Review by New York Times Review
MOVING FROM ONE season into another isn't unlike traveling to different countries: As landscapes and weather patterns shift, so do our habits and thought processes. Now that autumn is upon us, I want to look at four wonderfully immersive otherworlds that circle around ideas of magically controlled environments and the free wills that resist them. C. L. POLK'S WITCHMARK (Tor.com, paper, $15.99) IS set a few degrees slant of an early-20th-century Europe where witchcraft is real but practiced only by a secretive upper class of weather-controlhng mages. The nations of Aeland and Laneer have recently concluded a war in Aeland's favor, and Dr. Miles Singer, a mihtary surgeon Uving in Aeland's capital, tends wounded soldiers while investigating the terrible affhction that makes them dissociate and murder their famihes once released into their care. One day a stranger brings a dying civihan into Miles's hospital who claims he's been poisoned; before he dies, the man begs Miles to find the party responsible. But Miles has his own secrets to manage. In addition to being a witch in danger of being incarcerated if found out, he's also a noble on the run from his powerful family: His father wants to see him live as an external power source for his older sister's magic, instead of allowing Miles to develop his own heahng gifts. Uncertain whom to trust, Miles navigates a tightening web of intrigues, bicycle chases and romance. "Witchmark" is thoroughly charming and deftly paced; I appreciated how well the worldbuilding meshed with the plot's development, Uke a map's surface being revealed in time with one's progress along it. That said, I wanted more from its female characters, especially Grace, Miles's sister. While the male leads were well-developed, their attraction to each other engagingly reahzed, I found the women were limited to their roles in the story. In Grace's case this was especially frustrating, as the plot requires her to be ally or antagonist from beat to beat without giving readers a clear sense of her as a person - and while her motivations are supposed to be opaque, they often come across as arbitrary. Still, "Witchmark" sticks its landing while opening up intriguing possibilities for a sequel. This is an accomphshed and enjoyable debut. Robert Jackson bennett, author of the Divine Cities series, launches a new trilogy with FOUNDRYSIDE (Crown, $27), an absolutely riveting secondary world fantasy that grounds its magic in industriaUzed processes, heavy machinery and capitahst dystopia. In the city of Tevanne, the dominant technology is programming made magic: Objects are, through special writing called "scriving," convinced that reality is shghtly other than it is, so that wood can be convinced to be as hard as stone, or stone as Ught as wood. But scriving is proprietary and is mostly practiced in the campos - heavily gated ehte communities - while the folk of the Commons, who live in poverty and danger, are left to fend for themselves. Enter Sanda Grado, a Commons thief with abihties that make her unusually good at her job: When she touches objects, she can learn about them and their history, intuiting how to pick a lock or scale a wall within seconds. But it's as much curse as gift - using it is painful, and passively receiving impressions from everything she touches is maddening and impossible to avoid. Deeply isolated and desperately lonely, she's one big job away from earning enough money to fix herself. But the job involves stealing something very old from someone very powerful - and Sanda quickly becomes embroiled in conflicts between serivers, merchant houses and the legacies of ancient powers called Hierophants. To say "I couldn't put it down" is a cliché, but it can describe a lot of different reading experiences: I can be glued to a novel and stressed out by it, or dehghted by and indulging in it. It's even possible to be swiftly turning pages in a bored way, skimming for the necessary information to learn what happens. So when I say I couldn't put "Foundryside" down, what I mean is this: I felt fully, utterly engaged by the ideas, actually in love with the core characters for their differences and the immensely generative friction between them, and in awe of Bennett's craft. I went to bed late reading it and woke up early to finish it. This is the first of Bennett's books I've read, so I can't compare it to his previous work, but it sets a very high bar. Crossing the brilliant economics and object-empathy of Edward Carey's "Heap House" with the careful character and setting work of Fonda Lee's "Jade City," "Foundry side" is a magnificent, mind-blowing start to a series I'm hungry for. JOHN SCHOFFSTALL'S HALF-WITCH (Big Mouth House, $18.99) is one of those books that are simultaneously so starthngly original and deeply famihar I can't quite believe they're debuts. Lizbet Lenz, 14, Uves with her father, Gerhard, in a medieval Europe where Christian cosmology is made literal: The sun circles the Earth; a miUtary battle rages between God and Satan (God is losing); and witches, gobUns and demons are real. Lizbet is deeply devout and moral, but her father is a con artist; when he's imprisoned for accidentally making it rain mice, it's up to Lizbet to free him. To do this she needs to travel over perilous, enchanted mountains accompanied only by a surly witch-girl named Strix with whom she has nothing in common. But over the course of their adventure they begin to change each other - and in so doing learn more about the strange world they inhabit. "Half-Witch" is a marvel of storyteUing, balancing humor, terror and grace. Lizbet is so earnestly good, in a way that I think has faUen out of fashion but that I loved reading. She and Strix are a perfect double act, and the shape and texture of the friendship they build is a joy to discover. It reminded me of Keith Miller's "The Book of Flying" crossed with Judith Merkle Riley's "A Vision of Light" and "The Master of All Desires" - a picaresque coming-of-age story about transformation