The Chronicles of Elantra is a fantasy series by Michelle Sagara, who also writes as Michelle West and Michelle Sagara West.  I’ve read the first four of the current eight, and expect I’ll go on to read the rest of them.  The series begins with Cast in Shadow; and as the books follow one directly upon the other you’ll want to read them in order.

The series takes place in the City of Elantra, capital city of the Empire, and concerns the doings of a young woman named Kaylin, a member of the Hawks.  The Law of the Empire is whatever the Emperor wants it to be, and it is enforced by three related organizations: the Swords, the Hawks, and the Wolves.  The Swords are the peacekeepers,  the city guard.  The Hawks do some patrolling as well, but they are effectively the detectives, the investigators.  The Wolves…well, perhaps the less said about the Wolves, the better.

Policing Elantra is a difficult job, not least because of the number of different races who live in the city.  The Dragons (an immortal race of great power) are not usually a problem; they are few in number, and as the Emperor is a Dragon they answer only to him.  The Barrani are another immortal race, nearly as powerful as the Dragons.  Kaylin has friends among them, to the extent Barrani have friends: they are your basic Faery folk, beautiful, powerful, and extremely perilous to mere mortals.  And then there are a variety of mortal races: humans, the lion-like Leontines, the winged Aerians, and so forth.

Kaylin herself is not native to the city of Elantra; or, at least, not to the part of the city that answers to the Empire.  In addition to the city proper there are the bad parts of town: the seven fiefs, in each of which the fief lord is the only law.  Kaylin is an orphan from the fief called Nightshade; she’s rude, never on time, and mostly unfit for the company of civilized people (although she’s improving).  The thing she wants most in the world is to be a Hawk, and keep people safe; and more than that, to keep children safe.  And she’s better suited to doing that than many; ever since the mysterious marks appeared on her arms and legs when she was a child, she’s been able to heal.  She’s kept it as secret as she can; but she still moonlights with the midwife’s guild and at the foundling home.

But, you see, there’s more to those marks than simply a childhood mystery; and in a magical city there’s more to the fiefs than simply slums where the Emperor’s men don’t go.  The world of Elantra has hidden depths, and I’ve got a suspicion that Kaylin is going to have to plumb most of them or die trying.

The books aren’t perfect; although Elantra is a port city, and there’s supposedly an empire, there’s no real sense of much of anything anywhere outside the city.  This might simply be due to Kaylin’s point of view; she’s smart, and very good at picking up anything she considers “practical”, but amazingly skilled at keeping out any information that she can’t see a use for.  On top of that, Kaylin is the sort of fantasy hero I find rather annoying: she has great magical powers that she doesn’t understand, and mostly don’t know how to use, but whenever she gets into a serious scrape (i.e., at the end of each book) she somehow knows exactly what to do.  (Andre Norton used to do the same thing.)  On the other hand…there seem to be reasons for it.  I’m getting the sense that Kaylin is in some way a pawn for some power we’ve not yet met, and that when the chips are down the proper actions are being funneled to her.  But the nature of that power is not clear to me (nor is it clear to the wise and powerful in Elantra, who are consequently keeping a remarkably close eye on her).

But all that’s by the way.  The books are entertaining, and there are some interesting moral issues explored, particularly regarding the protection of children; i.e., just when is it licit to take innocent life for the greater good?  And for once it’s nice not to have to offer cautions about sex and language.  Which is not to say that there’s no swearing in these books; there’s a lot of it.  But most of the time we just hear that Kaylin swore violently in Leontine or Aerian or Barrani or some such; she prides herself in knowing how to swear in all of the languages extant in Elantra, and seldom stoops to swearing in the human tongue.

So…good fun, if you like this sort of thing. 

I first read Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo about fifteen years ago, in the unabridged edition from Oxford University Press. Recently Amazon had this same edition on sale as a Kindle book for $2.99 or something of the sort, and I grabbed it. Then it sat; and then, eventually, it became my backup book. Not the main book I was reading, but the one that I read from when I was between other, more gripping books. Because however much you like Dumas, he is seldom fast-paced for long—and The Count of Monte Cristo is a very long book.

I suppose everyone knows the gist of the story. Edmond Dantes, a young sailor with a bright future ahead of him, is falsely accused of being a supporter of the deposed emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, and is confined to the Chateau d’If for over ten years. While in prison he becomes friends with another political prisoner, an aged priest, from whom he learns much about history, culture, and science. In time the priest dies, and Dantes escapes…and retrieves his friend’s fortune, which his friend has left to him. And now, with learning and money it’s time to track down the three men who put him in prison, and commit justice upon them.

That’s the set-up, and it’s the part I chiefly remembered. It’s all fairly straightforward, and frequently harrowing, and while interesting it’s all a real downer.

The part I didn’t remember—the part I fear I didn’t read very carefully or follow all that well—is the part that comes after Dantes escapes. I didn’t enjoy it that much fifteen years ago, because I wanted to follow Dantes’ story…and in the remainder of the book, Dantes, though the prime mover of everything that happens, is usually not the viewpoint character.

And here is where the book really began to fascinate me this time through, and where it moved decidedly into the foreground. See, here’s the thing. In the time that Dantes is in prison, and the subsequent time that he takes to lay his plans, his adversaries have all made their fortunes, married, and had children…and those children are now grown up and preparing to marry themselves. Dantes’ plans must encompass not only the parents but the children. And because of the way of the world, to achieve his aims Dantes must exploit the social networks of the day, the networks of friendship and kinship and elite status. And so indeed, the second part of the book is as much about them as it is about him, and their presence confounds his desire for vengeance.

Fascinating, and amazing, and well-worth your time.