Miss Eliza's Book Review - Natasha Pulley's The Bedlam Stacks

 

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley
Published by: Bloomsbury USA
Publication Date: August 1st, 2017
Format: Hardcover, 352 Pages
Rating: ★★★★★ 
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Merrick Tremayne worries he may be going insane. Yes, prolonged removal from society for recuperation on his family estate in Cornwall doesn't help, but he has precedence; his mother went insane at about his age and is locked up in an asylum. A very nice asylum, but an asylum nonetheless. She claims she saw a stone statue move and Merrick is sure that he has just seen the same thing. Therefore the arrival of his old comrade in arms, Sir Clements Markham from the East India Company with his wife Minna is a welcome diversion. Clem wants Merrick to go with him to Peru and smuggle out some cinchona cuttings because India is in desperate need of quinine, which is made from the bark of the cinchona trees, and the Company is sick of paying the Peruvian monopoly. Merrick is uncertain, before his injury he wouldn't have questioned his ability to pull off this heist, but now? Yet Clem is insistent that the expedition needs Merrick. Their destination is New Bethlehem, lovingly christened Bedlam. The Tremayne family has a connection to that town going back generations. Merrick's grandfather lived there for awhile learning to speak Quechua. Therefore if their cover as "mapmakers" is exposed Merrick's connection might save their lives. Merrick accepts. Mainly because if he is going insane he might as well go out with one last great adventure. With their guide, Raphael, who is the local priest in Bedlam, Merrick learns that what is commonly accepted by the world at large isn't necessarily so once you get off the beaten track. There is danger in the woods, statues that are revered, and a mystery surrounding Raphael... how could this young man have known Merrick's grandfather for a start?

I love magical realism. I love seeing the world we know and love with that little something extra. That spark of magic that makes everything just that much more marvelous. Most people think of magical realism in a modern setting yet, when you think about it, my most favorite subgenre of all, Regency Magic, is magical realism but set in an historical setting. Because I love nothing more than magical historical fiction. Seriously, I can't think of a combination of all the disparate things I love coming together perfectly than in this motley blend. Which is why I love The Bedlam Stacks. Sure, it's set some twenty-two to thirty-nine years after the Regency, depending on whether you believe the Regency ended when Queen Victoria took the throne or before, but it has all those wonderful elements that I love about Regency Magic. There's the real, human need for quinine, but there's also the deeper human need for fables and folk tales and how they come to be. This gives The Bedlam Stacks a mythical quality. There's what is real and what people believe to be real. And Sir Clements Markham's 1859 journey for cinchona actually happened. It happened entirely different, but the core, the basic framework is there. Which is why the magic is so easily grafted on. It's believable that in this foreign country you could wander into a land that time had forgot. Because magic is just something we don't understand. As I remember Philippa Gregory saying in a talk once about writing The White Queen, she wrote the witchcraft as witchcraft because that is how it appeared to the people of the time. This merging of the magical and the historical results in a fairy tale that would be worthy of Doctor Who. Early Doctor Who. Because there's your learning moment and then there's your adventure.

But then there's the Steampunk element. As you probably have guessed over the years by my reading choices and some of my sartorial choices at conventions I have fully embraced Steampunk in many aspects of my life. And there is this element here. Though I would go further and analyze this more, because I think most people are basing this label on the cover coupled with Merrick's insistence that the statues in Bedlam are clockwork. Needless to say covers are designed to sell and Merrick is very much mistaken. Yet I do believe that categorizing The Bedlam Stacks on the outer fringes of Steampunk isn't wrong. The reason I believe this is because of the lamps. Yes, the lamp on the cover is one of them. Sure, they have clockwork in them, but it's not the clockwork in my mind that makes them Steampunk. What makes them Steampunk is that they are utilizing technology and knowledge available to them and creating something new and functional. Much like the fantastical creations in Steampunk based on steam power being the only option these lamps use clock gears to constantly stir up the pollen of the trees in the woods that give off light. The Bedlamites have made something that is completely unique to their region, trees with lighted pollen and a tendency to go boom, and found a way to make it work for them. Throughout the Stacks, there are just little things here and there that show the ingenuity of these people, but there is no greater example than in these lights. I also very much want one for myself.

