Books: A Conjuring of Light by V.E. Schwab (2017)

And we’re back…

Some four months back, I was reading the A Conjuring of Light when my housemate Bill was felled by a stroke. In the midst of that upheaval, with about 200 pages left to read, I returned V.E. Schwab’s book back to the library. And as noted a few postings ago, it’s taken me a while to get back into reading.

But I vowed to myself that I would finish this book. And now I have. I did not restart the book, just picked up from about page 430 where I left off in March. I remembered most of what going on, as the our heroes where beginning their final plans to take on the Shadow King.

“The precarious equilibrium among four Londons has reached its breaking point. Once brimming with the red vivacity of magic, darkness casts a shadow over the Maresh Empire, leaving a space for another London to rise. Kell - once assumed to be the last surviving Antari - begins to waver under the pressure of competing loyalties. And in the wake of tragedy, can Arnes survive? Lila Bard, once a commonplace - but never common - thief, has survived and flourished through a series of magical trials. But now she must learn to control the magic, before it bleeds her dry. Meanwhile, the disgraced Captain Alucard Emery of the Night Spire collects his crew, attempting a race against time to acquire the impossible. And an ancient enemy returns to claim a crown while a fallen hero tries to save a world in decay.”

Certainly a satisfying ending, even if Schwarb goes all Game of Thrones with, with the killing of many ancillary characters. Still, a more serious tome yet sprinkled with dark humor. Kell becomes remarkably better character, yet still finds ways to annoy me, while Delilah remains the most three dimensional. And as much as I like Schwab's characterization of Rhy’s and his love for the pirate Captain Aulcard, she made the young prince go through a lot of pain to get the man of his dreams. Love is like this, I guess.

The ending is clever, if not foreshadowed long before. But it can also border on the deus ex machina. But when you create a villain with unstoppable power, the only way to end it seems to pull this overused trope out.

Overall, a good series, and I’m curious if the author will continue with at least some of these characters. Delilah Bard is certainly worth reading more about.

Books: A Gathering of Shadows by V.E. Schwab (2016)

“It has been four months since the mysterious obsidian stone fell into Kell's possession. Four months since his path crossed with Delilah Bard. Four months since Prince Rhy was wounded, and since the nefarious Dane twins of White London fell, and four months since the stone was cast with Holland's dying body through the rift – back into Black London. Now, restless after having given up his smuggling habit, Kell is visited by dreams of ominous magical events, waking only to think of Lila, who disappeared from the docks as she always meant to do. As Red London finalizes preparations for the Element Games – an extravagant international competition of magic meant to entertain and keep healthy the ties between neighboring countries – a certain pirate ship draws closer, carrying old friends back into port. And while Red London is caught up in the pageantry and thrills of the Games, another London is coming back to life. After all, a shadow that was gone in the night will reappear in the morning. But the balance of magic is ever perilous, and for one city to flourish, another London must fall.”

There was a point in the narrative of this book that I realized nothing was actually happening. Unlike A Darker Shade of Magic, this second volume screams “this is the middle book in a trilogy, so everything that does happen is essentially set-up for a third book.” And that’s bad for any longtime reader of fantasy novels, because then you start noticing where author V. E. Schwab (I’ll talk about this later) is lifting other ideas from better books. The first one had a sort of magical stone from Black London, which played out like another version of the One Ring. In A Gathering of Shadows, we get variations on the magic used in the animated TV series Avatar: The Last Airbender, with added doses of the Force when Delilah Bard starts training under the tutelage of pirate (with a secret) Emery Alucard. 

I understand a lot of this is necessary to move the plot forward, but it also became clear that Schwab was using this as a foreshadowing for a third volume. Of course, some of this training comes in handy during the only large set piece of the book, the Element Games, but that only takes up the last 150 or so pages of this 509 page book. Everything up to this just seems like filler, including, oddly, the rise of Holland, the other Antari who was under the thrall of the now dead Dane twins. In Black London, the master magician does not encounter death, but source (I guess) of evil that destroyed this world. And like any true devil, it offers Holland a choice –die or let It have a life outside this dead realm. And, of course, Holland chooses to return to White London with a monkey on his back. 

The problem here is that we only get sporadic glimpses into this world, because again, you sense this is all set-ups for the next volume. 

Of the characters, Delilah remains the better drawn. She still is the snarky fun thief I liked about in the first book. Schwab likes her a lot as well, so we get a more three-dimensional individual, more growth from her. Alucard is close to her match, a fancy pirate with reputation who (at times) borders on becoming Obi Wan Kenobi. Still, it’s nice to see a bisexual character in fantasy series. Rhy is another character that Schwab clearly enjoys writing, and I always looked forward to when he was on the page (and thanks to a picture Schawb posted on her Twitter page, I now see that guy every time Rhy is presented). But that leaves the problematic Kell, an individual that continues to never learn from his mistakes. Plus he seems to have a bigger ego than the main villain, which would be cool if the author eventually sets him up as the Big Bad, but I clearly don’t see that happening. Yes, Kell is charming, he clearly loves his brother, Delilah, and even his adopted parents, but he’s also petulant, quick to think his ideas, his choices, are always better than anyone else’s, and that becomes boring after a while.

