Too often a good fantasy book with a solid story suffers because its author is too busy showing off the awesome world in which the story takes place. Not so for The Briar King! No, instead of bad worldbuilding ruining good writing, Keyes' writing ruins his superb worldbuilding.

The Briar King starts with a prelude 2000 years in the past, when humanity unites to overthrow its Skasloi slave masters. In the present, humanity has now divided into the bickering nations across Everon. As political matters point to war, the eponymous god-like Briar King appears to be awakening after millennia of slumber, and no one is quite sure what this means for humanity—except that it can't be good. Caught between the hammer of war and anvil of nature, our protagonists find themselves with few friends and even fewer options.

I loved the world of Everon itself. Greg Keyes does a wonderful job at establishing the relationship among various nations without resorting to too much exposition. We get a sense of the deep enmity between the Skernish and Hansa and of the amity between Liery and Crotheny. Overarching it all is the Church, predicated on the veneration of saints and their sedoi, places of power where saints rested or parts of them have been buried. Finally, we get glimpses of the history of Everon between the overthrow of the Skasloi two thousand years ago and the present day—mention of some sort of continent-wide empire known as the Hegemony, a tyrannical ruler known as the Black Jester, and related conflicts called "the Warlock Wars." All of this Keyes weaves together into a tight historical background for the present-day drama. And that's why it's so disappointing that the actual conflict in the book is so underwhelming.

The principal fault lies in the characters, who are, for the most part, stock. Anne Dare is the rebellious princess who must grow up and fulfil her destiny; Austra is the trusted and devoted maidservant; Neil is the knight in shining armour, immune to temptation and incorruptible; Aspar is the grumpy old man; William is the good-natured king who never suspects betrayal; and Robert is the deceitful brother who kills his sister out of jealousy and arranges his brother's death to start a war. Not only do these characters act like their tropes, but their dialogue is similarly uninspired to the point of corniness:

A touch of anger at last entered Robert’s voice. "But you'd already decided that, hadn't you, Wilm? If you thought me a brother, you would never have betrothed Lesbeth without asking me. I could never forgive you that."

There were moments when optimism got the better of me and it looked like the book might improve, like the characters might actually break out of their moulds and do something new. For instance, take when Neil and Fastia have a few too many and come close to sleeping together, despite the fact that the former bodyguard to the latter's mother—the queen. I thought they might actually do it and then regret it later. But no, Neil is too pure for that, and so they just have to deal with unrequited love for the next several chapters until Fastia dies at the hands of the Plot. Whenever one of the protagonists gets in a tight enough spot that they might not make it, something inexplicable happens to save them: Anne makes a knight go blind, Neil goes into a berserker rage, etc. None of the conflicts faced by the main characters feel compelling because none feel dangerous. The only mistake the protagonists make is not being genre savvy.

The story itself suffers from first-book-itis, essentially functioning to set up the rest of the tetralogy. It introduces us to the main characters and manoeuvres them into place for the conflicts of the next three books. As much as Keyes tries to create an interesting story, the stock characters and standard fantasy tropes left me unimpressed and unamused. I never felt surprised, or even outraged. Mostly I was passive, maybe even a little bored, as page after page of predictable plot passed me by.

Now, any genre has its established tropes, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. The Briar King, however, takes that to a whole new level. There's very little that's original about its characters or its plot; just a few names have been changed to protect the exploited. This is formulaic fantasy at its most derivative.

I dug into The Years of Rice and Salt with much gusto, for its premise was an intriguing example of why alternate history can be so seductive. Yet almost immediately, my expectations were completely torn apart and shoved in my face. Sometimes this can be good; other times it ruins a book completely. In this case, while I quite enjoyed some of the philosophical aspects of the book, it failed to sustain my interest for its 760 pages.

In this version of history, the Black Death decimates the white Christian population of Europe. The Holy Roman Empire vanishes. Columbus never makes his infamous "discovery" of the New World. The Renaissance never happens. Shakespeare is never born. Robinson takes the discoveries our history often attributes to dead, white, male Europeans and transfers them to Muslim and Buddhist Chinese and Middle Eastern men and women. Muslim alchemists invent calculus while trying to measure the speed of light; a Chinese fleet ordered to invade Japan gets blown off course and winds up, eventually, in North America.

Given the fact that the back cover copy promises "a look at history that could have been—one that stretches across centuries.... Through the eyes of soldiers and kings, explorers and philosophers, slaves and scholars," perhaps my expectations were too simple. Robinson uses reincarnation as a plot device to carry his characters across eras and around the world. Although the characters don't retain their memories of past lives (except for a few instances) while living a new one, this device forces the reader to interpret their actions as part of a great karmic cycle. This is particularly the case for the first part of the book, where the narration reinforces the idea that each life is a chance to "embrace the Buddha-nature" and move on to the next plane of existence. Later in the book, the emphasis shifts from the characters to the necessity for society as a whole to come to grips with its own existence and embrace peace before it's too late.

And therein lies my problem with the book. Although the reincarnation device was not what I expected, I tolerated it. This isn't the first book I've read with reincarnated main characters; it probably won't be the last. However, the narrative style of The Years of Rice and Salt is demonstrably inconsistent in a way I can't reconcile with any dramatic purpose.

In the first "book," each chapter is numbered but untitled but has a short snippet that described what would take place: Chapter 1, "Another journey west, Bold and Psin find an empty land; Temur is displeased, and the chapter has a stormy end." I liked those. Each chapter also ended with a fourth-wall-breaking remark, such as, "What happened in there we don't want to tell you, but the story won't make sense unless we do, so on to the next chapter. These things happened." I hated these; they were annoying, and I was glad when they stopped after the first book. So did the chapter descriptions though. In Book 2, the chapters had numbers and titles but no descriptions. In Book 3, the chapters had neither numbers nor titles. In Book 4, the chapters had titles but no numbers! And so on, changing apparently on whim, with neither rhyme nor reason. This irked me even more than the book's story—it distracted me from the story, which is a cardinal sin. Robinson's editor should have stepped in, either to standardize this practise or make sure there's an evident reason for it.

Suppose I'm just a complainer, though, who's way too obsessive over meaningless design decisions that don't actually pertain to the plot. Does The Years of Rice and Salt redeem itself in its story, in its heart-warming characters who struggle against centuries of adversity to advance the plight of humanity? Not really.