While the Steampunk elements might be a fascinating aspect of this book it's not why I am so in love with it. What got me was the human element. The connection that each and every character has to the other. Clem and Merrick, who have a strained friendship, in fact prior to his injury Merrick didn't even think they would consider each other friends. Seeing them put through their paces and how their comradely nature erodes is a feeling anyone who has traveled with friends will relate to, and they didn't even have the ability to have the whole music/no music while driving argument. The business nature of Clem versus the more exploratory nature of Merrick allows Merrick to forge connections in Bedlam with the locals. He becomes a part of their community. And as the community of Bedlam is made up of all injured or disfigured people Merrick's leg injury doesn't seem like such a burden anymore. He is considered more fit than the majority of the residents. This, more than sitting in Cornwall with his brother, does more to help him recover than anything else. Yet it's his constantly evolving friendship with Raphael that is the cornerstone, the bedrock, the ONE THING, that this book is about. Two men, from totally different cultures and times, coming together to be friends. The layers of Raphael's reluctance that are broken down and through over time, that let Merrick see who he truly is, that's almost the most magical aspect of The Bedlam Stacks. Though I do have this caveat, their relationship is ambiguous to whether or not it evolves into romantic feelings. Some people are all for this, some people are not. I have no problem with this and do agree that what they felt for each other was love, but I'm uncertain if I think or want it to be romantic in nature. At the end this reveal seems a little forced. They love each other and I don't think it needs definition.

Throughout the whole story, magical and human, I have come to one conclusion, I would die of altitude sickness. I had kind of thought this in passing before but now I have 100% certainty. I would die. This started years ago when watching An Idiot Abroad with Karl Pilkington when he made it three-quarters of the way to Machu Picchu and gave up requesting a Sir David Attenborough-esque voice-over. I'm pretty sure this would be me. Is the journey worth the reward? Worth the pain? Well The Bedlam Stacks made me think 100% no. As Natasha Pulley said, she had no idea the horror of altitude sickness and now her research made sense once she experienced it first had. The inability to think, like you're living in a fog. The headaches, the nausea, the incapacitation, all of it! Weird asides like Sir Clements Markham being unconcerned his team were being followed, because he didn't have the ability to care or worry! Yet the nail in my coffin was the whole nosebleeds issue. As in you get them all the time up there where the air is clear. Here's the thing. I have a lifelong fear of nosebleeds. Why you might ask? Well, I used to have them daily. Also horrifically. Once I had a nosebleed while in Milwaukee when I was little that lasted the entire trip, two full days. I just laid on my uncle's living room floor thinking everything in his house is white what will he do if I get some blood spattered about... he went ballistic when he thought I broke his toy robot, which I didn't by-the-way. Once in grade school I got a nosebleed at recess that soaked my entire sweatshirt before I could get to the nurse's office. This all culminated in my having to have my nose cauterized in 2002. Therefore to willingly go somewhere where this could happen? Sorry I'm out. Ah books, showing us places we could never go to. Now that's magic.

Miss Eliza's Book Review - V.E. Schwab's A Darker Shade of Magic

 

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E.Schwab
Published by: Tor Books
Publication Date: February 24th, 2015
Format: Paperback, 416 Pages
Rating: ★★★★
To Buy

Through a linguistic quirk no one can understand there are four parallel Londons. All in their own worlds, separated from each other like the pages of a book, but all in the same location along the curve of the same river. Though the rivers do not have the same linguistic oddity that London does, instead London is on the banks of the Thames, the Isle, and the Sijlt depending on which London. Once there were doors connecting all the Londons together and perhaps that magical transference is why they share the same name. But the doors had to be closed. One of the worlds became infected by magic and Black London fell. Or at least that's the name Kell has given that world. Kell is an Antari. His one black eye marks him out as being one of only two people in all the Londons able to travel between the worlds. Kell comes from Red London, Arnes, the only London still magically thriving. White London, being closest to the fallen city is now dying too, a vicious and dangerous place with power hungry people and maniacal leaders. Farthest from Black London is Grey London, the London of England and a mad king locked away in a palace while his son waits to rule. Grey London will soon become a refuge for Kell when his illegal habit of collecting artifacts from other Londons gets him into trouble when he is give a powerful relict from Black London. This magical artifact could destroy his world and he needs help. That help comes in the form of Delilah Bard, a Grey London thief who has been waiting her entire life for an adventure. Helping Kell save his world sounds like an adventure worthy of her. Because if you don't risk your life, did you really live?

Much like Murder, Magic and What We Wore this is another book that takes the Regency Magic building blocks and goes in an entirely unexpected direction. We start out in the London we know so well, there's a mad king on the throne and his power hungry son. But here OUR London is just a starting off point. The aptly named "Grey" London, if just for the rain and soot and not it's lack of magic, is utilized, but just to familiarize ourselves with what to expect going forward with the magical worldbuilding. Like Grey London's Lila we need to get a grasp on what we are about to delve into with Red and White London. Lila is our avatar, our touchstone in A Darker Shade of Magic. Red London is, in my mind, a more Renaissance Faire Game of Thrones world. There's more pageantry and partying, in fact the Prince Regent from Grey London would probably love to rule over Arnes! This world that Schwab has built is more in keeping with books considered traditional fantasy fare. This really intrigues me because so much of Regency Magic is about trying to infuse the fantasy into our world, shoehorn it in if you will, whereas here there are no pretensions, it's an all out fantasia and that's what makes this book so unique. As for White London? That world is like some dark Scandinavian shit y'all. The closest I can think of is Vikings meet Fortitude... and that's dark. But again, something you wouldn't expect in the dainty drawing rooms of Regency England and that's perhaps why I'm most drawn to the White city.