So, I liked it but it was slow, with a tedious pacing that made me take longer to finish book than others. It got interesting towards the end –like the last 200 pages- and that’s a huge problem for a writer known for her Young Adult titles than this fantasy series written for adults. If you want to capture an audience beyond teenage females who devoured the Hunger Games books, you need to create a world that adults want to read about. Plus if you’re going to take 509 pages to your story, don’t make the first three hundred an effort to get through.

Which brings me to the writers name; she wrote her Young Adult titles under her real name of Victoria Schwab, but for Vicious (her debut in “adult” fiction), she published under V.E. Schwab, which she is continuing here. I’m curious at this publishing strategy. Is she pulling a D.C. Fontana here? Is her publisher afraid that the only way to attract male readers (and break into the adult male-dominated fantasy field) is publish a book using her initials instead of her full name? Yes, J.K. Rowling used a pseudonym when she started writing adult crime fiction, but I think that was mostly due to her well known life as the writer of the Harry Potter novels. And while crime fiction –and the sort of hardcore stuff Rowling wanted to write- can be considered another male-dominated genre, had she published under her own name instead of Robert Galbraith, she still would’ve been successful. Because they’re well written, interesting books. 

Of course, maybe this is the problem in publishing. I sense there is an assumption that if a writer does not stick to one genre, they’re forced to either continue doing what they’re known for or must publish books under pen names. Or use initials instead of your full name. 

The good part is I have about another 10 months before volume three comes out, so maybe time and tide will allow me to forget the problems with this book and hope that the concluding tale matches the excitement and fun of the first book.

Books: A Darker Shade of Magic By V.E. Schwab (2015)

Back in the 1980s when I began to read fantasy novels in earnest, I liked the idea of multiple volumes –usually three, but longer ones were fine- those tales, however, were usually compact in size; no thousand page tomes per book, another words. I liked that format a lot, but over the decades, trilogies have expanded into ongoing series of seven to twelve (or more) books, each carrying anywhere from 800 pages to nearly a thousand.  And I’ve found that longer does not necessarily mean better. They may be richer in depth and world building, but I’ve found that writers have become so obsessed with the detail, that they’ve forgotten to move their story along. 

One thing that I like about V.E. Schwab’s A Darker Shade of Magic is the book moves swiftly. She is able to do her world building in an efficient and understandable way, without getting caught in the ennui, the detail of details that have stopped me from reading Brandon Sanderson, George R.R. Martin, and Diana Gabaldon. Don’t get me wrong, I know a lot of people think this is impressive, and it is, but I don’t have the time or the inclination anymore to read books that need flow charts to keep tabs on characters and their adventures.

The unique premise has four London’s living parallel to each other. There is grey London, one under the rule of George III, white London, red London, and they mysterious and destroyed, black London. Kell is an Antari, one of the magicians who can travel between these worlds. Now grey London (our world) does not have much magic and most people have forgotten magic even existed. Red London, the world in which Kell is bound to, is a place full of magic, where people exist in balance with it. White London is where magic is dying, and where those who live there and wield it, are willing to do anything to get control of more magic, even trying to open the doorway to black London. But Kell knows this will destroy everything if that doorway is re-opened.

As one of the last of his kind, Kell tries to keep all three remaining London’s in balance (with great power comes great responsibilities danced through my mind a lot reading this book) and implies that King George III (the mad king) knows of the existence of the other London’s and this could be the reason he was a bit off his rocker. Kell is also willing to smuggle items between worlds, which is how he eventually bumps into Delilah Bard, a women with lofty aspirations. Lila is what they once called back then, a highway man. Or in this case a highway woman, essentially a thief and a pickpocket. And when these two people meet, our heroine picks the pocket of Kell, stealing one half of a magical stone, an artifact from black London (shades of the One Ring here). And that begins an adventure that leads to being chased by all means of magic and those bent on obtaining the stone that can give them unlimited power.

While a lot goes on over 400 pages, the Schwab does not go much into the background of either Kell or Lila, though she drops enough information to make me want to know more. As characters, Lila is much more interesting than Kell, and there were at times where I wished the book was more about her. And Kell comes off a bit naïve; he has lived in luxury with the royal family of red London (so much so, he’s seen as the son and brother of the royals) and lacks the ability to see that others have to struggle to make ends meet. He also, strangely, seems oblivious to politics of power that exists between these three remaining London’s and lacks any diplomatic skills.

Perhaps, because of the influence of George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series, we also get a glimpse of the ruthless rulers of white London, run by the twins Astrid and Athos Dane. Both crave power and are willing to destroy everything, kill everything in their way to do it. They are stereotypes, paper tiger villains that are pretty dumb. I mean there is no style to them, no grey area so to speak of; they’re one dimensional and, in the end, weak, so their threat to balance of magic is never really believable. 

Again, Lila is a fun character and may be the only reason I continue reading the series. But it moves swiftly, and that is also a key reason to follow up with the sequel. I just hope that Lila figures out a way to dump Kell.