Reading this book, I was reminded of [a:Umberto Eco|1730|Umberto Eco|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1217498277p2/1730.jpg], whose novels don't even try to pretend they're anything other than didactic philosophical treatises wrapped in a fiction taco shell. And I know some people find that unforgivable; I, on the other hand, don't mind it—if the author can pull it off. Robinson, at least in this book, falls short of the mark. He flirts with the concept of parallel history, chronicling the development of science in an order suspiciously similar to our own history's, just via Muslim and Chinese scientists. Oh, and there are airships, naturally. This flirtation undercuts the differences explored in the development of moral philosophy, governance, equality, power equity, etc. Once and a while we're treated to an interesting chapter in which one of the reincarnated characters shares a theory on the role of women in government or whatnot, but then we get page after page on the development of the law of universal gravitation (or later, smugly veiled references to relativity versus quantum mechanics).

I loved the sense of difference created on a macrocosmic level, watching China and Islam duke it out for control over the world. I liked how the indigenous peoples of North America actually prevent wholesale takeover of the continent by other of those two factions; indeed, their egalitarian style of government influences much of Europe and West Asia. For all of these broad strokes, however, Robinson neglects the minutiae of his characters' various lives. The detail he adds to the settings, many of which would be unfamiliar to Eurocentrically-educated readers like myself, doesn't quite compensate for this lack of characterization. Overall, The Years of Rice and Salt stretches itself too thin.

There are so many ways to describe Ekaterina Sedia's The Alchemy of Stone. It's a sombre symphony of motifs, ranging from women's independence and sexuality to the ramifications of rapid industrialization. And deceptively so—despite the intriguing back cover copy and the seductive tagline, "a novel of automated anarchy & clockwork lust," I wasn't quite convinced of The Alchemy of Stone's brilliance until the denouement, when everything suddenly came together in a wonderful, cathartic moment.

In the city of Ayona, hewed from stone by the ever-watchful gargoyles, the Mechanics and the Alchemists duel for political control of the city while the peasants labour in the mines and on the farms. Mattie is an emancipated, clockwork automaton who has chosen to become an alchemist (and she's competent at it too). Though she is legally a free woman, she can't break her bond to her Mechanic creator, Loharri. He retains the key that will wind her clockwork heart and exerts an insidious influence on Mattie throughout the book.

The Mechanics have recently achieved a majority in Parliament, but when someone destroys the Duke's palace, the city gradually slides into chaos. Mattie is politically apathetic (and she can't vote anyway), but she is close to people on both sides of the conflict and inexorably becomes involved. Still, her outsider's perspective provides us with valuable insight into the tensions and fears that motivate both those in power and the masses who are unhappy with them. It's clear that the Mechanic-controlled Parliament has an agenda, and we get a glimpse of a counter-agenda from Sebastian, Iolanda, and the revolutionaries. However, there are very few specifics in both cases. Sedia focuses less on the political aspirations of either side than the power conflict itself, mostly because it parallels the power conflict between Loharri and Mattie.

The revolution's root cause is the rapid industrialization driven by the Mechanics. Machines are the answer to everything: transportation, manufacturing, even food production, thanks to mindless automaton labourers. Despite the improvements these machines often make, there's disadvantages too, both aesthetic and practical. The factories in the city are eyesores, polluting the river and belching smoke into the sky. The peasants who still have jobs tilling the soil receive little pay and little gratitude; still, they are luckier than the orphans raised in inhumane conditions to live out their lives as miners, striving to satisfy Ayona's insatiable appetite for coal. The result: the riots of the Industrial Revolution, accelerated just as the steampunk technological innovations accelerate in the book. We go from initial attack to the end of the revolution quite quickly, or at least it seems that way. Likewise, the revolution spurs unintuitive improvements in technology: the Mechanics construct a "Calculator" that will analyze the situation and provide them with the best possible course of action; Loharri manages to perfect audio/video recording in a very short time and use Mattie as an unwitting spy. The pace of this progress isn't very believable, but as a storytelling device, I suppose it works well.

The revolution is but a backdrop to the personal journey of discovery of Mattie herself. Initially, she seems to pursue her goals with a single-mindedness only a clockwork person can possess. Yet as the story progressed, I realized that one could also interpret that pursuit as a form of selfishness—such a human attribute, or an attribute of the flesh, as the gargoyles would no doubt describe it. Mattie, though made of gears and springs, whalebone and ceramic, feels pain—and pleasure—and her emotions run the gamut from lust to passion to anger. She is a person, in all sense of the word. And she is a woman.

The personhood of robots is a Big Question; entire books, science fiction or otherwise, devote themselves to unravelling that mystery. Sedia, in a sense, has bypassed this issue, taking Mattie's sentience as a given so that she can explore more pertinent problems. This is what Mattie has to say about her gender (to the female character Iolanda):

". . . why do you consider yourself a woman? Because you were created as one?"

"Yes," Mattie replied, although she grew increasingly uncomfortable with the conversation. "And because of the clothes I wear."

"So if you changed your clothes . . ."

"But I can't," Mattie said. "The shape of them is built into me—I know you have to wear corsets and hoops and stays to give your clothes a proper shape. But I was created with all of those already in place, they are as much a part of me as my eyes. So I ask you, what else would you consider me? . . . I assure you that my femaleness is as ingrained as your own."

Mattie identifies herself with The Alchemy of Stone's female characters, like Iolanda and Niobe, who themselves are struggling for some power over their own destinies. She expresses horror that the city's mindless automatons were never aware enough to know their own lack of freedom; hence, she cherishes what little freedom she has. Yet there's something much more sinister about Mattie's creation: Loharri built her in a form designed for servitude. She repeatedly experiences a desire to help or please Loharri even as she resents his reticence to surrender her key. Though emancipated, she often accompanies Loharri places in the role of "his" automaton, possession rather than person, somehow less "real." The combination of Mattie's femaleness and her illusory freedom is a potent reminder of women's struggle to emancipate themselves from the role of devoted housewife. Sedia manages to make Mattie's plight resonate even for me, a young male who lacks much experience when dealing with gender discrimination. And the culmination of this aspect of Mattie's journey is, for me, the most fulfilling part of the book.

It's worth mentioning Mattie's faces. Most of Mattie is fairly durable, but her faces are made of porcelain and prone to cracking or even shattering completely. When this happens, she must go to Loharri for a replacement—a shameful, degrading circumstance, at least from her perspective. Think about how much importance we humans put on one's face: it's an outward representation of our personality; we associate faces with specific individuals. The facts that Mattie's face is artificially, so easily breakable and mutable, that her expression and appearance are controlled by her creator all contribute to this tragic sense of not being "real" despite her obvious sentience.

Sedia, for the most part, executes these themes with skill and confidence. Occasionally, however, she does falter, and that inconsistency is why I demure from five stars. To be honest, getting through the first two thirds of the book was more chore than diversion. I can understand why some people would probably put it down after the first few chapters. Yet my opinion of the book experienced a reversal in the last act; the final third is captivating in its tragedy and beauty. Without spoiling it too much, Mattie is definitely a tragic heroine, her downfall ultimately residing within Loharri's spiteful betrayal of her.

