Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo: review

4/5 stars on Goodreads

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo

 

Ninth House is the first book for adults by the highly popular (YA) fantasy author Leigh Bardugo, and her first that is set in the contemporary world. It’s not a non-fantasy book, however, but full of magic and ghosts. Despite the hype, it’s not Bardugo’s best work, and I’m not entirely sure I would call it adult fiction, despite the themes of abuse, addiction and rape among other things. Characters are more immature than in her books labelled for young adult, and the story and the stakes are lighter.

Galaxy Stern, Alex, has seen ghosts her entire life, which has brought nothing but trouble for her, because the only way she is able to block them out is with drugs. Her life is a complete mess before she is twenty and then a violent attack sends her to a hospital. There she is given a chance to change all that. She is offered a place to study in Yale. Magic is abundant there and to make sure the secret societies wielding it don’t abuse their powers, there is a society to oversee them, and they need Alex’s skills.

For a person who hasn’t been to school since she was twelve, Alex manages to make a passable effort at being a student, although most of her time is taken by Lethe and her duties in overseeing the magical societies. For a person who has recently survived a brutal attack that left her best friend dead, Alex functions surprisingly well. And for a person who has used drugs all her life, she does perfectly fine without them now.

Alex’s personal struggles aren’t the main focus of the story, however. There are several mysteries that need solving. The most important of them is a murder investigation that Alex can’t give up despite orders to otherwise. Another mystery deals with a disappearance of her tutor, which is unravelled slowly in chapters from his point of view. And then there is a murder mystery from a century and a half ago that a ghost makes Alex investigate.

The mysteries are not simultaneous, but the narrative presents them at the same time. The story starts in the present with a teaser of what has taken place so far, and then jumps back and forth between two earlier points in time, plus Alex’s life before Yale, until reaching the present again, where all the mysteries are solved. It takes a little getting used to, but after that the pace of the book keeps good with no slack or unnecessary side-plots.

Despite the focus on solving crimes, the book doesn’t feel like a thriller or crime fiction. Stakes are constantly high for Alex, with violence and the possibility of losing her spot in the college looming over her, yet the urgency doesn’t really make itself felt. Partly it has to do with the non-linear narrative; just as the reader is invested in one story-line, the narrative jumps to a different time; and partly it has to do with Alex waffling about with no clear focus until the murder investigation takes up all her time. It’s a ghost story, a story about magic and abuse of power, and homage to the author’s alma mater.

Yet the story compels. The mysteries are suitably mysterious and the final showdown is nothing I had anticipated. There are no cop-outs or easy solutions. And there is a good build-up for the next book too, so I have to assume one is in the making. All in all, a good story, if not a great book.

Book 3/65

 

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

3/5 stars on Goodreads

Every now and then I come across a book with such an intriguing premise that I have to purchase it almost without reading. The Paper Magician, the first book in Charlie N. Holmberg’s trilogy of the same name is such book. I even read the sample, and though it made me raise my eyebrows a couple of times, I purchased it anyway.

I have no excuses.

The Paper Magician by Charlie N. Holmberg

I love fantasies set in a world identical to ours with changes stemming from the fantasy system of the book, be it modern urban fantasy or historical. There is special charm to historical fantasy of this kind. My absolute favourite is Gail Carriger whose detailed knowledge of the customs and manners of Victorian England make the past come alive in her historical series. And she’s so good at weaving the fantasy elements in, that I don’t always question their reality.

The Paper Magician has nothing of that. The author hasn’t made the slightest attempt to learn about the era she’s set her book in—1901, to be exact. From the first chapter on, the lack of historical details and the abundance of modern manners made me assume the book was set in maybe 1960s with some historical quirks that I took to stem from the fantasy elements. Once the real era was revealed, the historical inaccuracies became a constant irritation that repeatedly pushed me out of the narrative.

If the chosen fantasy system is sound, and the differences to the actual historical era can be explained as a result of that fantasy system, everything is fine, even if the differences are considerable. Spotting the differences becomes fun, even. But that requires that the author has a working knowledge of the time before she starts making the changes.

The turn of the century was the end of Victorian era of strict moral code and exact manners. Class distinctions were clear, and a person of means was expected to live in a manner of their class, with servants. Upper class women didn’t work, nor did they socialise with the opposite sex unsupervised. Social mobility was almost unheard of. But it was also an era of great technical innovations and the nascent suffragette movement.

