The Review Waiting

Hi,

So I picked up The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford. It's an alternate-history fantasy novel where magic is real, Byzantium didn't quite fall and England is struggling with succession. I picked it up on the strength of this quote from early in the book:

"Magic destroys," Ptolemy said. "every spell, enchantment, effect, ruins the worker a little bit more. If you are strong-willed, the wrecking takes a little longer...but it happens in the end, just the same."

So the magic is powerful and very dangerous. Vampires also play a key role in the story, but here it's a blood-borne disease that simply makes you very hard to kill and very long-lived providing no other mystical power. It's a very gritty type of fantasy where the supernatural is something like nuclear power -- a real, understandable thing but not something to be fooled around with lightly.

We follow a small group of four who are interested in thwarting the political ambitions of the Byzantine empire to reclaim the glory of Rome. We have Hywel the magician, Dimi the Greek mercenary, Gregor the vampiric artilleryman and Cynthia, doctor of medicine. From all over Europe their paths twine together and then it's off to England to keep the throne intact.

It was a pretty good story. The sharacters' dialog is very subtle and nuanced so you often flip back a few pages to catch the subtext going on. The really interesting thing is that when the action takes place in Italy, there are a number of historical persons who also appear in the Assassin's Creed video games. So I vaguely know who the people are, but their context is now slightly different than before. I'll be lucky if I have even the slightest shred of actual Renaissance history left in my head.

If you like your alt-history novels, or fantasy with a powerful, subtle magic to it, this is certainly a book to check out.

later
Tom

The Review Waiting

Hi,

So I picked up The Dragon Waiting by John M. Ford. It's an alternate-history fantasy novel where magic is real, Byzantium didn't quite fall and England is struggling with succession. I picked it up on the strength of this quote from early in the book:

"Magic destroys," Ptolemy said. "every spell, enchantment, effect, ruins the worker a little bit more. If you are strong-willed, the wrecking takes a little longer...but it happens in the end, just the same."

So the magic is powerful and very dangerous. Vampires also play a key role in the story, but here it's a blood-borne disease that simply makes you very hard to kill and very long-lived providing no other mystical power. It's a very gritty type of fantasy where the supernatural is something like nuclear power -- a real, understandable thing but not something to be fooled around with lightly.

We follow a small group of four who are interested in thwarting the political ambitions of the Byzantine empire to reclaim the glory of Rome. We have Hywel the magician, Dimi the Greek mercenary, Gregor the vampiric artilleryman and Cynthia, doctor of medicine. From all over Europe their paths twine together and then it's off to England to keep the throne intact.

It was a pretty good story. The sharacters' dialog is very subtle and nuanced so you often flip back a few pages to catch the subtext going on. The really interesting thing is that when the action takes place in Italy, there are a number of historical persons who also appear in the Assassin's Creed video games. So I vaguely know who the people are, but their context is now slightly different than before. I'll be lucky if I have even the slightest shred of actual Renaissance history left in my head.

If you like your alt-history novels, or fantasy with a powerful, subtle magic to it, this is certainly a book to check out.

later
Tom