Read Recently -- December 2018 -- Troubled Women
Shakespeare's Landlord: a Lily Bard mystery by Charlaine Harris
A re-read The original is here . Still recommended, but carries a trigger warning for rape and assault (in Lily's backstory).
The Devil's Revolver by V. S. McGrath
Hettie Alabama is a seventeen-year-old girl growing up on a ranch in Montana with her Mother, Grace, her father, John, her sister Abby, and her uncle, Uncle (all right, Uncle, like the character with the same name in Red Dead Redemption (the first one) isn't actually related to the Alabamas; he's just an old friend of John), in the 19th century (1895, when the novel opens). Of course, this is the Weird West, not our history, so in addition to all their own troubles the family worries about the decline of magic and the charms they cannot afford to maintain. Also, Abby is prone to running away and talking to the dead; they have to decide if she's a powerful magic user of some sort, or crazy (her symptoms are, to my unprofessional eye, a good match for schizophrenia). Add in a dangerous outlaw band (the Crowe gang) in the area (but not the most dangerous outlaws; that would be Elias Blackthorne who traded his soul for a demon named "Diablo" and when Diablo was stolen from him dared not die and so roams the west seeking the demon).
It turns out that Elias Blackthorne was not so much literally immortal as serially immortal; as each leader of the Blackthorne gang retires or dies a new leader takes the name, and control of Diablo, which is not an actual demon but the titular revolver, a powerful magic weapon which can kill anyone but ages its user one year each time it does. Hettie learns all this when the Crowe gang descends on the Alabama family ranch; it seems that John Alabama was the last man to carry the Elias Blackthorne name; with Uncle's help he stole and hid the gun, keeping it from Butch Crowe, who considered himself the rightful heir to the power. The Crowe gang kill Hettie's parents and steal Abby, but Uncle is away re-hiding Diablo so the outlaws don't get it.
Determined to rescue Abby, Hettie rides out with Uncle, bounty-hunter Walker Woodroffe, and her Chinese friend Ling. Each of the others has his own secrets and an agenda they don't share with Hetty or each other, but Hettie accidentally bonds with Diablo, gaining perhaps the power she needs to defeat the gang. But in addition to the Crowe gang, our heroes need to defeat or evade the law, who are a bit upset about the people Hettie's killed on her quest for vengeance, and the Pinkertons, who want Diablo and maybe Abby as well.
What we get, then, is a bit of True Grit and a bit of The Searchers, with magic, which promises to be an interesting story. Sadly, there is a big problem which prevents me from enthusiastically recommending it: sexism. Not, I hasten to add, on the part of the author (Hettie is portrayed as doing her best in a tough situation; when she's in over her head it's only because she is young (though of course every time she fires Diablo she is less young, at least physically) and inexperienced)but in the society with which our anti-heroes must interact. Hettie is constantly denigrated for being female. Even her allies try to get her to behave more "like a woman". This is unquestionably realistic for a 19th-century setting, but when writing fantasy one must always ask, "if I can be unrealistic in this, why must I be realistic in that?" It is curious (and I am not the first person to note this) how often it is decided that one must be "realistic" in one's treatment of women and women's issues. And I don't know, maybe I've just been reading too much Tanya Huff and Seanan McGuire, but I think I prefer stories in which women are treated equally by their societies as well as their authors.
Mildly not recommended.
A re-read The original is here . Still recommended, but carries a trigger warning for rape and assault (in Lily's backstory).
The Devil's Revolver by V. S. McGrath
Hettie Alabama is a seventeen-year-old girl growing up on a ranch in Montana with her Mother, Grace, her father, John, her sister Abby, and her uncle, Uncle (all right, Uncle, like the character with the same name in Red Dead Redemption (the first one) isn't actually related to the Alabamas; he's just an old friend of John), in the 19th century (1895, when the novel opens). Of course, this is the Weird West, not our history, so in addition to all their own troubles the family worries about the decline of magic and the charms they cannot afford to maintain. Also, Abby is prone to running away and talking to the dead; they have to decide if she's a powerful magic user of some sort, or crazy (her symptoms are, to my unprofessional eye, a good match for schizophrenia). Add in a dangerous outlaw band (the Crowe gang) in the area (but not the most dangerous outlaws; that would be Elias Blackthorne who traded his soul for a demon named "Diablo" and when Diablo was stolen from him dared not die and so roams the west seeking the demon).
It turns out that Elias Blackthorne was not so much literally immortal as serially immortal; as each leader of the Blackthorne gang retires or dies a new leader takes the name, and control of Diablo, which is not an actual demon but the titular revolver, a powerful magic weapon which can kill anyone but ages its user one year each time it does. Hettie learns all this when the Crowe gang descends on the Alabama family ranch; it seems that John Alabama was the last man to carry the Elias Blackthorne name; with Uncle's help he stole and hid the gun, keeping it from Butch Crowe, who considered himself the rightful heir to the power. The Crowe gang kill Hettie's parents and steal Abby, but Uncle is away re-hiding Diablo so the outlaws don't get it.
Determined to rescue Abby, Hettie rides out with Uncle, bounty-hunter Walker Woodroffe, and her Chinese friend Ling. Each of the others has his own secrets and an agenda they don't share with Hetty or each other, but Hettie accidentally bonds with Diablo, gaining perhaps the power she needs to defeat the gang. But in addition to the Crowe gang, our heroes need to defeat or evade the law, who are a bit upset about the people Hettie's killed on her quest for vengeance, and the Pinkertons, who want Diablo and maybe Abby as well.
What we get, then, is a bit of True Grit and a bit of The Searchers, with magic, which promises to be an interesting story. Sadly, there is a big problem which prevents me from enthusiastically recommending it: sexism. Not, I hasten to add, on the part of the author (Hettie is portrayed as doing her best in a tough situation; when she's in over her head it's only because she is young (though of course every time she fires Diablo she is less young, at least physically) and inexperienced)but in the society with which our anti-heroes must interact. Hettie is constantly denigrated for being female. Even her allies try to get her to behave more "like a woman". This is unquestionably realistic for a 19th-century setting, but when writing fantasy one must always ask, "if I can be unrealistic in this, why must I be realistic in that?" It is curious (and I am not the first person to note this) how often it is decided that one must be "realistic" in one's treatment of women and women's issues. And I don't know, maybe I've just been reading too much Tanya Huff and Seanan McGuire, but I think I prefer stories in which women are treated equally by their societies as well as their authors.
Mildly not recommended.