Posts Tagged ‘urban fantasy’

Power and Majesty is a strange novel. In many ways I haven’t seen anything like this in a while. While I’ve certainly seen many books which try to incorporate the whole Fey thing, with fairies and the like, these days they’re confined to the realms of urban fantasy. Such as 61 Nails, which I reviewed recently. You don’t often read traditional fantasy novels using fairies in this manner. It usually comes off a little too cheesy, as fairies are, well, not very scary and just too Tinkerbell to be effective as good guy heroes. Let’s face it, they’re sidekicks. And not good ones at that.

Plotwise, it’s boy saves girls life with amazing time-travelling device, but girl is caught in a loop of being murdered by persons unknown while boy tries to stop her getting killed but ends up caught in a dastardly plan involving goblins, sneaky underhanded business deals, an uber dragon, a missing insurance man, and a series of paradoxical mind-bending time-travelling scenarios which would make Doctor Who dizzy. There’s also a dog, so you can see it’s pretty much got everything.

It was hard to discern, too, how much was Dexter’s imagination, and how much was the reality. In giving Dexter his Dark Passenger, Mister Lindsay gave him the “voices” many killers claim is their reason for killing. He’s almost offering a fantasy reason for why such people are born and created. It’s a wonderful idea, and one which I feel was working so well.

Until the TV fans came along and with their vitriolic tongues spread nonsense about the place.

Brom’s style is easy to read, and the magical world he has created, while based on the original tales, is firmly altered into something somewhat darker and more mysterious in its magic. It’s edgy, down to the pixies and their vicious pointed teeth. I found nothing disappointing in this novel, and I’m not a fan of “revisiting” older tales. I hate remakes in general in terms of movies, and am usually against the idea of authors picking up a dead writer’s pen (Brendan Sanderson excepted). So, to be so stuck on the edge of my seat while reading this was just a surprise and a pleasure.

Mister Robert Rankin is not mortal. He is, obviously, the foulest demon ever to breathe hellfire. He is a demon on a mission – to tear the funny bone from my bleeding corpse and wave it about before having it polished and presented to himself on a nice silver display which will no doubt amuse him for all of time.

I have to say I wasn’t overly convinced by the beginning. I like a book to rush into the meat of itself, but our main character, Niall, is not only a little too accepting, he just doesn’t bother with denial and just leaps into everything with a good old English shrug. And perhaps a sausage for breakfast.

What? I’m not human? Jolly good. Soldier on.

As an example of “contextual” he lists Laurell K. Hamilton as an example – something hardly very new or fresh or indeed aimed at a “larger audience.” While I’m certainly not a fan of Mrs Hamilton’s work, I would never say she was “aimed at a larger audience”. She’s been writing this way for a long time. It’s just that it’s come into vogue.

I think this is the first time the vampire resurrection hasn’t targeted goths, or some kind of subculture. It’s aimed squarely at teenage girls, who are swallowing it with a relish I find vaguely unsettling. Their eyes all have this hungry glow when they come in wanting one of these books.

His style is witty, sharp, eccentric and every bit as you could imagine if you, like me, ever wondered what would happen if a Discordian were let loose with a typewriter, an old grimoire, a Best Of the Rolling Stones album, a battered Mickey Spillane novel, a nude photoset of a rather popular weathergirl, two packs of chocolate, a hot cup of tea and a fistful of lsd. The results are astounding.