set in a history made fantastical by taking the period's beUefs at face value. This is a book of crossing and mixing, of mashing and counter-mashing, with surprise and wonder the result. The ending suggests a sequel, which I hope comes about; the book's last act is full of revelations (as it were) about the especially strange nature of Lizbet's world that I'm keen to see Schoffstall develop and explore. But "Half-Witch" is also fully satisfying in and of itself. FINALLY, RACHAEL K. JONES'S novella EVERY RIVER RUNS TO SALT (Fireside Fiction, paper, $9.99) IS a beautiful story of friendship, love and katabasis set in a version of Athens, Ga., where a woman can have a glacier for an ancestor and steal an ocean on a whim. " I keep an ocean in a jar on my nightstand and a handful of coffee beans in my pocket," begins Quietly, our protagonist, before telhng the story of how her roommate, Imani, stole the Pacific and hid most of it in an underworld beneath Athens called the Under-Ath. Unfortunately, manifestations of the states of CaUfornia, Oregon and Washington, called Hypotheticals, come to visit by turns, demanding the ocean back and leaving powerful, dangerous gifts when Imani refuses. When Imani vanishes into the UnderAth, Quietly journeys after her to bring her back. The story unfolds in three watery parts - Pacific, Oconee, Atlantic - with the logic of a lyric poem. The prose is gorgeous, and the specificity of place is an enjoyable counterpoint to the mythic vastness of a story about travehng to the underworld. Quietly and Imani are great characters, and their relationship - deep friendship teasing romantic overtones - is a pleasure to dwell in. I found the final part a bit crowded with new characters and developments, but was still riveted by the experience, the luminous storytelhng and Quietly's devoted determination. ? amal El-Mohtar won the Nebula, Locus and Hugo awards for her short story "Seasons of Glass and Iron." Her novella "This Is How You Lose the Time War," written with Max Gladstone, will be published in 2019.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* The magnetically handsome Tristan brings a dying man to Dr. Miles Singer's doorstep, aware of Miles' secret identity as a witch, though he is well hidden in an unfashionable hospital after returning from the just-concluded war in Laneer. Miles quickly becomes entangled in the hunt for the man's killer, while dealing with an attraction to the mysterious Tristan and a deepening malaise among fellow soldiers returning from war. Then Miles' powerful family threatens to shackle him to his sister to be used as a sort of magical battery, to enhance her storm singing and protect Aeland from the ravages of bad weather. Many disparate elements are expertly woven together to make this debut a crackler, with layers like a nesting doll and just as delightful to discover. There's a will-he-or-won't-he heat to the romance, a Philip Pullmanesque setting full of mages, wizards, and political intrigue, all wrapped up in the feeling of a historical mystery that fans of Maisie Dobbs and other WWI-era novels will dive into. Polk has created an amazing new world with hints of Edwardian glamour, sizzling secrets, and forbidden love that crescendos to a cinematic finish. Witchmark is a can't-miss debut that will enchant readers.--Howerton, Erin Downey Copyright 2018 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Polk's stellar debut, set in an alternate early 20th century in an England-like land recovering from a WWI-like war, blends taut mystery, exciting political intrigue, and inventive fantasy. Miles Singer's influential family of mages wants to turn him into a living battery of magic for his sister to draw on. Fearing this fate, he runs away to join the army and make use of his magical healing abilities, although-like all magic-users-he must hide his powers or risk being labeled insane and sent to an asylum. When Tristan Hunter, a handsome, suave gentleman who's actually an angel in disguise, brings a dying stranger to Miles's clinic, the two pair up to uncover the reason for the man's mysterious death. The devastating war has left most young men shell-shocked, and many veterans are inexplicably killing their families. Miles struggles to find a socially acceptable physiological explanation for the veterans' dark auras, while Tristan hopes to understand why no souls from this country have moved on to the afterlife. A sudden reunification with Miles's social-climbing, deceitful sister upends progress on solving the riddles (and on the gently developing romance between Miles and Tristan) as she pulls him back into the secretive and manipulative world of powerful mages. Polk unfolds her mythology naturally, sufficiently explaining the class-based magical system and political machinations without getting bogged down. The final revelations are impossible to see coming and prove that Polk is a writer to watch for fans of clever, surprising period fantasy. Agent: Caitlin McDonald, DMLA. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT Taking advantage of wartime chaos, Dr. Miles Singer changed his name and hid from his family to avoid being bound to his sister Grace as a source of magical power. Miles's freedom is in peril; however, when a dying man comes to him for help, how can he refuse to act if others are also in danger and the fate of the realm is at stake? Perhaps an unexpected ally can help. Except that Tristan Hunter is both distractingly attractive and a member of an alien race of magical beings. As if Miles needed more complications in his life! First novelist Polk has created a supernatural realm of magic and privilege set in an alternative Edwardian world in the aftermath of a World War I-like conflict. -VERDICT Readers will root for a complex and likable protagonist who struggles against societal pressure to put his family's interest above his own. For fans of V.E. Schwab, Melissa McShane, or Tarun Shanker.-Laurel Bliss, San Diego State Univ. Lib. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
