Nights of Villjamur by Mark Charan Newton

[Larry.]

Key being: 'You are going to open yourself up to some criticism.' Yeah, I'm aware of that. I wouldn't argue the points, otherwise. *shrugs* If it helps increase awareness in the fallacies of some reviews, then so be it. It'll be worth it. Not that I am assuming that others can not do that themselves. Otherwise, this would be an endless tirade. Back to the point of the reviewers, I doubt I'll be continuing this kind of back-forth, as I happen to like their opinions for the most part, including your own, so I doubt it'll occur often.

As for my own depth of opinion, I did not find it particularly as simple as you suggest. Although when it comes down to it, a book can ultimately be put into categories such as what you like and what you dislike about a novel. So I'd not be too wrong, in that.

Fair enough. It's not like I never critique other reviews myself *whistles innocently* And thanks for clarifying, as I honestly couldn't tell if you were being a contrarian for the sake of being contrary or if this was just something that occurs only occasionally.

[JamesL]

Likewise. Glad I waited for the paperback. Further reduces my belief in the legitimacy of the SFF reviewers opinions.

As Wert said, just because you don't agree with these online reviews doesn't mean the opinions of the reviewers are any less 'legitimate' than yours.

When the next Bakker/Martin/Lynch book comes out they'll probably wet their pants.

What's with the snark? No, seriously - I don't understand what you're trying to say. Are online bloggers/reviewers wrong to get excited about books? Would online review sites be better off without this passion?

Take 'em with a sprinkle of salt, to say the least.

Why, because the positive reviews don't reflect your own opinion? You can't tell people to be wary of a review just because you don't agree with the opinion being expressed.

It's on par with Abercrombie in terms of style.

Have to disagree, I don't think it's anything like Abercrombie in terms of style. I'm interested to know why you thought this? I'm not seeing any similarities at all, they're both very different writers in my opinion.

'Serious, innovative'

Nope.

'new, exciting'

Ohh.

'deviate from the norm'

Hardly. Nice buzz words, though.

You've made all these negative statements with nothing to back them up. Fair enough, you think NoV is not serious or innovative - but why? Surely there's a reason you felt this? Making sweeping statements without explaining your reasoning doesn't really foster a good debate. I love to debate books, but it's hard to have a good debate when the other person says "omg I think this book suks cok" and then doesn't explain why they thought that.

'a cut above much of the bubblegum fantasy being peddled around at the minute'

I'd like examples of books you're talking about, as I imagine you'd struggle to criticise any specifically. Wouldn't want to harm our rep, would we?

Ah, the tired old "to scared to slate a book" criticism that - if you look at most genre review sites - is entirely without foundation. Yes, some reviewers appear afraid to criticise a book. The significant majority aren't.

Bubblegum fantasy: The Black Magician trilogy, Kingmaker/Kingbreaker duology, Fire of Heaven trilogy, Chronicles of Siala - those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. That enough for you? Anything set in bland worlds, based on over-used tropes and often featuring kick-ass protagonists that get uber-powerful (or alternatively, coming-of-age, wish-fulfilment stuff).

[Renasko]

Wrong to get excited, definitely not. Getting over-excited is something else.

I found the writing similar to Abercrombie's as they're both short in details and imagery, and adopt a more to the point style. They're not exactly deep or moving. The writing is not serious and is nothing new.

The setting is under-used, as has been mentioned. This would be a point in it's favour if it was developed further. What about the rest of the world? Kind of limiting, even when the story did move away from there. I'll be interested to see more cities and nations in other books. I don't particularly like my world-building in bits and pieces, though. In a way it worked in it's favour, as the war created by the Nilljamur seemed stupid and unmindful, which was appropriate.

Slimming down the details can work well, in that it doesn't take a lot to rationalise men's decisions. I did find Magus Urtica a little boring as a pseudo-villain. Dartun was the other bad guy, I guess, though I liked his character more than I probably ought to. His continuing mad search to preserve life is one I can understand.

As for the 'bubblegum' fantasy marker is not one I particularly like. It's belittling of a lot of good books. Although, not the ones you mentioned, obviously.

[Tes'thesula]

That was my problem, I've always been very impressed by many of the opinions of the reviewers and bloggers on this board so I found it strange for them to be recommending a book that I personally found very poor and not for reasons of taste. But I suppose it was bound to happen eventually :P

[red snow]

Dartun was the other bad guy, I guess, though I liked his character more than I probably ought to. His continuing mad search to preserve life is one I can understand.

Dartun was my favourite character in book one too for the exact same reasons. It seems we like our characters dark and oddly justified :)

I doubt you'll really want to give Ruin a chance but one of the new characters is in the same style with regard to being messed up but justifiably so. Although with this guy it's like watching him come to the realisation he's dead inside rather than seeking immortality. There's a gruesome twosome in the sequel that are also "bad" but very likeable. Maybe more up your street along with some fairly callouus deaths and some street fighting which you may enjoy.

