deep regrets, for his lost love, his game, and his coach.

Grisham tells us that we can’t reclaim the past. When Neely meets his former girlfriend and apologizes for the way he treated her, there is almost a moment when the reader can see how desperately Neely hopes to venture back into the past. But soon after that point, reality steps in and we see just how much their lives have diverged. Not all rifts can mend. We can’t go back into the past, but what this story illustrates is the hope of letting go of it and moving forward.

Day 40: Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice is a classic love story and interesting phenomena of both pop culture and high culture. This is the Victorian tale of prideful Mr. Darcy and prejudicial Miss Bennett and how they meet and interact amidst local politics in the socio-political norms of the bygone era. This is an excellent romance that is relatively feminist for its time and praised for its characteristic witty dialogue. Austen’s portrayal is sharp in its biting accuracy towards gossips, a colourful past, and a rich society.