Stephen Hunt’s The Court of the Air is an odd and wildly baroque tale set in a vaguely victorian steampunk world, set so far in the future that there have been “phase changes” in the very laws of physics. Most of it takes place in the Kingdom of Jackals, Hunt’s pseudo-Britain, with excursions to the Steamman Free State and the underground ruins of the Chimecan empire. Jackals is defended by the airships of the Royal Aerial Navy, and rules the skies uncontested, as Jackals has the only known supply of “celgas”. The country of Quatershift, next door, has just had a “communityist revolution”, followed by a reign of terror in which the Enemies of the people are fed to the gruesome Gideon’s Collar.

The tale follows two orphans. Molly is a workhouse orphan with a knack for working with machinery and also for annoying her employers. The second, Oliver, passed through the Feymist Curtain in an aerostat crash as a baby and was found wondering nearby as a young boy, apparently unharmed—but even momentary exposure to the feymist can change a person forever, giving them strange and unheard of powers, as well as mental and physical deformities. Oliver is apparently normal, but is shunned by everyone but his uncle; and he is “registered with the county” and must report to a senior worldsinger each week to be tested for fey powers.

Meanwhile, Quatershift is preparing for an invasion; fifth columnists are at work; and deep below ground a man who calls himself Tzayloc is preparing a bloody sacrifice to recall the insectoid gods of the Chimecan empire, the evil and alien Wildcoatyl, banished these thousand years, to help build a world of perfect equality.

And that’s not the half of it. I haven’t mentioned the transaction engines, the steam-powered steammen, the craynarbians, Jackals’ peculiar method of ensuring that their kings will never raise arms against the people, or their quaint mode of parliamentary debate.

I’m not sure quite what to make of the book, honestly. Sometimes it appears that Hunt is reaching for satirical humor, but neither the writing nor the situations are particularly funny. Thrilling, often, exciting, occasionally violent, mysterious…but not funny. Most of the humor comes in the form of names of people and places that are almost but not quite the same as names from Victorian Britian. The “communityists” are also known as Carlists after Benjamin Carl, for example. There’s mention of a giant gun, used by the Quatershifts against Jackals, called “Long Tim”. I seem to recall a giant clock in the tower of the House of Guardians called “Large Tom”, or something like that. Oh, and there’s a gun shop owned by a Mrs. Loade and a Mr. Locke. Har har. Oh, and the evil Wildcoatyl are opposed by the ancient Hexmachina. (Say that out loud. Take the H off.) Satirical or not, it’s impossible to take it seriously.

On the other hand, the book kept me turning pages. There are two or three sequels, independent tales set in the same world; and given the scale of the events in this volume, I’m rather curious just how the others are connected. So I might have more to say about Mr. Hunt in the future.

A Matter of Magic, by Patricia C. Wrede, is an omnibus of two juvenile novels, Mairelon the Magician and The Magician’s Ward. Jane picked the two separate volumes up at the library recently, and Jane, James (my 11-year-old son), and I were all thoroughly charmed.

Both books are set in an alternate Regency England in which the Royal College of Wizards has its chambers in a fine building across the Thames from Westminster Abbey. (Yes, the same setting is used in Sorcery and Cecilia and The Misplaced Magician.)

In the first book, our hero, Kim, is a girl street-thief masquerading as a boy who is commissioned by a “toff” to break into the wagon of a street performer named Mairelon the Magician looking for a particular silver bowl. She’s caught, of course; Mairelon isn’t simply a performer, by a leading member of the Royal College undercover. He’s intrigued by Kim, and (much to the misgivings of his servant, Hunch) takes her on as his assistant. What develops from there is not so much a mystery as an utterly charming P.G. Wodehouse-style farce involving the silver bowl, four magic spheres, any number of silver platters, lordlings, criminals, good wizards, evil wizards, and surprises galore, at the end of which Mairelon adopts Kim as his ward and apprentice. (No surprises there.) I especially enjoy Kim’s speech; Wrede has Regency-era “thieve’s cant” down pat.

Turns out that Mairelon is rather a “toff” himself, and in the second book Kim has to begin to cope with that. After a year with Mairelon she’s now seventeen, and must begin thinking about “coming out” to society, with all of the balls, visiting, fine clothes, and so forth that that entails. She’s not at all keen on it, and Mairelon’s not inclined to press…until it is pointed out that as a wizard Kim is anyone’s equal, and must be seen as such. Coupled with this Eliza Doolittle story is really quite a fine mystery, a who-and-how dunnit that works not only as a mystery but also depends for its effect on the magical system of Wrede’s world. The farcical aspects are lacking, but the book is no less charming (or funny) for all that.

The books are juveniles, and not particularly “gritty”; however, Kim does live in London’s underbelly, and so there are references to prostitutes and the like as part of the background. Though I rather wish Wrede had left them out, the references are careful; kids who already know what she’s talking about it will know what’s she’s talking about, and kids who don’t won’t. These books were written in the 1990’s; how things have changed since I was young!

A note for those who find the standalone volumes rather than the omnibus: the editions we read, at any rate, have some of the most misleading cover illustrations and blurbs I’ve seen in a long time. The second is particularly bad; the illustration looks vaguely Wild West rather than Regency England. Don’t be put off; this is good stuff.

Lamentation is Ken Scholes’ first novel, and it’s a doozy. The setting is, at first glance somewhat familiar: it’s a post-post-apocalypse novel. Some centuries previous to the action, a technologically and magically advanced civilization collapses in a horrendous war, leading to the time of Laughing Madness. Since then, a new civilization has risen from the ashes of the old, a rise mediated and protected by the brothers of the Androfrancine Order. The new world has not yet risen to the level of the old, and the glories of the past remain refresh in men’s minds.

