The Silver Mask by Christian Ellingsen

I return to TBRindr with The Silver Mask, a fantasy novel that promised a flintlock and alchemy story. I was really intrigued by this setting, because a lot of modern fantasy seems to forget that time periods between Medieval/Renaissance and Victorian exist, and I wanted to see how it would pan out.

Centuries after humanity has overthrown the shackles of slavery beneath the gods, the shattered moon and abominations roaming the countryside remain as evidence of their revolution. One of the city-states to have flourished since the destruction of the gods, Vasini, is on the verge of a momentous event. In the upper echelons of the city, Marcus Fox is investigating the murder of one of the city's darlings, Dame Vittoria Emerson, found naked and lying in a pool of her own vomit. Venturing out into the wildlands surrounding the city, Elizabeth Reid is trying to retrieve pieces of quicksilver falling from the ruins of the moon goddess, in the hopes that she can prevent its use for sinister means. What the two don't know is that their paths will cross as they uncover a grand conspiracy within the city.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Silver Mask. I'll start with the setting, as that was the part that interested me first. The way that I see it, the Vasini chronicles appear to be set in a world where the Renaissance didn't happen until the Georgian period. There's a fantasy equivalent of the Whigs and Tories representing the interests of those "people of quality", and then the Ranters who try and represent the interests of the poor, with significantly less success. There was magic of sorts, which was mainly alchemy or faith-based. The alchemical stuff was very traditional with an emphasis on bodily humours, requiring me to dig up knowledge I hadn't used since my GCSEs, and miasmas as the source of alterations or disease. The deity-related magic was more vague, but more sinister for that vagueness. It was an interesting mix of elements that I would definitely want to read more of.
The characters are solidly written. My particular favourites were Doctor Fox and his lieutenant Locke, partly because they balance well against one another. They're both quiet and considered, but when they do deign to speak, they couldn't be more different: Fox the emotionally tired academic who feels bogged down by the politics that he needs to navigate, versus Locke the no-nonsense man of action who wastes no time mincing words. Elizabeth was a bit less interesting to me, if only because it takes her a lot longer to bounce back from failure. She's passionate and committed to doing the right thing, but she does keep making the same mistakes, which I think can detract from her personal strengths.
The plot itself I won't go into detail with, as I'm likely to give away some sort of spoiler if I do. What I will say is that it's tightly plotted and has a lot of cool twists and cliffhanger moments. The final showdown part near the end was a bit on the frenetic, hard to follow side, but not enough to detract from my overall enjoyment.
The only thing that I will mention as a possible issue is some of the chosen presentation in the e-book version. Between chapters, and occasionally in the body of a chapter, The Silver Mask will include quotes from in-universe texts, such as essays, newspaper reports or correspondence. Now I really like the idea of that, as it creates more immersion without having to have huge info dumps in the middle of the narrative. The issue came with trying to imitate the layout and look of these texts, as they don't necessarily lend themselves well to the e-book format. While it was possible to read for the most part, there was one section that I had to skip entirely, and the harder to read fonts did slow reading down a bit. I like the idea, but I would have liked a bit more clarity with regards to how it was laid out.

A thoroughly entertaining read, The Silver Mask focuses on a distinctly Georgian fantasy world, with an interesting history and magic systems. I personally love my political schemes and conspiracies, so I was in my element with the plot. Some minor issues with how certain parts of the novel were laid out on my e-book version, but nothing that detracted hugely from my enjoyment. I would definitely pick up the next book in the series. 4.5/5

Next review: Soul Music by Terry Pratchett

Signing off,
Nisa.

Mystery Man by Colin Bateman

Honestly, when I picked up Mystery Man, I was really excited because the blurb described what I imagined my life would be like if I somehow had my dream bookshop and a stronger sense of curiosity that would overpower my inherent laziness. And it had been sitting on my shelf for quite some time, so there seemed no better time for it.

