Fantasy is a first love you always come back to.
I love it
when in a concise, but powerful way a character is brought to life even if it's
going to be snuffed out too soon. That accomplishment is possible thanks to a
well-applied context, some endearing personality thrown in the details, and
emotional drama. The first chapter includes all that and opens the appetite for
more.
THE SHADOW MASTER
CRAIG CORMICK
Strange Chemistry/Angry Robot
Historical Fantasy
352 pages
http://craigcormick.com/
In a land riven with plague, inside the infamous Walled City, two families vie for control: the Medicis with their genius inventor Leonardo; the Lorraines with Galileo, the most brilliant alchemist of his generation.
And when two star-crossed lovers, one from either house, threaten the status quo, a third, shadowy power – one that forever seems a step ahead of all of the familial warring – plots and schemes, and bides its time, ready for the moment to attack...Assassination; ancient, impossible machines; torture and infamy – just another typical day in paradise.
The writing
style is vivid, strong, and also beautifully poetic when it has to be. Alas,
the tale it tells is neither soft nor pretty. It's the harsh account of an even
harsher time in the Walled City. A parallel Florence, in Italy, where magical
science collides with ruthless families striving for power. The Medici and the
Lorraine Houses strive to rise towers that show off their authority in the only
city safe from the plague. Torture and violence run rampant in the streets when
their rivalry breaks loose.
While
cloak-and-dagger conspiracies take place from both sides, espionage and hatred
war against each other. Galileo, Leonardo, Cosimo Medici are historical figures
that take central stage in this adventurous, mortally dangerous tour-de-force
that's filled with clever dialogue, dark emotions, secretive vendettas, and
willful characters.
The young
characters drive an important and magical part of the plot. Lorenzo, apprentice
to Galileo, desires to rise above his station and prove his intellect. Lucia,
raised under the patronage of the Duke of Lorraine, craves freedom from her
tower and the ugly shadow of war. Together, they defy what's acceptable.
Another very interesting and dashing figure is that of a deathseeker who is more than he seems. Actually, the whole array of
characters is wildly colourful and engaging.
Fast-paced
and rich in events, one scene after another brings new discoveries. It was very
entertaining to know about the half-scientific, half-magical inventions of
Leonardo, or the underground politics ruling everyone's acts. Despite the
encroaching threat of the plague that surrounds the city in its vice-like grip,
there is also a light tone sometimes that adds satirical fun to the reading.
One
particular thing rattled me a bit. The characters' obsession with metaphors or
their lack of talent for them is amusing and quirky, but it can also be a
little nagging when they mistake a metaphor for a simile. Similar, but not the
same.
Despite that,
all protagonists are fleshed-out and we get to know their aspirations and
fears, as those of the city itself. The novel reminded me of The Fallen Blade,
by Jon Courtenay Grimwood. It shares its mixture of Renaissance Italy,
paranormal elements and a little bit of its darkness. I've enjoyed both very
much.
In the last
one hundred pages, it all comes together in the most exciting way: all the
cunning characters, the mysterious science of the ancients, all the horrors
that were brewing inside the city, and outside too, all the insanity and the
Renaissance flair.
I was filled
with a sense of wonder. Such imagination from the author has been wonderful to
read and enjoy. My only but which is not exactly small is that ending. It left
me dumbfounded. Really! All seemed to grow and build up to an amazing end when
suddenly I couldn't understand what had happened and why and what it meant.
Then, the end. Umm, what? Yes, I see what the characters see but it's not rounded and clarified enough to give you that feeling of enlightenment, of awe at the realization of all the pieces fitting perfectly. Especially when you're not sure if there's a second book coming up to wrap it up.
Thank you so much, Craig, for coming to this reader's blog!
Q. Find two things that make your
book unique
and stand out from the rest.
