elspethdixon | Gaslight, necromancy, and opium. (Reply)

I loved Martha Well’s sci-fi novel City of Bones (with marsupial aliens!) and I’ve just discovered that Death of the Necromancer, her vaguely steampunk fantasy novel, is nearly as good. It's set in a grimy, gaslit 18th/ 19th century-feeling city with vaguely Dickensian slums, and features street urchin-turned minor nobleman-turned-criminal mastermind Nicholas Valiarde, and his two sidekicks, an actress and a former cavalry officer (cashiered for sleeping with a nobleman’s son). While robbing a rich noblewoman’s house, they stumble across a rash of serial killings committed by a crazy sorcerer who’s calling up the spirits of the dead. Problem is, going to the constabulary will endanger their convoluted scheme to ruin and murder the man who had Nick’s stepfather framed and executed for necromancy. At the moment, Nick’s not sure whether letting the bad guy go on vivisecting people is worse than allowing his father’s killer to live, or not. And there’s a really pretty (and angsty) sorcerer with long girly hair who’s an opium addict. The whole thing gives off distinct Barbara Hambly vibes. It also reminds me a bit of Paula Volski’s novel Illusion, which also had urban crime and poverty in a late 18th/early 19th century fantasy setting.

I’ve also been reading this mystery book by Laura Joh Rowland called The Assassin’s Touch that’s set in Japan during the Tokugawa regime. One of the shogun’s officials is trying to track down an assassin who’s been murdering key figures in the government with the “touch of death,” an ancient martial arts technique that no one believes in. This leaves the poor investigating official in a sort of Fox Mulder-like position, with none of his superiors believing him (but all of them letting the investigation continue, in hopes that their political opponents will be implicated). The setting is interesting, the plot is decently well constructed, and the evil ninja assassin adds a nice touch of Peacemaker Kurogane-type crack, but Rowland’s apparently got this deep aversion to revealing background information in any form other than through dialogue—the first few chapters are filled with characters holding “as you know, Bob,” conversations, so that she won’t have to provide any exposition on what the “touch of death” is (or why these various politicians and noblemen all have it in for each other).

And I found a “historical” fantasy book in the $1 bargain bin at Bay Books that’s got Shakespeare and Marlowe being stalked by demons. It sucks, but in that glorious, cracked-out kind of way that makes me speculate that “Gunslinger” is looking less and less likely to get me and Rosa sued all the time.