When the private investigator's office next door to the crime-fiction bookshop, No Alibis, closes down, the owner of the bookshop finds himself being approached by the clients of his former neighbour who hope that he might be able to help. Having little better to do, and hoping that the cases will garner the attention of the jewellery shop attendant from across the road that he has a crush on, he decides to look into a few of them.
So I guess 2018 must be the year of DNFs, because I couldn't convince myself to finish this. And this actually shares a similarity with my previous DNF, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. I didn't mention this in the body of my review, but in that previous case, I stopped shortly after a section where the narrator is repeatedly calling his younger brother a retard. Quite frankly, I have no time for people who, in trying to be clever, resort to cheap insults against a traditionally subjugated group. I had the same reaction with Mystery Man. In this case, I'd been mildly amused by some of the japes that the narrator had gotten himself into, but hadn't really been hooked yet, when the narrative reached the proper introduction to the narrator's jewellery shop crush. She turns up late to the "how-to-write" course being hosted by a snobbish literary writer who "dabbles" in crime fiction whilst still earning disgustingly high profit margins. He gets her to do a writer's exercise where she creates stories for the passersby that she sees through the shop window, and tells her to stop after she describes one person as a cripple. He states, quite rightly, that cripple is not really appropriate language, at which point she launches into a tirade, in which she defends her choice of the word cripple in favour of disabled or paralysed. And this is treated like it's a good thing. The narrator is sitting in his shop, proudly listening as she vomits out this utter garbage and puts off the guest writer. As I was preparing for writing this review, I did briefly worry about coming across as too sensitive, but fuck it, this is where I draw the line. It wouldn't be acceptable if she were defending the use of a racial epithet, so why should it be acceptable with disabled slurs.

I was briefly enjoying this until the narrator's love interest decided that her pride was more important than accepting that disabled slurs are not acceptable in polite society, and the narration expects me to be perfectly okay with this. I'm not. 1/5

Next review: The Silver Mask by Christian Ellingsen

Signing off,
Nisa.

Balam, Spring by Travis M. Riddle

So Balam, Spring was another book kindly sent to me by the author via TBRindr. While I'd not come across the title before, I liked the premise and thought that the whole Midsomer Murders meets Harvest Moon vibe that it promised had a lot of fun potential.

Balam, Spring focuses on the isolated coastal town of Balam, just as they enter spring. What is normally a joyous time of year when school is out and the landscape starts coming into bloom turns sour when the town's assigned white mage dies suddenly and mysteriously. A new white mage, Aava, is called in to replace her, but it soon becomes clear that other people have the same symptoms and that the town could be in grave danger.
I feel somewhat conflicted by Balam, Spring. I'll start with the good parts of it. The actual mystery is well-constructed and has a decent amount of twists. The characters are engaging and varied, from Aava, the new white mage trying to prove her skills in a bleak situation, to Ryckert, a retired mercenary lured out by the promise of adventure, and Theo, a local schoolteacher who witnessed the original death and was wholly unprepared for the reminders it gave him of his tragic childhood. Overall, there was a lot to enjoy, and I would probably give it a recommendation to those who don't mind a book that needs a bit of fine-tuning.
That leads me to the parts that I had issue with, which is a bit of inconsistency with the writing and world-building. Nothing major that ruined the book for me, but noticeable enough to become niggling. The trouble seems to be that, depending on the subject, the book will furnish either too much information, or not enough. For too much information, the first thing that springs to mind is the descriptions of food and general routine, as while the sections aren't written badly, it's the sort of detail that doesn't add anything meaningful to a scene. I don't need to know the exact dishes that a couple are enjoying at their meal out, I just need to know that the food enhanced the good mood that they already had together, otherwise it becomes kind of distracting and makes me wish I had more time during my lunch break. And with regards to too little information, I point you towards the non-human races introduced, the Jeornish and the Rocyan. The former have white hair and the latter have fur. That was about all that the narrative furnishes the reader with before it continues on its romp, and that really bugged me. If the non-human races had been elves and dwarves, then I could understand not elaborating on their racial features, because they're common enough to not need explanation. With races that Riddle has presumably made wholesale, it is unsatisfying to finish the book with no real clear idea of what they even look like. It's like showing a blind person a poster and expecting them to understand the significance without explanation. As I said though, the actual meat of the narrative is enough to make this a minor problem, but I did finish Balam, Spring thinking that it could have benefited from another round of editing.

Balam, Spring is an entertaining mystery with engaging characters and unexpected twists. It does have some issues that could have been ironed out with some more rigorous editing, but it's by no means a book-ruining fault. 3/5

Next review: Mystery Man by Colin Bateman

Signing off,
Nisa.