Well, a quick
description of the book first. The Shadow Master
is a kick-arse
tale of alternative history, love and conflict, madness and magic, with sword
fights and mad clerics and assassins and bombs and magical shape-changers and
dark catacombs and tall towers and an army of plague people – with everything
except a car chase. And through it all
is this mysterious figure, the Shadow Master, who is manipulating everyone
towards his own ends. The Shadow Master is quite unique as a character – in the
action and manipulating the action and seeming to know what is going to happen,
but not sharing it with the reader.
And the second thing - maybe the idea that you can change the
whole world – and I mean CHANGE THE WHOLE WORLD with just a kiss.
Q. Confess one horrible thing about
one of the characters
Lorenzo, the romantic lead male has herpes. No, not really. I
couldn’t think of anything too horrible except that the baddies are all
horribly bad and the goodies are mostly horribly good, but there are a few
characters who you are never too sure whether they good or bad or a bit of
both.
Not really horrible, but something interesting - many readers
and critics have focused on the unrequited lovers as being based on Romeo and
Juliet – but in fact I used a classical Italian book the Betrothed – that is set in 1628 and tells of the plague years in
Italy, and the politics and church of the time – and has two young lovers –
Lorenzo and Lucia.
Q. The most striking thing you've
uncovered while researching for this book
This was really funny, at least I thought so. I happened to be
in Florence for a Science Communications conference two years ago (my day job),
when the idea of the book started working its way into my head. I was actually
walking around the Galileo Museum, and looking at all these devices and
inventions – like the first telescopes and mechanical devices for measuring
time – and the idea struck me – what if science was magic. What if when you
looked through the telescope, for instance, it actually transported you across
to what you were looking at? And what if, when you donned that flying harness
that Leonado da Vinci designed, you actually morphed into a giant eagle?
So I’m then reading up on Galileo and how he was persecuted by
the Church of the day and how to had compromise himself to survive. Well –
there is a ‘relic’ of Galileo there at the museum. His skeletal mummified
middle finger – and it’s standing upright in this glass jar – and it has been
turned to face in the direction of the Duomo Cathedral in town. I think it was
a very subtle way of letting Galileo have the last word, giving the finger to
the church after death.
Q. The strangest idea you've put into
the novel.
(*spoilers alert*) that the two central lovers are just play
things of the Shadow Master and he has not just been controlling them the whole
time, but actually placed them in the families they are in as young children,
to be ready for the events in the book. And he has done it to them before and
before and before.
Q. Choose the character that you most
relate to and say why
That’s easy to answer but hard to talk about. The character is a
mysterious assassin called the Nameless One, who we discover later (*spoilers
alert*) is an aged Noble man whose wife has a rare disease that means she is
losing her memory, and he gives her this one mechanical flower every day, and
she says she will treasure it, and the next morning has no memory of it. And he
keeps giving it to her in the hope that one day she will remember it. That’s
based more than a little bit on my own family situation. My wife had a massive
stroke a few years back and beside having limited movement on her left side,
her brain acts a bit like a computer disc with some corrupted data on it – as
at random times she has no memory at all of things that might have happened
just the day before.
I tried to capture some of the feeling of that in the Nameless
one and his wife.
(something that I deeply loved about the book, now I know why it felt so real)
Q. Finally, pinpoint what fantasy and
historical readers will like about this novel.
That’s big
question and I might defer to some of the reviews I’ve had from readers, who
generally like the mix of action and romance. But you can never please everyone
as one reviewer loved the way I’d found new expressions or metaphors for body
parts during sex, but another questioned the need to make up new terms.
Now I just asked
my wife if I should list some of them here, but she said I should write that
people should check out the book to find them and make up their own minds.
But I think
readers will like the way I’ve used real characters from history mixed in with
fantasy and that fact that just when you think you know what’s going on, the
ground changers under you. And of course the very satisfying knowledge that you
really can change the world with just a kiss, just as many of us have always
suspected!
***
I'm so happy to have read The Shadow Master, and that the author kindly agreed to be challenged. I really hope you give this book a chance as it won't disappoint your sense of adventure.
Have a great reading week, book buddies.
