Deeds & Words

I can see my house from here. That’s what I thought when my secretary brought in the map to the lunch event I was covering for my boss. I said, “If someone had told the Mary Agatha Furth Center was near Our Lady of Guadalupe Center I would have found it.”

She said, “It’s right next to the church, on the same grounds.”

Our Lady of Guadalupe was my church. It wasn’t a church when I was growing up three blocks away. It was an Apostolic Center. In fact, it wasn’t an Apostolic Center; it wasn’t even there. We helped build it.  I mean literally; my dad and I went over there on several weekends. I carried stuff, (mostly I played around the gnarled fig tree in the back, or hung out under a group of oak trees with some of the kids from the trailer park behind it) and my dad measured and sawed timber and hammered nails. The original building was single story, with cinderblock walls. There were no pews; just hard metal folding chairs that lived in a long closet in the back and got pulled out and set up before mass. There was no jewel-toned stained glass, just an amateurish but lovingly created mosaic of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I know it was “lovingly created” because my mother made it.

As the name implied, the Guadalupe Center wasn’t just a church. They held well-child clinics there, and I worked at a TB inoculation workshop one time, after school until nine o’clock. The priest and brothers worked with immigrant agricultural workers, held literacy classes and did voter registration drives. There was a bible study group my parents joined with six other couples. From the study group, they branched out, running a food pantry (we stored the canned goods in an outbuilding on our property) and even adding a used-clothing “free-store.” The local welfare department and the parish would refer families to our house. We delivered meals to families the day before Christmas. We helped with food drives and clothing drives.

I remember walking to church in spring and summer, through the knee high wild oats, across the gravel parking lot into that little room on Saturday evenings. I remember Easter service there. I remember the kitchen doubling as the confessional (because it didn’t have a confessional) and being uncomfortable going to confession because I had to look at Father Ken while I talked.

This was the 1970s. Nuns at my Catholic school were traveling in buses to the Central Valley to work with the United Farm Workers. Nuns and priests engaged in community organizing, practiced social justice. Priests were getting married and keeping it a secret – in fact, Father Ken was married the entire time he was at Guadalupe Center, and just didn’t tell anybody.

When he did come forward and share this with the congregation, he was immediately sent away. The Bishop sent in an old-school priest who ended a lot of the non-church events. He invited himself to the bible study group. After a couple of weeks, he suggested that he should lead the group and direct the content. The group politely declined this generous offer. Two weeks later, during his sermon, he read out our names, and ended the list by saying, “These families are no longer members of this parish.”

I should have been shocked or devastated. I was a teenager – I was jazzed. Elated. I was a rebel! How many kids at St Ursuline’s could claim they’d been read out of their parish? None, that’s how many. Did it disillusion me? Sure. Even at fifteen I recognized a naked power play when I saw it. My parents started driving up to the town north of us to go to church, but I didn’t go with them. And I haven’t gone back.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is different now. The old building probably held seventy-five people at best; the new church holds three times that. It’s white and airy, with pretty stained glass, an altar that draws all eyes and a fountain in the courtyard. The knobby fig tree and the cluster of oaks are gone, turned into parking, although the decrepit trailer park is still right behind it. The Mary Agatha Furth Center is nearly the size of the church, with a good sound system and nice acoustics.

The field we used to walk through on our way to church is a strip mall now; the pear orchard across the street from my house is a subdivision of large stucco homes. The two-lane road I took my horse down is four lanes now, checked by stoplights.

In 1982, the little cinderblock building burned. The cause of the fire was arson. At the time I could not understand why anyone would burn a place of comfort and refuge like a church. Now, of course, I can easily imagine why someone might have enough anger toward the Catholic institution to want to cleanse it with fire.

The diocese is different too. It has weathered, but not too well, numerous scandals; a bishop who covered up for his lover, a fellow priest, who embezzled money; several child molesters moved from church to church, given access to more children; a handful of expensive lawsuits that have depleted the treasury and jeopardized at least one parish’s building fund. Our Lady of Guadalupe church is a building of light and elegant beauty, but I didn’t feel welcomed or comfortable in it. I didn’t feel at home.

Kim Kardashian plans to run for mayor of Glendale, California.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Who’s Kim Kardashian?” That’s because you have a life and don’t watch so-called reality TV. Well, here’s everything I know, or think I know, about Kim Kardashian: 1) she has a reality TV show; 2) she is the Paris Hilton of this decade, Paris being sooooo 2005; 3) she has a couple of sisters whose names all start with K; 4)her stepfather is an Olympian; 5) from every tabloid picture and commercial I’ve seen, she has great hair.