Loharri is a fully realized character. He's passionate but phlegmatic, prone to fits of enthusiasm and malaise. Mattie's complex feelings about her creator alone justify calling three dimensional. He was kind enough to create her with an independent mind in the first place; he allowed her to learn alchemy and emancipated her on request. Yet he refuses to hand over her key, which would truly grant her freedom. And he uses her, both indirectly, by compelling her to see him at regular intervals, or directly, by using her as an unwitting spy. This duality is mirrored in his role as a Mechanic politico. He seems more open and accepting than most Mechanics, yet when Mattie attempts to question the wisdom of a party policy, Loharri becomes defensive. He displays the same general xenophobia the other Mechanics have, blaming the revolutionary atmosphere on the increasing population of "Easterners" in Ayona. Clearly, Loharri is not a very nice man. Yet he created Mattie, who is equally clearly a nice woman, determined to care for those society has left by the wayside, such as Ilmarekh the Soul-Smoker and the gargoyles.

So when Loharri betrays Mattie one final, irrevocable time, it's the most poignant turning point in the novel. Suddenly he has crossed the line from passive antagonist to active villain. When Sedia made me hate him for his actions rather than for how Mattie saw his actions, that's when The Alchemy of Stone captured me. It's unfortunate that it took almost the entire book to reach that point; certainly other books have captivated me from the first page until the last. However, when it did happen, it was as swift and irrevocable as Loharri's betrayal.

Sedia's prose is lyrical and haunting; she never wastes words or wants for imagery. That's why I label The Alchemy of Stone a symphony. The entire book feels like a score—set in a minor key, of course—that could easily be put to a ballet or some sort of opera. I've criticized the plot, and some of the character development, but the atmosphere of this book is potent and unforgettable—maybe even unforgivable.

As a caveat, I found the description on this edition of the book quite misleading. Its tone is glib. Phrases like "task force" and "add in a hapless fire inspector who's just trying to get his paperwork in order" cultivates a tongue-in-cheek feel that made me expect a zanier book than Cherie Priest delivers. So if you're basing your decision to read the book on the description, don't be surprised if Fathom defies your expectations.

That's essentially Fathom in a nutshell: it defies expectations. At least it did mine. Priest blends traditional fantasy with pantheist and polytheist pantheons to create a dark fairy tale of family and transformation. While her writing style is exquisite, ultimately, I was left disenchanted by the story itself.

Set in 1930s Florida, Fathom concerns the machinations of the elements personified. The water witch Arahab wants to remake the world by waking the Leviathan, which slumbers deep beneath the Earth. A demoted elemental, nicknamed Mossfeaster, who now oversees the process of earthly decay sets out to thwart Arahab's plans. Stuck in the middle are four mortals: an eighteenth-century pirate, a deranged New York teenager, her Florida country cousin, and the aforementioned "hapless fire inspector."

Bernice and Nia are cousins, the classic "city girl/country girl" pairing that starts many a story set in rural areas. When Bernice attacks her stepfather, who has perhaps been abusing her (we only have her word on it, although I gather we're supposed to believe her so she becomes a tragic character), and ends up killing him, she implores her horrified cousin to help her hide the evidence. Nia refuses, setting off a dramatic chase sequence that culminates in a deadly encounter just off shore.

This is where the description deviates from the story. Maybe it's just me, but the way the description was worded made it sound like this part of the story would last longer. It happened in about a chapter. Arahab takes Bernice and transforms her into some sort of water creature; Mossfeaster turns Nia into a stone statue so she can gradually transform into something he can use as an ally. And Bernice's mother just . . . leaves, for no satisfactory reason.

As Bernice and Nia each come into their powers and confront the fact they are no longer mortal, their respective "sponsors" are setting plans into motion. Arahab wants Bernice to help ex-pirate José Gaspar sail a ship deep into a fissure in the ocean floor and wake the Leviathan. Bernice, however, isn't quite ready for the end of the world—she was only nineteen when she died, and she thinks it's awfully rude of Mother to try to end the world before Bernice has had a chance to experience more of it. So she concocts a plan to weaken her Mother, just enough to delay the end of the world for a century or two. But Arahab didn't get to be Big Water Witch on Campus by being dense, oh no. She knows all about Bernice's penchant for treachery, and Bernice's plan backfires, costing Gaspar his life. Not that I liked him much anyway.

Meanwhile, Nia emerges from her cocoon stone shell as an incredibly durable person in bad need of a haircut. She's aided by Sam, the hapless fire inspector, who obediently hijacks vehicles on demand and pays the ferry toll. Together, they're going to help Mossfeaster prevent Arahab from waking the Leviathan. Along the way, we get an interesting comparison between two types of elementals: Mossfeaster, who views humanity as a potential ally, and after getting to know Sam, a little more respect; and Arahab, who views humans as just a particularly annoying form of animal, easily crushed if in the way. Even though she displays "love" for her "children" Gaspar and Bernice, we see that her love is merely another tool she employs to get what she wants. Mossfeaster, on the other hand, never claims to hold any love for Nia—although it does care for her more than it will admit. She is just a tool who happened to come along at the right moment. However, since Mossfeaster wants to prevent the end of the world, its amoral nature is slightly superior to Arahab's.

I apologize if my tone verges on sarcasm in places, as it doesn't do justice to Priest's writing. Fathom was a pleasure to read; however, it doesn't seem to hold up under any sort of serious scrutiny.

At first glance, Fathom's plot seems like a welcome diversion from the sword-and-sorcery epic fantasy method of saving the world, consisting of massive armies, dragons, wizards, etc. Instead, we've got elementals battling it out through proxies in 1930s Florida, hijacked ambulances and fire wagons, and an iron tower. Unfortunately, scratch away the superficial differences, and the plot becomes paper-thin. And there's just not enough of a plot to stretch for as long as Priest does, which is why I felt like the book was oddly paced compared to how the description makes it sound.

The same can be said for Fathom's characters. Bernice and Nia are supposed to be mirrors for Arahab and Mossfeaster. Family battles family. Yet the thematic importance of these conflicts is hollow, for Priest gives neither side enough motivation. Bernice is just downright evil, either because she's always been that way or because her stepfather abused her. So naturally, she does what an inherently evil minion will do and betrays her own "Mother," even though Mother is also "evil." Nia, on the other hand, is just resigned to helping because she has nowhere else to go—her life as she knows it is over because she's spent several years trapped in statue form while her family grieved and moved on. And she does precious little in the book except run very fast to different places. Likewise, Sam is the token human for the good guys, whose seemingly-major role steadily dwindles as the story progresses. Unfortunately, there are no characters to admire in Fathom, because none of them seem very real or interesting.

