Review for The Millennial Sword
The book review blog Fangs for the Fantasy has posted a very thoughtful and well-balanced review of my novel. The reviewer has some criticisms which I think are quite fair (they’d like to see more development of some of the side characters), but overall it’s a positive review:
Viveka has arrived in San Francisco from the Midwest to start a new job. That’s already pretty challenging, a new work place, a new city, finding a place to live (despite a limited budget) and trying to keep her very grumpy cat amused and tolerant during the move.
And then a woman gives her a sword and runs off. A sword that virtually no-one can see—Excalibur. She’s just been recruited as the new Lady of the Lake with a solemn duty to try and protect the people of San Francisco from Morgan Le Fay—queen of the fairies who has a specialty of kidnapping children. And like it or not, she can’t stand by while children are taken—especially with redcaps moving against her. She has a few friends, a complicated love life and a lot to learn.
This book did a very good job in setting up the world, the characters and the concepts of the story. By the end, everything is firmly in place and it’s a lot of fun getting there, from battle the tomte in her home, to swordfighting with the Society for Creative Anachronism to just moving to a brand new city, starting a new job and trying to set up a new life. We get to know Viveka, her life, her duties and the people that are part of it.
…
Viveka is an interesting character in new situations, both conflicted and determined. Originally I think she adapted to the whole Lady of the Lake gig perhaps a little too easily but she did come back with a lot of doubts and questions, but whatever doubts she had are eclipsed by the simple fact that kids are in danger. I liked that she did sidetrack a lot of the usual “whyyyy meee, it’s soooon unfair!” we see in the genre and instead got on with it—kids were in danger, there’s no time for whining.
In all, it’s a fun read. It has an interesting world, but one that could use development. It has some potentially interesting characters that, again, need to be taken further. I think it’s a series with a lot more to give, on its own it’s still a fun book.
December 24th, 2012 at 12:46 am
Yay, review! (I was amused by its references to sex shops, as I’d filed that as code for midwesterner-in-the-big-city.) And as a side note, I approve of Viv’s practical, terrain-based response to the wyrm.
December 24th, 2012 at 6:14 am
I was amused by its references to sex shops, as I’d filed that as code for midwesterner-in-the-big-city.
That’s how I meant it! And in my defense, I actually *do* describe the shops in other parts of the city–Viv goes thrifting in the Mission, is impressed by the sidewalk cafes in Polk Gulch, etc; and in the Castro she notices the nice brunch places and a sadly-now-defunct chocolatier as well as the sex shops. I have to admit I sporfled, though, at the reviewer’s “aw hell it’s that woman with the sword who’s obsessed with the sex shops again, and she’s seen me now I have to say hello!” summary of Raven’s internal monologue. Quite possibly not wrong.
The reviewer’s larger point, I think, is totally legitimate. I did my best to write a cast of supporting characters that accurately reflect the diversity of San Francisco, and I’m really pleased by this line in the review: “I would come close–cloooooose–to saying that they’re pretty flawless side characters.” But they are just supporting characters, they only become important to the plot when they’re important to Viv, and that *does* play into the larger pattern in fantasy literature where minority characters exist as props in a white middle-class hero’s world. I knew that when I was writing them. I tried to push back against that a little by giving Raven a love story with a happy ending AND making him firm on his boundaries: at one point in the book he tells Viv directly: “My boundaries, let me show you them,” and thereafter when he shows up it’s because she’s *paying* him. He’s a professional and his work is not free. But all this ended up being really backgrounded, probably more backgrounded than I intended: the reviewer is absolutely right to want to see more independent development for the supporting cast, and that’s the kind of thing I would definitely try to address in a sequel.
And as a side note, I approve of Viv’s practical, terrain-based response to the wyrm.
That was actually totally lifted from an old Cornish (if I’m remembering right?) dragon story. I’d have to go back to my notes to see exactly which folktale I cribbed that from, but I remember being impressed by the way a lot of the old British-isles dragons were very primal and animalistic, in contrast to most of modern fantasy’s highly intelligent and smooth-talking Tolkien-derived dragons. I wanted to get that primal flavor, so I pictured basically a big, regenerating komodo dragon, which had the added benefit of inspiring bacteria breath as a swap-in for fire breath. (Komodo dragons have such disgusting, septic mouths that some researchers believe one of their attack strategies is merely to wound prey and then wait around till it dies of infection.)
December 24th, 2012 at 12:48 pm
Komodo dragons have such disgusting, septic mouths that some researchers believe one of their attack strategies is merely to wound prey and then wait around till it dies of infection.
Fantastic! And I thought sharks were lazy, waiting for their prey to bleed to death.
December 24th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
And yes, it’s really hard to flesh out the supporting cast if you’re keeping to a single POV. Or double. Really, anything that’s not a full on ensemble cast where everybody gets an arc, not just treated as a camera. The space between a couple of lines of dialog that pack a punch or unconvincing infodumps is pretty narrow. (And for political purposes, as noted, even if supporting characters are good they are still supporting characters.)