Apparently on her TV show recently, Kim was musing that she would make a good mayor of Glendale because it’s, “like, Armenian town.” Yes, that’s right; Kim Kardashian is a landsman! for those of you who don’t know very much about Armenia, here are some interesting facts.

(I will now admit that up until yesterday I often pronounced Kim K’s last name as if it were the name of these guys from Star Trek: Deep Space 9.)

Apparently, Kim’s campaign hit a snag. Well, a couple of snags, actually. The first setback is that you can’t really run for mayor in Glendale.  You must run for, and win, a seat on the city council. Then the position of mayor rotates among city council members. Kim might have to wait a year or two to get to be mayor. Does she have the attention span for it?

Glendale also has this picky, bureaucratic, so-unfair rule that, to run for city council, you have to live in the town of Glendale.

I’m sure one of Kim’s minions can find her a house in Glendale. I’m sure the voters of that town will embrace her. She’s demonstrated such a clear understanding of the democratic process, and she’s so well-informed on so many topics. And she really cares about the core issues of Glendale, whatever those are.

And she’s got  such great hair.

I found The Tudor Secret on the remainder table at my local independent bookstore. After a little research I have decided that it might have also been released under the title The Secret Lion, since the description of that book is identical to The Tudor Secret. The author, CW Gortner, has a degree in Renaissance history and he’s putting it to good use here.

If you don’t track Elizabethan (technically, pre-Elizabethan) history, you may have some trouble following this book, because it’s hard to tell the players without a scorecard. After Henry VIII’s death, his young and sickly son Edward (Henry had a legitimate son, with his third wife, Jane Seymour) ascended the throne. Edward VI was too young to rule but his father’s will had not specified a regent, so ambitious men came out of the woodwork to “help” the young king. The first batch of these were the Seymours, including Edward Seymour and his brother Thomas, who in addition to having been King Henry’s brother-in-law until Jane died, also married Henry’s widow Katherine Parr and was the guardian of the Princess Elizabeth. (Yes, there will be a quiz later.) Thomas Seymour overstepped, embezzled from the Crown and was beheaded. The ambitious Dudley clan, headed by John Dudley, plotted against Edward Seymour, the Lord Protector, and got him removed and ultimately beheaded too. This meant, of course, that the Dudleys now had control of Edward.

Totally disempowered but not quite ignored during this time period were the two princesses; Mary Tudor, Henry’s daughter from his first marriage to Katherine of Aragon, and Elizabeth Tudor, Henry’s daughter from his second marriage to Anne Boleyn.

All of this happens before The Tudor Secret starts. Edward VI is still alive, although barely, when the book opens, and a young squire named Brendan Prescott is heading, with the Dudleys’ steward, to London. Brendan is being sent to be Robert Dudley’s squire. Brendan is an orphan, a foundling, discovered by the Dudley housekeeper, Dame Alice, in the abandoned priest’s house, when he was only an infant. Intrigue starts in the first chapter with rumors that Princess Elizabeth has come to town, also, to visit her beloved brother. Brendan catches a glimpse of the princess, although he doesn’t know it at the time. Shortly afterward he is introduced to William Cecil, a secretary who works for the Dudleys but is loyal to Elizabeth. The book glitched for me a bit here, when we discover that our wide-eyed youth Brendan, who should be about fourteen based on his station and his innocence, is actually twenty. The discrepancy in age and skill set is a problem; a foundling, Brendan is taught to read, write and do sums, apparently a clerk’s training, but he can also fence and shoot a bow; but, at twenty, he was never sent off to be a soldier.

Brendan agrees to work for Cecil, who hints that he knows something of Brendan’s lineage. Robert Dudley gives Brendan a token with orders to deliver it to the princess. Brendan meets Elizabeth and is smitten. I would criticize this as a failure to capture Elizabeth’s character—how does she captivate people so quickly? – if there weren’t contemporary accounts of people having exactly that reaction. Elizabeth, whose claim to the throne was the most precarious of Henry’s children’s, figured out intuitively how to both endear herself to the “common people” and win over key political players. This got her the throne. It also kept her alive during the time period in which this book is set.