Most of the gestures in Fathom are token, like this book is the skeleton of a fantasy story rather than an actual story. Parts are missing, whether they're plot points or character motivations. I get the impression that those missing parts exist, but Priest fails to communicate them, or imply them in her characters' actions. As a result, the story never takes on a life of its own; the characters never become more than players on a stage. Fathom is easy to read, and enjoyable on the surface. Beneath that, however, lurks little nutrition.

As I began reading The Third Chimpanzee, a little voice in my head told me that I should stop reading books by Jared Diamond. His subsequent three popular science books all have their origins in this one; I began with Guns, Germs, and Steel and then read Collapse. So reading The Third Chimpanzee was sort of like getting a summary of those two books, plus the one I haven't read yet. Thus, I sought out to determine if the latter books suffered because they were too long an exploration of Diamond's ideas, or if they are superior to his original formulation of arguments concerning those three subjects. The shocking answer will soon be revealed!

Caveat: parts of this book are now dated, as it was written nearly twenty years ago. Hence, while I usually find Harper's "P.S." sections boring, this one was useful because it allowed Diamond to update us on some of the advances in science and historical discoveries since the book was first published.

My reaction to this book is probably the most mixed reaction I've had to any of Diamond's books thus far. As the aforementioned "P.S." author interview says, Diamond's life as a modern scientific polymath stems from a desire not to be confined to "one tiny slice of life's palette." He began as a physiological researcher and has since distinguished himself for writing on subjects like ornithology, anthropology, history, and geography, earning him the title of "biogeographer." I applaud Diamond for his varied interests and ability to apply those interests and synthesize an argument about human development from multiple disciplines. However, it's important that the reader remember that Diamond isn't a geneticist, astronomer, anthropologist, etc. And sometimes, he overreaches himself when attempting to apply his considerable life experience to his arguments. Oh, and he also tries to be witty and . . . well, once and a while it works, but most of the time his attempts at humour fall flat.

In Part One, Diamond begins by examining how we differ from our closest relatives. There's a fancy chart that shows the estimated dates of evolutionary divergence from common ancestors (gibbons and orangutans split off earlier, then gorillas, then chimpanzees and humans finally went their separate ways around 7 million years ago). Still, the human genome and chimp genome are 98 per cent similar, and Diamond argues that this is enough of a similarity that humanity should constitute the "third chimpanzee." He then postulates that the rise of complex spoken language was the cause of the anthropological "Great Leap Forward" that allowed humans to begin developing the behaviour required for societies to arise. This is the "teaser" part of the book, in which Diamond whets our appetite for details he'll later reveal. He also makes a one-off attempt to plead for the cessation of medical experimentation on chimpanzees, implying that because we are—in his view—of the same genus, it's just as bad as experimenting on humans. Regardless of one's views on the subject, Diamond raises an interesting point . . . and then doesn't return to it at any subsequent moment in the book.

Next, Diamond looks at humans' anomalous "life cycle" compared to the rest of the animal kingdom, particularly primates. Humans are the only primates in which the women go through menopause and cease being fertile. Chimpanzee males have larger testicles than human males because chimpanzee males mate so frequently they need the extra sperm, but most couplings last only seconds! I've always been interested in how our different sexual characteristics have helped humanity rise to its present status on the planet, so I loved this part of the book. Furthermore, unlike some later parts, Diamond remains on firm ground when he seeks evolutionary explanations for human sexual behaviour.

That ground becomes progressively shakier in Part Three, perhaps the worst of the five parts to Diamond's book. Here, he examines aspects of human society that are uniquely developed—the two most notable examples are art and drug abuse. Unfortunately, Diamond over-extends his attempts to explain these behaviours purely from an evolutionary perspective. Is this because evolution can't solely explain them? Or is this merely a failure on Diamond's part as thinker? It's a little of both, in my opinion: Diamond is great at synthesizing disparate sources of information to create a compelling thesis; unfortunately, as he does so, he tends to get somewhat reductionist in his perspective. While his argument is not wrong, it is at the very least incomplete, which still makes it flawed.

I was annoyed when, in the chapter on extraterrestrial life, Diamond began to explain why it's not necessarily likely that an advanced species would develop radio:

You might object that I'm being too stringent in looking for early precursors of radios themselves, when I should instead look for just the two qualities necessary to make radios: intelligence and mechanical dexterity. But the situation there is little more encouraging. Based on the very recent evolutionary experience of our own species, we arrogantly assume intelligence and dexterity to be the best way of taking over the world, and to have evolved inevitably.

Now, I actually agree with the latter part of that quotation. The fact that, on Earth, so far humans are the only form of life to have developed what we term "intelligence" indicates it may not be the only path to global domination. After all, prior to their extinction, the dinosaurs ruled the Earth, and they were certainly dumb by our standards. Still, Diamond is short-sighted; he wrongly assumes that intelligence or dexterity are prerequisites to leveraging radio. They're prerequisites in the invention and construction of mechanical radio transmitters and receivers, sure. "Radio" itself is a medium; radio waves constitute part of the electromagnetic spectrum of radiation. Just as many species have independently evolved eyes to see visual light (and some species can see into other spectrums), what's to stop a species on another planet from evolving a radio transceiver organ? Perhaps the absence of any such creature on Earth would make such an evolutionary development unlikely, at least on Earth-like planets. However, not every habitable planet has to be exactly Earth-like. Maybe there exists conditions on another planet where the evolution of biological radio makes sense. This is a totally hypothetical, spontaneous scenario, but I hope it demonstrates my problem with Diamond's reasoning. In an effort to produce the best arguments possible, he often generalizes or focuses too narrowly on subjects beyond his best areas of knowledge.

In Parts Four and Five, Diamond explores the seeds of the ideas that would turn into two of his later books, Guns, Germs, and Steel and Collapse. Since I've already read these books, I have to admit I skimmed a great deal of these sections. The chapter on language was interesting, but I had already learned much the same from the more recent [b:Before the Dawn|110995|Before the Dawn Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors|Nicholas Wade|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171648021s/110995.jpg|2922823]. If you read a great deal of anthropological non-fiction, you too may find these sections less-than-fascinating. The one exception is Chapter 17, "The Golden Age That Never Was."