The Paper Magician disregarded all that. We have a society where women—at least women magicians—are equal to men. They wear their hair down and use makeup and trousers if they want. They can marry and divorce with a sign of a paper. The hero, apparently a wealthy man, lives alone in a large house without any servants, so he cooks, cleans and does his washing himself. He can share the house with a female apprentice without anyone so much as raising a brow. The heroine is a poor working class girl who nonetheless has gone to the same school as the hero as if mixed schools existed, or were available for poor—a school that resembles remarkably an American high school even though they’re supposedly in London. Their manners with each other are free, with no respect given or expected. She cooks him pasta and rice, as if those were available at the time, and washes his clothes in her spare time, as if it weren’t a whole day operation to do the washing at that time. There is electricity in some houses, but no gas light, as the alternative to electric light is always candles. Every house has its personal telegraph machine. Is it a wonder I thought the book was set in 1960s with some historical quirks?

On top of that came the Americanisms. The heroine describes her hair to be the colour of yams, uses inches and centimetres interchangeably, puts mayonnaise to her cucumber sandwiches, and uses the expression ‘rocks like a rodeo horse’, to mention just a few. Added to that was the author’s weird attitude to religion, which she probably thought was ‘European’. First Ceony wonders why Emery doesn’t say grace before dinner, and later reflects that she doesn’t really belive in God, and calls the Church of England a sect—which it could be in her world, only it isn’t explained why.

Despite the constant irritation the weird world caused, I read the whole book. It wasn’t very long, and it was sadly uneven, with no proper plot development. During the first half of the book, Ceony, the heroine, learns the ropes of being a paper magician. Much of this is narrated as if from the outside—told, not shown. There was some attempt at plot development when Emery, the master magician, goes to a mysterious errand, but before anything can be built on it, there is a plot twist in form of a surprise attack by a person mentioned once, with a forbidden magic that hadn’t really been introduced yet. The attack incapacitates Emery and leaves Ceony the sole agent for the rest of the book.

The second half is one long scene where Ceony saves the day. However, it’s also a sort of dream sequence, as it’s a journey to Emery’s past, and to his hopes and fears. As is quite typical in these sorts of books, Ceony concquers the foe by being more powerful and capable in magic than her training or skills allows. And then the book ends.

I didn’t like Ceony much in the beginning. She was rude and assumed it was her right to snoop. She improved towards the end though. Emery was a distant figure throughout the first half of the book, and then became a proper character during the second half, which was ironic, considering that he wasn’t even present in person.

All in all, the book had great flaws, and had an undeveloped, uneven plot. But as I managed to read it to the end and be moderately entertained, I gave it three stars. However, I have no intention to continue with the series. That I’d decided already before reading the sample chapter of the next book, where Ceony’s sister goes on a date. My blood pressure couldn’t handle that.

A magical character

This Monday, April 8th, was the International Raistlin Majere Day. I didn't celebrate, mainly because I wasn't aware such day existed and found about it too late to take part. I'm not entirely sure how I would have celebrated, but at least I could have written this blog post on that day. Though, with all honesty, I'm not sure how widely known the day is even among those who know who Raistlin Majere is; I was only able to find a couple of bloggers mentioning it with any regularity.

Raistlin Majere is, of course, a major character in Dragonlance, a shared universe consisting of games and books, most of which are written by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weis. He is a powerful wizard with a compelling and complicated character and a body ruined by strong magic. He was also the reason why I found Dragonlance books so compelling.

I’ve never been interested in gaming so for me, Dragonlance is solely about books. Dragonlance Chronicles, a trilogy that starts with Dragons of Autumn Twilight (1984), is the first proper fantasy series that I read. I must have been twelve or so, because the second trilogy, Dragonlance Legends, had already been published, but I remember I had to wait for the Test of Twins, the last book in the Legends, to be translated to my language – an agony.

Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman

Since it was the first foray into high fantasy for me, I wasn’t encumbered with the notions of what ought to be and what had already been done in fantasy. Everything was new and exciting for me, elves, dwarves and dragons alike. Magic, especially, was a wonderful new concept and no one was better at it than Raistlin.

There are some characters that stay with you through life. Raistlin Majere is one of those for me. He is a conflicted and complicated person, one that keeps you guessing whether he is good or bad, and hoping against hope that he would end up on the right side. And just when you think he has made the right decision, he does something that yanks the rug from underneath you, pushing you off balance once again; a difficult character for a twelve-year-old to comprehend properly. Other characters in the series are more straightforward – good or bad – but not him. And that is probably the reason for his staying power, the reason why there is a day dedicated for him and not for the other characters.

It’s been closer to thirty years since I read the books, but when I watched an animated movie of the Dragons of Autumn Twilight a while back, Raistlin immediately returned to me. And I realised I had missed him. Or if not him, a character like him, someone complicated and interesting. Someone who is never what you expect him to be. Someone magical. There should be more of those around.


Here's a trailer for the animated Dragonlance movie. It's not terribly good, but then again, neither is the movie.