This, my friends, is how you write an epic, original, engaging fantasy!

Author Robert Jackson Bennett is a wizard, I’m sure of it.  He can take a complex, unusual idea and make it simple and ordinary for the reader and likewise take a simple, seemingly ordinary idea and provide a complex world around it, and he blends it all together for a very engaging, totally believable adventure.

General Turyin Mulaghesh is trying to enjoy retirement on a remote section of an island when a messenger manages to find her.  Due to a technicality, she hasn’t earned her retirement benefits and she’s being pressed into service again for just a few months.  But her official, casual mission of ‘observation’ has a secondary, non-public mission to find out what’s happened to Special Investigator Choudry, who was also sent to this ass-end-of-the-country, unsecured Fort Thinadeshi (“just outside of Voortyashtan proper”) with a secret mission and investigating a rare and unusual mineral called ‘thinadeskite.’

But we wouldn’t be following General Mulagesh’s story if something big wasn’t going to happen.

It is difficult to review this book without giving too much away, and more difficult to synopsize given the intricacies of the relationships of the characters and the history of the world in which this takes place.  Trust Bennett, however, to give the reader everything s/he needs to make sense of this world, but also expect to be surprised just when you think you know where this story is going.

For most of the first half of the book, Bennett sets us up by establishing the characters and giving us a bit of a mystery (what is this thinadeskite and what happened to Choudry) mixed with some deadly action (attacks on the fort and brutal murders of some of the locals) with only small hints of anything supernatural or fantasy about this.  But this is where Bennett the wizard shows his skills, because when the story takes a strong left turn, it feels perfectly natural and you realize later that all the hints where there for you all along.

This is one of those books that becomes a page-turner the deeper you get in to it.  I have a reading routine, but I was constantly breaking my routine in order to read a little more – a little further – in this book each day, and I was exhausted by the time this was done.

This is unquestionably Turyin Mulaghesh’s story, but like the truly great works of fiction, her story impacts the human race and she interacts with mankind and gods alike. And the fact that she is a General, a warrior, has great meaning to everyone around her.

I am immediately jumping in to the next book in the series, but I think that this works fine as a stand-alone novel.  You’ll simply want to read more in this story.

Looking for a good book? The City of Blades by Robert Jackson Bennett is a powerful, destined-to-be-a-classic epic fantasy that will have you staying up late in order to keep reading.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

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The City of Blades

author: Robert Jackson Bennett

series: The Divine Cities #2

publisher: Broadway Books

ISBN: 0553419714

paperback, 484 pages

More than once I have written that I’m a fan of old-fashioned pulp fiction so I knew this would likely be right up my alley. I was familiar only with the basic premise of Captain Future and that it was generally written by Edmond Hamilton. What author Allen Steele has done is provided the reader with back story – or the origin story, if you will.

Curt Newton’s mother and father were murdered when he was a child.  He has been raised in a hidden bunker on the moon by a robot, an android, and the brain of Professor Simon Wright – a family friend. These three oddities teach and train Curt so that he is the best possible human. He is also raised with a strong moral code to do what is right and protect the innocent.

When Curt learns that his parents’ killer is a corrupt businessman and current Senator, he makes it his mission to get out and avenge his parents and to bring down the politician.  He creates the persona of ‘Captain Future’ and with the help of his three unique friends (the robot, android, and disembodied brain)  begins his adventure.  Along the way, he meets Inspector Joan Randall of the Interplanetary Police Force.  He’s never met another human before this, and the fact that she’s quite beautiful has him feeling awkward and tongue-tied around her, though he tries valiantly to play up his Captain Future do-gooder persona. Joan finds him silly, but charming and attractive with his innocence and as she’s also trying to right wrongs in the galaxy, she teams up with him.  Together they discover that there’s a web of conspiracy that runs deep surrounding the Senator and bringing him down won’t be an easy task.

Author Allen Steele is clearly knowledgeable of the pulp genre and has taken on this story with the skill of a practiced writer and the enthusiasm of a fan..  He has written the ‘origin story’ of Captain Future (which lines up with his origins as described in Wikipedia).

Writing pulp fiction for the modern reader is no easy task, and taking a hero from the 1940’s pulps and making him interesting and relevant to today’s reader is a challenge.  But it’s a challenge that Steele has taken on and done very well.

I’ve only read a small amount of Edmond Hamilton (the author of Captain Future books in the 1940’s) and nothing of this particular hero, so I can’t really compare, but this book has encouraged me to seek out some of the original Captain Future stories and that alone speaks highly of how interesting and exciting this book was. I hope that this will lead to more Captain Future volumes with Steele at the helm.

Looking for a good book? Avengers of the Moon by Allen Steele is a modern story of a classic pulp hero and has all the excitement and adventure of the classic pulps but will engage the modern reader well.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

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Avengers of the Moon

author: Allen Steele

publisher: Tor Books

ISBN: 0765382180

hardcover, 304 pages