Thank you, Mr. Diamond, for that chapter. It irks me to no end when I hear someone talk about the "good ol' days" of human society, some sort of pastoral paradise where everyone was happy and we experienced no strife. The idea that simpler times were better times is a myth, one that Diamond thoroughly discredits in this chapter. He shows us that people, for the most part, have perpetrated the same sort of acts in the past as we see happening now—the difference is one of degree. Modern technology allows us to expand the scale and speed with which we create problems, making us more efficient at marshalling chaos. Unfortunately, Pandora's box has been opened, and there's no going back. Diamond comes to the same conclusion and so focuses on what hope we might have for the future of our spaces, however slim.

As with Collapse, Diamond broadcasts a message of cautious optimism. We may be able to survive, provided we as a society "choose" to begin living in a way that's more sustainable. He's vague on the details, claiming that his book is "an analysis" of our problems rather than a laundry-list of potential solutions. The solutions, he maintains, are already well-known; we just have to choose to implement them. While that sort of rhetoric isn't very appealing to me, I understand Diamond's difficulty in writing prescriptions. Nevertheless, that call for optimism is less effective in such an unhelpful context.

Right from the start of The Third Chimpanzee, Diamond was up front about his mad love for New Guinea and its peoples and his opinion that it's somehow a microcosm for the development of society. Those who have read my review of Guns, Germs, and Steel know how I got tired of hearing that line. Paradoxically, the New Guineans feature more heavily in this book, but I found their inclusion both more tolerable and more interesting. I actually learned things about New Guinea that made me exclaim, "Oh, that's cool!" rather than roll my eyes and snort, "Right, OK Diamond. Whatever you say." My experience with The Third Chimpanzee has therefore provoked the least amount of sarcasm from me regarding Jared Diamond's writing. It is both the best and the worst of his work: where it is flawed, it is more flawed; where it is useful, it is far more useful. If you read one Jared Diamond book, this should be the one.

And there's the rub. It's difficult to write popular science books. There's a fine line between intelligent and esoteric, between academically rigorous and overly-complicated. Diamond has undertaken a challenge, and for that I respect him; at least he isn't writing puff pieces. For the majority of people, The Third Chimpanzee is worthy of dinner table conversation or book group discussion; it's a great starting point in the quest to read anthropological non-fiction. It is not the culmination of that quest, but a stepping stone along the way to more rigorous, more intense non-fiction on this subject. And that's all it can be.

I did it again. I walked smack into the middle of a series. And I have only myself to blame. Had I been more careful in examining this book, I would have noticed it's part of a series—I would also have noted its epistolary format, another feature that ordinarily gives me pause. However, I did not notice these things, and even once I did, I read this book anyway. Now I have to write this review—me, a neophyte to the Adrian Mole saga, a doubter of epistolary works! This can only end in tears.

Adrian Mole, at this point in his life, is the single father of two boys (by different mothers), living in housing, and struggling to make a career for himself as a writer. We're supposed to identify with Adrian on some level, I guess, and find humour in his insane experiences with crazy relatives, random elderly people, and the head of comedy at the BBC. So you'll have to forgive me, fans of Adrian Mole, when I say that I think Adrian is an idiot.

I don't really want to identify with someone as deluded and irresponsible as Adrian. Sure, the people in his life use him quite a bit and seldom show him much respect. I sympathize. I don't empathize, however, because on top of all those hardships, Adrian creates more in a ceaseless fashion that is a neurosis all to itself. He's paranoid, obsessive, and bland. There's very little to like about Adrian. Usually, when faced with a main character like this, I take it as a sign that the story is one of gradual redemption as the character shoulders responsibility after responsibility. I didn't expect Adrian to become a world-renowned humanitarian or even to find love (in fact, I was sure the probability of the latter was zero). Yet Townsend manages to restrain Adrian from any sort of character development; in fact, I think he might actually un-develop, if such a thing is possible.

The back of my edition has quotations from various publications. The Evening Standard suggests that rather than (or perhaps in addition to) identifying with Adrian, he's a useful creation because "no matter what your troubles may be, Adrian Mole is sure to make you feel better." I get that; part of the appeal of comedy is finding humour in the tribulations of other people. My point, however, is that there is little humour to be found in Adrian's situation. Most of it is of his own invention, and thus unavoidable. It would have been better if Adrian were less of an idiot, a more redeeming man faced with the burden of overbearing, maritally-confused parents and step-parents while trying to raise two kids. As it is, I feel better knowing I'm no longer reading about Adrian Mole!

According to The Times, "Adrian Mole really is a brilliant comic creation . . . every sentence is witty and well thought out. . . ." That is pure-grade blurb hyperbole. The majority of sentences in this book are dull or, at best, mildly amusing. I did appreciate Townsend's intentional, subtle use of grammatical errors to create a more authentic epistolary experience.

As an aside, I'd also like to give a shout-out to the New Statesman. Apparently their regular blurb-writer was out sick, because someone in the office decided it was appropriate to string-together several adjectives: "poignant, hilarious, heart-rending, devastating" and call it a blurb (I kid you not; that is the entire quotation).

The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole is a perfect example of someone trying to create an exception to the rule and failing miserably. It contains the sort of random plot developments and incredible acts that, if done well, make a humourous novel awesome by definition. By the same token, however, it's very difficult to do it well. There's no middle ground, and if it doesn't work, it plunges the book into mediocrity. I always think of [a:Douglas Coupland|1886|Douglas Coupland|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1210858151p2/1886.jpg] when considering this phenomenon. Coupland's books are rife with insane plot developments (my favourites are usually in [b:JPod|221059|JPod A Novel|Douglas Coupland|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172821182s/221059.jpg|820439], which Coupland then leveraged into a hilarious TV series for the CBC). He does it so well that his books, at least in my opinion, are exactly what The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole attempts to be. Yet Coupland does occasionally slip up, and when he does, it markedly detracts from the quality of his book. Poor humour is worse than no humour.

My comparison to Coupland will continue as I examine the next gimmick that Townsend employs: like Coupland, she writes herself into the book! Like Coupland, this fictional Townsend is a caricature, portrayed as a hack and a jerk. Unlike Coupland, who plays a large and direct role in JPod, Townsend doesn't actually appear in person; she's just mentioned by several characters, including Adrian himself. Unfortunately, this reduced role feels like the rest of the book's gimmicks do: throw-aways without which the book would have been better.

Epistolary novels, in general, are harder for me to appreciate than the more conventional contemporary novel format. Even Coupland's The Gum Thief didn't persuade me to join the dark side. Now, like any story, the success of an epistolary work depends more on its writer than the fact that it's written as a series of letters. Douglas Coupland executed his novel well, which earned it a respectable 3 of 5 stars. Sue Townsend, on the other hand, has written a series of one-off joke snippets with reusable characters and combined them to create a novel-length work. And that's my main objection to contemporary epistolary novels; it's just so easy to be lazy with the actual letters or diary entries themselves. Since any epistolary work will naturally feel somewhat jumbled after it has been assembled, owing to the discrete nature of each entry, it's harder to detect this overall lesser quality than it is in a novel with a more unified narrative.