[kcf]

I find this renewed discussion on hype (which it really isn't) to interesting. Yes, Mark has gotten quite a bit of high praise on NoV in a few places, but the book also got a fair amount of negative reaction (see the Strange Horizons review talked about on about page 10 of this thread). My own review was mixed, while leaning toward the positive.

If people disagree with a blogger's opinion, then don't read those reviews anymore. Find another blogger/reviewer whose opinions are closer to yours (or just read what you disagree with for kicks). There are quite a few well-known blogger/reviewers whose tastes I very much disagree with. And a few where my tastes line up very well.

[Upjumped]

I was interested to see this thread pop up since, being in the U.S., I only recently was able to buy Nights of Villjamur. I've now read it, and my feelings are somewhat mixed. After seemingly years of following the advance publicity for this (aka 'hype'), and being a fan of books/authors to which it was being compared, NoV was a read I had been looking forward to. And in general, I liked it quite a bit -- after a slow beginning, it was certainly entertaining and held my interest. I definitely want to know where the story goes next (for which I'll have to wait for another interminably long U.S. publication date, probably). I thought that some of the world-building elements were quite effective -- e.g., the banshees, the artifacts as magic, the intermingling of species. And a couple of the primary protagonists were compelling; in particular I thought that Brynd and Randur were well-realized. Some of the revelations about Brynd were an especially interesting choice (remaining non-spoilery, I hope) -- although that plot thread never really went anywhere (yet).

Of course, I did have some negative reactions (on the internet, everyone's a critic). Like others in this thread, I felt that some of the writing was very leaden and took me out of the narrative. There were a couple of moments when anachronistic expressions were used (e.g., 'not with a bang, but with a whimper,' i believe, was one) that seemed *so* out of place that I figured they must be on purpose. And some metaphors did not work for me at all. The character of Jeryd was kind of an enigma -- for someone of a supposedly different species, he seemed awfully mundane and blah and I wanted to slap him a couple of times. The romance of Randur and Eir was predictable. But the worst thing for me, by far, was the character of Urtica. Entirely too one-dimensionally evil. He only needed to be twirling an oily mustache to complete the caricature. His motivations were not clear (aside from 'power') and the whole refugee plot made no sense.

On the whole, I really did enjoy the book, despite some annoyances. I think that it's possible that *because* of the so-called hype I might have been more analytical than normal while reading this, which is one of the dangers of hype, I suppose. But many of the ideas are creative and there are hints of an intriguing backstory to the whole thing. I will be reading the followup for sure, with the hope that some of the more-annoying elements become less annoying...

[Jussi]

It looks like the third book in the series is called Book of Transformations.

http://locusmag.com/Resources/ForthcomingBooks.html

[automne]

I'd be curious to know if any boarder has read The Book of Transformations yet. I have just finished it and, well, the least I can say is it was challenging. It just got weirder and weirder. Too much for my taste.

A pity since I really enjoyed Nights of Villjamur and City of Ruin and was expecting a lot from the third book and the whole series.

[aidan]

Interesting. I just got by copy of BoT, now I'm even more curious to read it.

[red snow]

I'd be curious to know if any boarder has read The Book of Transformations yet. I have just finished it and, well, the least I can say is it was challenging. It just got weirder and weirder. Too much for my taste.

A pity since I really enjoyed Nights of Villjamur and City of Ruin and was expecting a lot from the third book and the whole series.

There doesn't seem to be much in the way of advance reviews for this one. It sounds as though Mark himself thought this would be the most challenging book for readers. I'm more curious as to whether it feels like the series is looking like it can actually wrap up in the remaining two books. It just feels like the story/setting is far bigger than that but i get the impression from Mark's blog that his next series is unrelated to this world.

[Werthead]

My review of Book of Transformations:

Emperor Urtica rules over a nation threatened from within and without. Hordes of invading creatures are threatening the northern islands, where the city of Villiren is commanded to hold out against impossible odds. However, with most of the imperial armies dispatched to Villiren, political intrigue and anarchic violence are taking hold of the streets of Villjamur, the capital. To combat the threat, Urtica recruits three individuals and transforms them into super-powered warriors, the Villjamur Knights, but must use a mixture of threats and promises of rewards to keep them in line.

Meanwhile, a priest arrives in Villjamur on a quest that has already seen him marked for death by the region's dominant religion. He seeks to expose a lie that has defined the history of the Boreal Archipelago, but in doing so may trigger events that he and the world are unprepared for. Far to the north, Dartun Sur and his band of cultists have returned from the invading creatures' homeworld and rush back to the capital to reveal their findings...in a manner that no-one is expecting.

The Book of Transformations is the third and penultimate volume in The Legends of the Red Sun, following on from Nights of Villjamur and City of Ruin. Like the earlier books in the series, it places a number of self-contained narratives in the context of a longer, more epic story. This time around Newton gives us the story of Lan, a woman born in a man's body, who undergoes a sex-change operation fuelled by magic (or, more accurately, relic technology) only to find herself pressganged into the Knights and kept in service by blackmail.

