Book Review: Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress, by Sarwat Chadda

Note: in the US, this book is just called "The Savage Fortress"

When Ashoka (Ash) Mistry and his little sister, Lucky, take their first trip to India to stay with their aunt and uncle, they soon find themselves caught up in a struggle between demons and gods from Hindu mythology.

To be honest, if I hadn't been stuck in the Accident and Emergency Department at my local hospital for three and half hours, I would probably have given up on this book fairly quickly.

There's a particular type of British middle grade fantasy where everything feels generic: generic characters, generic problems, generic settings... You get the picture. There's no emotional engagement, other than on a superficial level, and you can't help but feel that you've read it all before.

In the early chapters, Ash Mistry and the Savage Fortress seems to fall into this category. Other than the actual setting, in Varanasi, India this could be dozens of other books.

Luckily (kinda), I was stuck in the hospital, unable to move, with a badly sprained ankle and nothing else to do, and so I kept going.

Which was lucky, because around page eighty, this book suddenly kicks into life, and becomes a fascinating, rich, exciting adventure, full of characters with real problems and real emotions. From that point, the book is relentless, and you won't want to put it down. (It also has probably the highest body count I've read in a middle grade novel.)

That's not to say that there are no problems with the book for an adult reader. The plot developments are predictable and everything is heavily telegraphed. But this is a book for 9-12 year olds, and they certainly won't feel the same way.

It's great to find a middle grade fantasy with non-white protagonists in non-European/American setting, especially one that is as good as this.

Once you get past the slow opening, I highly recommend this book, and I'm looking forward to any sequels.

Book Review: Renegade Magic, by Stephanie Burgis

The year is 1803, the place, the elegant city of Bath, and Kat Stephenson is back.

Those of you who read the first in this delightful middle-grade fantasy series will know exactly what to expect: mayhem, magic, and an utterly incorrigible heroine determined to upset just about any apple cart to protect her family and secure her older sisters the loves of their lives.

After Kat's sister, Angeline, is publicly exposed as a witch, Stepmama knows there's only one thing for it: to whisk the whole family off to Bath and get Angeline a husband before everyone in society finds out. But Angeline has already found the love of her life, even though his mother has forbidden their marriage, and if she's going to be forced to search for a different husband, then she will choose the most inappropriate prospect she can.

And if Kat doesn't have enough to do protecting Angeline from the scandalous rake she has chosen and re-uniting her with her true love, her brother Charles has gotten himself far more serious trouble, and Kat herself has been expelled from the Order of the Guardians and forbidden from using her Guardian magic.

Meanwhile, in the Roman Baths, someone is summoning the wild magic from its source below, and no one will believe Kat. Once again, Kat is the one who is going to have to save the day.

I could probably going on forever about how great the Kat, Incorrigible books are. There's adventure, magic, humor, and a wonderfully realized and accurate historical setting (if you're ever in Bath, you could easily follow Kat's trail from the Royal Crescent to the Assembly Rooms and the Pump Room and Roman Baths). But what makes this book stand out from the crowd is the characters.

There's Charles, the older brother sent down from Oxford for gambling and drunkenness, Stepmama with her utter determination to present a respectable front to the world, Papa who retreats to his books at the slightest sign of conflict, Angeline who is stubborn to the point of self-destruction, and my new favorite character, Lucy, full of absurd romantic ideas and a surprising taste for adventure. And there's Kat herself, impetuous, loyal, and ready to leap into danger with scarcely a thought.

In another author's hands, these characters could be one-dimensional, but Stephanie Burgis handles them with love and gives them a complexity that makes them effortlessly likeable. Even Stepmama is sympathetic.

I won't claim to be unbiased in this review, but if you love fantasy and adventure, or a love for Jane Austen's novels, then you won't be disappointed by this wonderful series.

Renegade Magic is out now as a hardcover in the US and Canada and as a paperback (with the title A Tangle of Magicks) in the UK.

The first book in the series, Kat, Incorrigible, is out now as paperback in the US and Canada and in the UK (with the title A Most Improper Magick).

They are also available as ebooks, of course!

Order Renegade Magic:
From Indiebound | From Barnes and Noble | From Amazon.com

Order Kat, Incorrigible:
From Indiebound | From Barnes and Noble | From Amazon.com

Book Review: Rivers of London, by Ben Aaronovitch

Note: This book is titled 'Midnight Riot' in the U.S.

Ben Aaronovitch obviously has a thing for London, and Rivers of London is a book which revels in a sense of place and history. Even if there wasn't a fantastic story in here, you could read it for an exuberant tour of London.

But there is a good story, and a quirky, original take on urban fantasy.

When probationary police constable Peter Grant encounters a ghost during a murder investigation, he is recruited by Chief Inspector Nightingale, the force's only wizard. Before he can come to terms with his status as the an apprentice magician, he finds himself investigating a series of horrific supernatural murders.

And if that wasn't enough, he has to negotiate a truce between the fractious Genii Loci - the local gods - of the Thames.

The nearest comparison I can come up with for Aaronovitch's book is Mike Carey's Felix Castor novels, although Carey's books are darker and more noir, where Aaronvitch maintains a lightness and humour (which doesn't always quite come off).

Aaronovitch has written screenplays and tie-in books before, but this is first purely solo novel, and this shows slightly in the earlier parts of the book, where a bit trimming would have helped certain scenes, but once the book really gets going, I soon forgot this, and by the time it reached its climax, it was utterly gripping.

This is a modern, urban fantasy, but it follows its own path, almost unaware of, and certainly unaffected by, the cliches that creep into some urban fantasies.

Recommended.


Note: The sequel to Rivers of London, Moon Over Soho, has already been published in both the US and UK.