As such, the backstory is simply a fantasy retelling of the rise of Europe in the wake of the fall of Rome, with the Androfrancine Order playing the part of the Catholic Church: with one significant difference: the Androfrancine Order isn’t a religious order. In Scholes’ own words, the Androfrancines “worship the ‘light’ of human knowledge and accomplishment. Secular humanists and behaviorists start a religion among a small band of survivors to try and protect what’s left of humanity from itself and save what can be saved of its past.” I have doubts about how effective that would be, as I’ve written elsewhere, but it’s a nifty concept for a tale.

In most tales of this post-post-apocalyptic sort, the heroes must fight to prevent civilization from falling again. Ken Scholes has gone one further: the book begins with a fantastic catastrophe in which the entire city of Windwir is destroyed. Windwir is the home of the Order, and of its Great Library, the repository of all of the knowledge the Order has preserved through the centuries—including that which they judged too dangerous to make public. It is the home of most members of the Order, save those who are out on archaeological expeditions, seeking yet more lost knowledge of the ancients. It is the largest city in the land. It is as though, Rome, Athens, Alexandria, and all of the Benedictine monasteries with their libraries were snuffed out in one ghastly moment. Hence the book’s title: Lamentation.

Scholes’ book is not merely post-post-apocalyptic; it’s post-apocalyptic post-post-apocalyptic, which is a move I don’t believe I’ve seen before. It’s like the mystery novel With Malice Aforethought (if I remember the title correctly) that reveals whodunnit in the opening pages. Certainly, I’ve not seen it done with such gusto.

Unlike a typical apocalypse, the lands around Windwir are untouched. The catastrophe is not primarily physical; rather it is political and spiritual. The Order has been the center and organizing principle of the known world for centuries; and now that principle is gone.

On top of this, the civilization that the Order has fostered is fascinating in its own right. There are many different realms in the lands of the Order, each with its own ways, but all tied together by a system of laws and customs and honor called “kin-clave”. The ways of kin-clave are obscure but compelling; I’m curious to know if they are based on any actual culture.

And then there are the characters: Rudolfo the Gypsy-King, bred and shaped to rule, who leads a nomadic life on the Prairie Sea, travelling from one to another of his Nine-fold Houses; Petronus the fisher-man, once Pope of the Order and long thought dead; Jin Li Tam, fair daughter of Vlad Li Tam, steeped in intrigue and her father’s machinations; mad Sethbert, Overseer of of the Entrolusian City States; Neb, Orphan of P’Andro Whym and ward of the devastated Order; the Marsh King; and Vlad Li Tam himself, merchant and puppet-master. Oh, and a talking metal men who might preserve the Order’s most devastating secrets.

From that description, you might expect a novel of ruthless political intrigue, like George R.R. Martin’s The Game of Thrones; but with all due respect to Martin, Scholes’ book is far less tedious. I’m looking forward to the next book in the series.

I’ve written about the Androfrancine Order itself as part of my False Religions series.

I’ve just finished Territory, by Emma Bull, and I am impressed.

Territory takes place in and around Tombstone, Arizona, in the days leading up to the gunfight at the O.K. Corral. Major characters include Doc Holliday, the Earp brothers, the Clantons, a Chinese sorceror, and a number of folks with serious magical chops. It’s like a collaboration between Larry McMurtry and Tim Powers—and entirely unlike anything else of Bull’s that I’ve read, except that it’s very good. And she makes it look so easy! Go buy it.

What, you want more? Go buy it, already!

The Name of the Wind is, so far as I can tell, the first novel by a new author named Patrick Rothfuss; and I enjoyed it considerably.

The novel begins, as fantasy novels so often seem to, in the bar of an small inn in a little village in the back of beyond. The hero, oddly, is not one of the patrons, nor a passing stranger, but the innkeeper himself, a man named Kote. As the action begins, a demon, a spider apparently made of black stone, has attacked one of the locals and fairly sliced his cart horse to ribbons. The local seeks shelter in Kote’s inn, where he breaks in on a drinking party consisting of all of the regulars.

Kote, a quiet man who doesn’t usually intrude himself on his customers, turns out to know something about these demons; and as the action continues and the regulars head off home we discover that Kote is not who he seems. As Kvothe the Bloodless, Kvothe King-Killer, and other lurid names he’s a legend in his own time, and like the famous gunslinger has found that the legend is unpleasant to live with. He’s come to this backwater and changed his name in an attempt to outlive his past. Or not; perhaps he’s just come to die in peace.

So far, so good. Mysterious hero; evil creatures invading sleepy village; clearly Kote is going to have to reveal himself and save the village, and possibly (this being a fantasy novel) the entire world. No sweat. But here the book takes an abrupt left turn.

It seems that an author, a well-known writer of non-fiction books intended to debunk popular misconceptions, has tracked down Kote to his lair, and wants his story. And after a certain amount of discussion, Kote—Kvothe—chooses to tell it. And most of the rest of the book is Kvothe’s first person account of his life.

The Name of the Wind is the first book in a trilogy, unsurprisingly, and so we only hear about Kvothe’s early life, from his earliest days as a member of a family of traveling players through a period as a street urchin (a common trope these days, but well-handled) to his time at the Academy where he studies to be an “arcanist”, i.e., a wizard. And through his story we begin to learn the background of his world, its secret history, and of his enemies the Chandrian, and of his quest to learn the Name of the Wind, the name that will allow him to control the elements of the air.

It’s an odd way to structure a novel, but it works perfectly well; and clearly by the time we reach the end of Kvothe’s story it will be time for him to take action against the demons. I’m rather eager to read the next book.

I’ve discussed the dominant religion in Kvothe’s world, the Church of Tehlu, in the first of my “False Religions” posts.