Are there funny parts in The Lost Diaries of Adrian Mole? Certainly, but they are few and far between, and once used, Townsend tends to parade them around time and again until they have long overstayed their welcome. That's true of the book itself as well.

Something's been nagging me ever since I began reading Allen Steele's Coyote series. I enjoyed both Coyote and Coyote Rising, for the most part, yet something was missing. Coyote Frontier brings that missing piece of the puzzle to the series, for we finally get to see Earth with our own eyes, and Steele reminds us why space travel isn't just for science fiction.

In Coyote Frontier, a starship belonging to the European Alliance, rivals of the collectivist Western Hemisphere Union who tried to take over Coyote in the last book, arrives at Coyote claiming peaceful intentions. The ship, commanded by Captain Anastasia Tereshkova, reassembles itself into a "starbridge," your typical science fiction hyperspace wormhole device. Now that Coyote and Earth are mere hours apart instead of decades, Coyote has been thrust back into the spotlight of the fragmented, struggling survivors of a global climate holocaust. The colonists and various representatives of Earth's government jockey for position, each one trying to defend their own best interests. But who is looking out for humanity's interests?

Coyote Frontier had better writing than Coyote Rising and was pretty much on par with Coyote. My major dissatisfaction with Coyote Rising was how shallow made all of the political motivations of the main characters seem. There's a little bit of this shallowness in Coyote Frontier, particularly in the sections that deal with Susan Montero, Hawk Thompson, and Lars Thompson as they argue over the possible intelligence of Coyote's indigenous hominids, the chirreep. None of the characters of this series seem very deep or well-developed; the possible exceptions are Wendy and Carlos, whom we've seen mature from teenagers in Coyote to middle-aged and elderly by Coyote Frontier, and Hawk, who has to choose between family or higher principles. Otherwise, most of the characters aren't burdened with complex emotions or anything resembling moral dilemmas. Susan is unswervingly devoted to preserving Coyote's natural habitat and indigenous wildlife. Tereshkova and most of her crew are so enchanted with how pristine Coyote is that they "convert" to Coyote's side; former first officer Jonathan Parson embodies this philosophy to a tee.

Where this series excels is in the struggle to colonize another world. The first two books covered the actual effort to construct—and keep—a colony. In Coyote Frontier, we see the inevitable re-establishment of regular contact with Earth, and the consequences this has for both Earth and Coyote. Naturally, the Coyote Federation wants to become a sovereign nation and control who emigrates to their world. All the Earth governments are anxious for new, unexploited land. Steele is far from coy about the novel's role as an allegory for European colonization of the New World; it even includes an indigenous population that some colonists would rather wipe out than accommodate (notably, however, the chirreep are primitive homonids, whereas the indigenous peoples of the Americas were modern humans who merely had primitive technology). Some governments, like the European Alliance, are amenable to negotiating with Coyote on the latter's terms. Others, like the Western Hemisphere Union, are openly hostile. Although the story's main plot does come to a head before the end of the book, these overarching issues aren't fully resolved, to good effect.

For Steele may be writing a story set in the future, but he's writing about the present. The chief moral of the Coyote series is that humanity seldom learns from its mistakes; with each new frontier, we scramble for control as we quickly fill and consume all the resources we can. We've already seen the dangers of unchecked development and witnessed the horrors of genocide, yet with a fresh new world to exploit, suddenly the cautionary tale of our history is forgotten. Despite the futuristic technology and fictional political entities, the situations that Steele creates feel real and plausible. Fortunately, Steele doesn't present a uniformly bleak picture of our destiny. In fact, it's fair to say he's more than optimistic—as long as there are still good people to stand up for human principles, rather than the political principles of any particular country, we still have a chance. And if Steele is right, and we aren't alone in the universe, then it's even more vital that we put our best foot forward.

I would happily recommend the Coyote series to anyone. It's not my favourite series by any means, but it's still a wonderful treatment of important themes. For Coyote Frontier is a ringing endorsement of the necessity for us to strive for the stars. Especially in times of economic tension, people question the utility of space travel, especially attempts to establish manned space travel. What's the point? Simply put, as Coyote Frontier and its ilk do, we have outgrown this world. We need more resources and more room than the Earth can offer. If we can continue to avoid total environmental catastrophe, great; space is a bonus. If not, however, and like the denizens of Coyote's Earth we all become environmental refugees, then escape to the stars may be our only hope for survival as a species. Either way, we need the knowledge and the know-how to get there, preferably sooner rather than later. Coyote Frontier makes a compelling case for this argument, wrapped in an exciting story of old problems on a new world.

Welcome to a typical "forbidden fruit" romance scenario in an historical setting. Aemilia is a discontent vestal virgin who manages to fall in love with a man. Naturally, since the vestals must remain chaste, this is considered a bad thing, and so Aemilia is torn between her loyalty to Rome and her love of a slave determined to overthrow Rome. Drama!

Narrated from Aemilia's point of view, the story takes on an intensely personal tone. We feel Aemilia's loneliness, her sadness that her family just packed her away to become a vestal virgin, her sense of estrangement from the other vestals, who offer more squabbles than support. She grows from an uneasy child into an uneasy woman, never able to give herself entirely to Vesta like some of the vestals can, unwilling to throw herself into the politics of her group. It's easy to sympathize with Aemilia, to watch her take a lover and reflect on how unfair it is that she gets caught. But she does get caught; she does have to suffer the consequences. In the end, what does it all mean?

Despite Aemilia's strong voice, her relationships with her fellow vestals are somewhat one-dimensional. It's as if Sherri Smith made the other vestals a certain way in order to emphasize Aemilia's sensibleness. Alarm bells immediately went off in my head, and I thought of other books that do this—pump up the main caracter by surrounding him or her with less-than-ideal companions. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I didn't enjoy having Aemilia as the narrator. She was just far too biased (and, as I'll later point out, unreliable). From this perspective, The Virgin's Tale becomes a "woe is me" tale instead of a "tragedy of a girl forced to become political scapegoat" tale that it could be. Suddenly the story becomes about what happens to Aemilia instead of how what happens to Aemilia reflects on the nature of the Republic of Rome.

The only other interesting character is Julia, who joins the vestal virgins after Aemilia. The two share friendship and rivalry for the first few years of their service, culminating in an awkward nighttime visit by Julia to Aemilia's room. Here was where the book could have diverged, could have become interesting by making Julia Aemilia's lover, and for a moment, I thought that would be the case. After all, nothing in the description says that Aemilia broke her vow of chastity for a man.