The fact that I can find something to love in each and every one of the different Londons just shows how Schwab 100% nailed the worldbuilding. But I don't want to talk about the worlds here as a whole I want to talk about how she was able to ground the magic in reality and describe it in a logical way that fit into the narrative so that it didn't feel like necessary but clunky exposition. Magic here is based on the elements, the building blocks of the world around us; fire, water, air, earth, metal, and bone. This is all explained to us by a magic set that Kell has brought from Red to Grey London for a collector of magical ephemera. While waiting for the buyer to appear he meets Edward Archibald Tuttle III, Ned. Ned isn't a collector, he's an enthusiast, which are people Kell tends to avoid. But on this one day he's feeling generous and shows the learning tool to Ned. This small box contains a little of the basic five elements, it's not considered good manners or good in general to talk about being able to control bone. There's water, sand for air, earth, oil for fire, and metal. This is how you learn what your elemental affinity is. Because magic is fickle. Not everyone has talent and most only have a connection to one element, sometimes two, but three is really rare. Because Kell is Antari and can use blood magic he can also control all elements. But to me I just like the simplicity of the system. Now I'm not using simplicity as an insult, because this is a complex world that Schwab has built, I'm using it as a compliment, in the it's easy to understand and grasp and therefore the magic is more real because you can understand it. See, that's a compliment.

But I wouldn't be me if I loved everything about a book now would I? I have now read A Darker Shade of Magic twice and it's not quite as good the second time around. Scwab has given us such a fast-paced read that the first time you're almost stumbling over the words just trying to get to the next page, not picking up on each and every detail in the need to know what happens to Kell and Lila. So reading it a second time I wasn't racing because I knew the outcome and therefore I started to catch little inconsistencies. This all boils down to the way Schwab writes. You'll be reading a paragraph and she'll mention someone standing and you will be convinced that they were sitting just a second ago. So you'll go back and only about 50% of the time does she say they've moved and it's usually buried deep in the text and is just brushed aside in passing. You know the saying, don't bury your lead? You should also not bury important things like a characters physical location. Because while she does say they've moved 50% of the time the other 50% of the time she doesn't. They're sitting, they're standing, they're here, they're there, it drove me slightly batty. I like to know what the characters look like and where they are, and most of the time I just didn't know where they were! I don't know if you're like me, but when I read I visually picture everything and when a new piece of information arrives I readjust the scene, like quickly panning the camera to another location. But here it was like I was playing some of my old MMORPGs where my character would jump from one location to another because of lag. I didn't like that when I played games, and I sure don't like it when reading a book.

Though this writing quirk is something that can be lovingly beaten out of Schwab given good enough editors. Come on Tor, I believe in you! What can't be fixed, at least in this installment of the trilogy, is that I just don't get the Kell/Rhy dynamic. Rhy is the royal prince whose family "adopted" Kell. So it's brotherly to an extent, but Kell willing to give up/bind his life to Rhy doesn't sit right with me. Rhy comes across as Red London's answer to Captain Jack Harkness but without the whole bothering to save the world. He's insecure and annoying. There has to be SOME reason other than this brotherly love for Kell to risk so much. Kell recounts a story of when Rhy was younger and got kidnapped and Kell saved Rhy's life almost at the cost of his own. It's a touching story, but for me I only felt Kell's need, not any justification for the act. It's more like Kell is so used to saving Rhy that he views it as his job. This has the effect of making Rhy more dependent on Kell and therefore more jealous of his "brother" which leads to the whole, oh shit I need Kell to magically save my life yet again. Rhy's rebellion at this need makes him a selfish ass. Sometimes you do need help, sometimes you aren't the best or the brightest, but doing something stupid just makes you stupid. Now you're saying I'm missing the point, that this shows that everyone is vulnerable and that love conquers all... that's not how I read it. To me it came across that a spoiled prince was an imposition to his "brother," who is treated more as a magical orphan slave than a sibling, yet again and it would have been just to have Rhy's actions have consequences that affected him and not others. Hence I don't get Kell/Rhy... just let the prince die.