It's unusual to see transgenderism raised as an issue in a secondary world fantasy novel, but Newton ties it in expertly with the book's overall theme of personal transformation, whether it's physical, spiritual or ideological. Almost every character is undergoing a metamorphosis of some kind, some voluntary, others not, and Lan's transformation is handled sensitively and fits in with the overall theme of the book very well.

Elsewhere, Newton's skills with atmosphere remain strong, with the snow-shrouded streets and rooftops of Villjamur remaining an evocative setting for the action. Character-wise, he gives us some memorable newcomers and brings back a couple of older hands (though not many; the book takes place simultaneously with much of City of Ruin, so the characters from that book are not present) to keep the plot ticking over. This is where the book starts to run into problems: there are a lot of characters doing a lot of things that need to converge for a grand, world-shaking finale that is undoubtedly meant to be epic, jaw-dropping and leave you on the edge of your seat until the final book is released next year. Unfortunately, this doesn't really happen.

The narrative seems to run out of drive some distance before the end. The problem is that Newton is at his best when engaging with interesting issues in a manner that is thoughtful and based in characters' emotions. That's not to say he can't do great mayhem - City of Ruin had some splendid battle sequences - but to do so he needs to root scenes of chaos and combat with characters we've become emotionally invested in. Book of Transformation's key weakness is that there's so much going on we haven't really had time to get really acquainted with the characters to make the huge scenes at the end of the novel come to life. In particular, whilst Lan is well-written, her two fellow Knights are much more lightly-sketched with only hints at depth rather than real exploration of their characters. Hinging so much of the climactic action sequences on their exploits thus falls flat. Similarly, the priest Ulryk is an interesting character with great potential, but he never really comes to life, and Inquisitor Fulcrom's desire to help him feels a bit random, something that has to happen for the plot to work regardless of whether or not it makes sense in terms of character motivation.

The cumulative effect of this is that instead of a vast, awe-inspiring and grand climax, we get something that is, at best, perfunctory. On an intellectual level, lots of interesting things happen at the end, but there is little emotional power to them. Newton's prose, which can be richly atmospheric, feels flat and rushed as he moves to the climax. Scenes featuring huge amounts of devastation in which hundreds of people die feel distant and unengaging, whilst the arrival of what is apparently a major new character at the end passes by with little impact. The problems with the climax are in fact highlighted by how good the first half of the book is, particularly the success Newton initially experiences in exploring these themes of transformation and alteration.

The Book of Transformation (***½) starts off promisingly with some well-realised characters and ideas being explored, but then it tails off as the climax approaches. The ending of the book feels rushed and under-written in comparison to what has come before, but Newton manages to hold things together just well enough to make the final novel an interesting prospect, provided he can avoid the same issues next time around. The novel is available now in the UK and on import in the USA.

[red snow]

I'm 3/4 through. I'd say it starts slow and then really picks up. I get the impression Mark is far more interested in the characters and their personal problems than anything "epic". I almost get the impression he never really wanted it to be epic and I wonder if that was something that was strongly suggested to him for his first set of novels. I still fear how the whole thing will tie up with only a book remaining but I'm starting to try and forgive that and just enjoy the characterisation,

[gladius]

I liked the first book. Now i'm reading the second and it seems like a first draft instead of a finished book. It's simply badly written, the prose is clunky in a lot of places.

[Werthead]

Mark Charan Newton's hard-to-find debut novel, The Reef, has been reissued as an ebook by Tor UK. Well worth a look. It's set in the same world as the Legends of the Red Sun series, but many thousands of years earlier and in a different part of the world.

[Myshkin]

I liked the first book. Now i'm reading the second and it seems like a first draft instead of a finished book. It's simply badly written, the prose is clunky in a lot of places.

I too liked the first book, but the second was bad enough that I now have no desire to pick up the third.

[Little Valkyrie]

These books looked so interesting, but I have hit the Eight Deadly Words so hard in with book #2, where I started.

("I don't care WHAT happens to these people.")

[gladius]

Finished the second book, but I won't buy the third anytime soon. While the writing improves towards the end, the story takes a nosedive.

Also he takes the wrong approach to character killing.

[aidan]

Finished the second book, but I won't buy the third anytime soon. While the writing improves towards the end, the story takes a nosedive.

Also he takes the wrong approach to character killing.

In what way?

I'm surprised by all the negative reaction recently to City of Ruin, I thought it was a monstrous step up from Nights of Villjamur.

[Werthead]

In what way?

I'm surprised by all the negative reaction recently to City of Ruin, I thought it was a monstrous step up from Nights of Villjamur.

Yup. City of Ruin is a considerably better novel than Nights of Villjamur. The writing is stronger, the characterisation more nuanced and the action sequences better-handled. Villiren itself isn't as evocative a location as Villjamur, but beyond that I don't think there's any area in which the second book doesn't improve on the first IMO.

The third book is a substantial retrograde step, unfortunately.