Alas, my hopes were not borne out. Aemilia falls for a household slave, Lysander, who claims to have been born in Greece but is actually just a half-Greek born into slavery in Rome. He is also plotting to overthrow Rome by supporting a patrician's plot while secretly raising a slave rebellion of his own. To Smith's credit, Lysander has enough brains that he's not all brawn—Aemilia and him do seem to fall in love. Still, it's a gooey, carefree sort of love that seems riskless even though Aemilia is, in fact, risking it all. But I'm sure it's OK because, you know, he makes her feel really, really good.

And in fact, depending on the interpretation of the ending, that element of risk completely evaporates. That Aemilia would be caught was never in doubt. The book begins with her being sealed into an underground tomb. However, we don't learn if she gets rescued until the very end. There's reason to believe that rescue may just be a hallucination though.

The part of me averse to happy endings thinks Lysander's rescue of Aemilia is a weak way to end this book. We were built up for tragedy right until the end, and to yank away Aemilia's tragic death and replace it with a happily-ever-after is the ultimate cheat. Truthfully, I also didn't care much for either Aemilia or Lysander, so I wasn't sad to see her go. Much better that she should die for love than escape because someone inexplicably put a door into the side of her tomb and Lysander happened to sneak to where she was buried and help dig her out. Right.

On the other hand, the ending could just be a dream. Aemilia demonstrates herself to be an unreliable narrator several times in this book, most notably with the way in which she fantasizes about Tullia leaving the vestal virgins after her 30 year term of service is up and marrying her lover. It turns out that Tullia was actually caught and executed, her fate identical to what would befall Aemilia. We only learn this at the very end of the book. This, combined with the fact that the method of Aemilia's rescue seems improbable, leads to me to think that it's a dream and not reality. The stress of Aemilia's capture, combined with the depleting oxygen in the room, finally makes her crack.

Since the ending ultimately depends on whether one considers Aemilia a reliable narrator, it's up to the reader how to interpret it. Neither ending substantially changes my opinion of the book. I suppose I should probably just avoid these sorts of historical romances in the future. I picked the book up because it's set in ancient Rome, and I like ancient Rome. It's unfair of me to expect the book to rise above its genre and give me something else, just as it's unfair for a Western reader to expect a fantasy novel not to have magic. Nevertheless, I can't bring myself to label an entire genre mediocre—and that's what The Virgin's Tale is—which leads me to conclude that there are certainly better books in this genre than this one. While it's a far cry from awful, The Virgin's Tale doesn't possess anything that makes it stand out.

It took me several years after discovering Jim Butcher to actually read his epic fantasy series, the Codex Alera. It was worth the wait. Furies of Calderon is everything I like in a fantasy series. I'm going to try to avoid comparing the Codex Alera to Butcher's urban fantasy, the Dresden Files. If you're really interested in how they stack up, skip to to the end.

The story takes place in Alera, ruled by First Lord Gaius Sextus. Gaius has no heirs, so there's a group of other lords who are planning to rebel, first by goading the non-human barbarian Marat into attack Alera through its only pass, the eponymous Calderon Valley. Let's not labour under any misconceptions: this is your typical medieval fantasy setting. No electricity, slavery, feudalism—the whole nine yards and then some. What distinguishes the Codex Alera, as with much fantasy, is its magic. Butcher takes elemental magic and adds his own twist, creating the potential for fascinating characters and conflicts.

Alerans develop, around puberty, the ability to call on various elemental "furies." Most only have one fury; more powerful "crafters" can call on more powerful or multiple furies. This makes the elemental magic all the more personal: each crafter has a relationship with his or her fury, who is portrayed as a semi-sentient elemental spirit. I'm interested in seeing the extent to which the furies have self-awareness or free will. Of course, all this talk of furies raises the question that becomes central to this series: in such a society, what happens to people who don't have any furies?

Enter Tavi. He's fifteen, furyless, but with enough intelligence to make up for it—and to get him into plenty of trouble. That's what I like about Tavi: he lacks magic and he's not the Chosen One. He just happens to be in the wrong place and the right time and sucks at herding sheep. Tavi doesn't set out to play hero. Captured by the Marat, he must undergo a trial to avoid being eaten—and, if he does succeed, the Marat who endorse this trial will also pull out of the invasion of the Calderon Valley. As a result, he averts invasion, saves Alera, makes friends with barbarians, and possibly gets betrothed. All because he didn't want to be eaten. Still, as much as I like Tavi, I can't say I'm entirely satisfied with him. He's thrust into circumstances beyond his control and forced to face several challenges, sure, but he has a serious moral dilemma. About the closest he comes is during his trial, where he can choose to leave his opponent to die a horrible death or save her at great risk to himself. I'd argue that doesn't count, however, because as the hero, by definition he's got to save his opponent. No, Tavi's a fun character, but he emerges from the events of this story with no emotional scarring (unless you count the possible betrothal), no regrets.

Tavi's joined by Amara, a newly-minted Cursor (think special agent) out to stop the plot to take Sextus' throne. She too helps avert the invasion, with the aid of Tavi's aunt and uncle, Isana and Bernard. (Country-saving, it turns out, is a family affair.) If I liked Tavi but rued his development, then I rued Amara but liked her development. She comes off as smug, or at least unsuccessfully insouciant, in her manner. Yet she changes quite a bit. After losing her confidence during her ill-fated graduation exercise, she raises the warning of impending invasion and, when the Marat strike, is right there fighting on the wall next to the soldiers.

Alas, not all the characters are as well-written as Tavi or Amara. The supporting good guys can be somewhat cardboard—take Isana and Bernard, for instance. They're somewhat single-minded in their familial devotion to Tavi, right down to the good-natured, caring sense of disapproval when he does something wrong. Bernard is near-fatally wounded at least three times in this book, yet he stubbornly refuses to die, because that would be a damn tragedy to Tavi, wouldn't it? Likewise, Isana goes through a traumatic experience, thanks to the villainous Kord, but seems rather unaffected by the end of the book.

The bad guys fare somewhat better. Fidelias, Amara's former teacher, attempts to recruit his student during her graduation and then reluctantly spends the rest of the book trying to kill her (among other things). I loved this rocky relationship, and Fidelias is the sort of well-intentioned extremist with whom a reader can sympathize. Similarly, the Isana-counterpart Odiana begins as a somewhat airheaded villain who quickly becomes much more.

Probably the most transparent villain was Kord. He captures Isana (and, as a bonus, Odiana) for the express purpose of breaking her to his will and then killing her once he's used her. Not only does he sneer and whine as much as villainly possible, but he single-mindedly pursues his obsession even while the castle around them is being invaded by barbarians. I found that a little hard to believe. Still, this subplot was redeemed by what it did for Isana and Odiana. Both watercrafters, they both have a different outlook on life. Isana is thankful for what she has but regrets not having more; Odiana has already spent time as a slave, an experience which ultimately drove her near-mad (if not mad) and into her current position as amoral villain. Despite the fact that Odiana tries to kill Tavi, Isana helps Odiana fight back against Kord, then the two escape together. Isana's small kindness doesn't magically turn Odiana good but seems to rekindle a bit of the humanity that was driven out of Odiana during her first tenure as a slave.

This mix of personal and national priorities is at the heart of Furies of Calderon. Tavi isn't trying to save Alera; he's just trying to save himself. Isana isn't trying to reform Odiana or remove a powerful enemy crafter from the field of battle; she's just trying to help them escape. Amara is trying to save Alera, sure, but she's also fighting her former teacher whose betrayal has cut her deeply. It's not that these characters are selfish and only inadvertently heroic; rather, they're actually people instead of stock heroes, people with ordinary emotions and ambitions that get projected onto and expressed through the conflict in which they become involved.

In addition to the magic, Butcher's medieval fantasy world has its own animals! I don't mean established mythological animals, like dragons or unicorns. These are animals unique to the world of Alera, like gargants, pack animals whose name implies a huge size. I appreciated this small touch of creativity, for it helped me imagine Alera not as a recreated medieval Europe but something instead fantastic. Butcher adds similar small touches to dialogue and description to further this feeling, enough to make the world feel plausible without burdening us with needless exposition or trite colloquialisms.

I'm not going to say that you'll love the Codex Alera if you love the Dresden Files. They're very different beasts, which is good in a way, for it shows that Butcher can work with a variety of forms. Codex Alera still carries Butcher's wit, but because it's narrated in the third person, this wit permeates the book in a different, less personal way. It will be interesting to see how that develops as the series continues. For now, I certainly do recommend Furies of Calderon to fans of Butcher or fantasy fans in general. This is the made-while-you-watch, healthy-yet-delicious burger of the fast-food fantasy market: not entirely original, but certainly a good deal better than most of what's on offer.

The arc of Codex Alera is certainly proceeding in the proper direction. I liked Furies of Calderon, but I really liked Academ's Fury. Although the plot itself wasn't as inspired and thoughtful as it could have been, it had hints of originality. Where the second book of the Codex Alera truly shines is in its characterization and the difficult themes therein revealed. This isn't just 400 pages of macho "we've got to save the kingdom" sorcery and swordplay. That's right: there's actually feelings and consequences.

Two years after Furies of Calderon, Tavi is a student at the Academy in Alera's capital . . . Alera. He's also training to become a secret agent and serving as a page to the First Lord Gaius Sextus. However, events from the previous book are coming back to bite him in the ass. It turns out that the creature he awoke in the middle of the Wax Forest was actually the dormant queen of a terrifying species called the vord. They've nearly wiped out the Marat twice and this time are going after Alera—and Tavi. In the ensuing chaos, enemies of Gaius Sextus choose to attack him while his health fails, and other enemies find themselves in the ironic position of having to aid Gaius so Alera doesn't succumb to civil war when it most needs to be strong and unified.

Although Furies of Calderon was also tinged with political intrigue, Academ's Fury blossoms with it, and we finally get a sense of what it's like to see Jim Butcher write on a grander scale. The world of Carna becomes clearer, and we learn of the existence of some other races, such as the canine Canim and the Icemen (who were mentioned in the first book but only in passing). With the exception of one as you know about furycrafting between Tavi and Maximus, Academ's Fury is delightfully light on exposition, preferring to deliver the details of the world around us as the action unfolds. The exposition, when it's present, is disguised by Butcher's careful and lively descriptions of battle sequences.

The battles will be a treat for those who come for the carnage. Me, I'm more interested in the intrigue. Fidelias is back, working even more closely with the Lord and Lady (especially the Lady) Aquitaine. We get more of his well-intentioned extremist speech as he tries to persuade Isana to throw in her support with the Aquitaines—and get to see his surprise, mirroring our own, she agrees. I have to admit that, as I watched Isana consider pledging her public support to the Aquitaines in return for assistance against the vord invading Calderon, I thought, "No way. She's going to stick to her principles, say no, and find another way to do this." But she said yes, and my respect for Jim Butcher went up another notch, because he makes his characters make tough decisions and stick to them.

I wish I could say I was more impressed with Isana as a character than I was in the first book, but that's not the case. Again, Tavi found his way into my heart, as did Kitai. Isana had even less to do in this book than she did in the second, even though she is arguably far more important this time around. Indeed, for someone who's supposed to be so formidable, she spends a good deal of her time captured by someone intent on using her; Lady Aquitaine is just a good deal more polite about it than Kord was. Back in Calderon, Bernard and Amara hunt down a vord nest while making eyes at each other, and I'm forced to agree with Doroga, who gives them the Marat equivalent of "get a room."

My dissatisfaction with the characters themselves didn't stop me from enjoying the dilemmas they face. Like Isana, Amara finds herself torn between loyalty to the First Lord (the office) and loyalty to her heart. I'll let you guess which she chooses; the point is that she and Bernard make a choice and that it will doubtless have consequences in future books. Once again, Butcher weaves life-and-death conflict together with mundane family and romantic matters to create a convincing, three-dimensional story that makes me read fast and furiously onward to the end.

And what an ending. Furious doesn't even begin to describe the pacing around the climax. There's a lot going on—too much, almost, although Butcher manages to pull it off. Once again, Tavi demonstrates that even though he has no furycrafting he's still a formidable foe. Once again, Butcher manoeuvres his characters into certain death and then delivers rescues that would be deus ex machina, were it not for the fact that, going back, the justification for those rescues has been built up since nearly the first chapter. Elements that seem disparate are in fact intimately connected: the elusive thief that Tavi must track down is actually his semi-fiancée, Kitai; Isana goes to Alera's capital looking for help from the First Lord but ends up getting it from an enemy; Fade once again slips reluctantly back into his persona of Araris Valerian. There's a grand structure at work in Academ's Fury, one so carefully crafted that Butcher makes it look easy.

It is easy, too, to see where Tavi and friends will end up. Without reading any spoilers for the next books, I can see where the plot is going and what Tavi's role in the fate of Alera will be. Not that I'm complaining. What Butcher lacks for originality in his plot he makes up for with original worldbuilding and strong writing—his plots deliver, even if they can be predictable. If there is any reason to read Furies of Calderon, or to re-read it if you gave it a try and put it down in a fit of disinterest, here is one: Academ's Fury.