In short order, Brendan is sparring verbally with the Dudley boys, particularly the prideful, arrogant Robert and the weak-willed Guileford, who is set to marry Jane Grey, the king’s cousin. He meets the sinister and well-dressed Francis Walsingham, who reads like a Disney villain; he befriends a scrappy stableboy; he has his life threatened several times. He also takes his life in his hands by helping Elizabeth sneak into the royal apartments at Greenwich to say good-bye to her dying brother. In the king’s bedchamber Brendan makes a shocking and deeply personal discovery, but has little time to figure things out because he is now sent to make contact with Princess Mary. John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, pressured Edward into disinheriting Mary, and now he’s sending Robert to find and imprison the princess. Northumberland plans to have Jane Grey crowned queen.

The action moves just fast enough. Gortner slows the pacing to allow for a lovely and sensuous romance between Brendan and Kate, one of Elizabeth’s servants. Brendan’s personal story is clear to the reader before it’s clear to him, and some of the details of it are a little shaky. It’s still a nice complication that could play out through the series, if there is one. The  most baffling scene comes early in the book, in the court,  a meet-and-greet scene where great secrets and whispered deals are being made by people you don’t know but think you should know about – Duchess Suffolk! Her Grace Princess Elizabeth! Lady Jane Grey! Duke of Northumberland! Kate! Kat Ashley! A dog! It’s hard to know what to pay attention to.

Speaking not as a critic but as an engaged reader and a partisan of William Cecil, I do not care for Gortner’s portrayal of this historical character, although his interpretation certainly powers the plot. It feels to me like Gortner moved a bunch of Francis Walsingham’s traits to Cecil, like a borrowed suit of clothes. It’s clear that the real-life Cecil was a conniver and a manipulator, but here’s the thing; they all were. You didn’t survive in a royal court –literally; see Paragraph Two above—if you weren’t. He was, however, fiercely loyal to Elizabeth.

Now speaking as a critic, Elizabeth comes across in this book as purely noble, stubborn in a good cause; courageous and loyal. Oh, please. Even during this time period, when she was not yet queen, Elizabeth was very much a player, and The Tudor Secret’s depiction of her fairness to Princess Mary is unbelievable. Mary and Elizabeth’s relationship was complicated even by the standards of a 21^st century blended family, and Elizabeth sounds disingenuous in this book when she says, “I’ve never done anything but be the daughter of her mother’s rival.” Really? Just the daughter of the rival who had her mother deposed and kept under house arrest the rest of her life? That rival, you mean? A tiny but irritating detail is that of Elizabeth’s dog, Urian. Anne Boleyn had a wolfhound named Urian. Elizabeth spent her life distancing herself from her mother; she would not flaunt the Boleyn connection by giving her dog this name. Gortner does not convince me that Elizabeth would indulge in this life-threatening caprice out of defiance or some deeply-held love for a mother she didn’t even remember.

The book is set against the background of the “Nine-day Queen,” (Jane Grey, record-holder for shortest reign in British history) but unless you already knew about that, you might completely miss that it happened. In fact, it was never clear to me in this book that Jane had already suffered through her rushed “coronation,” since Brendan was out of town when it happened.

To understand the secret of Brendan’s birth, a family tree would have helped. St Martin’s Press could have put a nice one in the front of the book. It’s like a feature, really. Some of us like them, and the people who are new to the byzantine family connections of the royal courts of 16^th century Europe would appreciate it.

The book ends just before the beginning of the most fraught period of Elizabeth’s life; and Brendan is poised to be one of Cecil’s intelligencers. Where’s the next book? Mary and Felipe of Spain? Elizabeth and Dudley imprisoned in the tower? Hey, I’m waiting!

My review of Robert Jackson Bennett’s dark fantasy The Troupe is up on Fantasyliterature. Bennett has an original voice and different vision of American fantasy. Recommended.

My review of Anne Lyle’s Alchemist of Souls went up on fantasyliterature.com a few weeks ago. The site also posted my interview with Lyle. Here’s the link to the review.

The book has some interesting concepts for a traditional epic fantasy. Elizabethan fans are sure to enjoy it.

A Trace of Smoke is a period mystery by Rebecca Cantrell. Hannah Vogel, the main character, is a reporter in 1930s Berlin, watching the Nazi party come into power. Hannah’s situation is precarious on a number of fronts.  She has lent her papers and passport to her Jewish friend Sarah, who is traveling to America. This means Hannah can be arrested at any time. Her brother Ernst is gay, and sings in a drag club. This makes him popular, notorious, and very dead.

Hannah sees her brother’s photo hanging on the Wall of the Unnamed Dead. She must keep their relationship a secret, yet she has to know who killed him, and why. Her investigation brings her to the attention of several powerful men in the National Socialist party. Many of Ernst’s lovers are highly placed party members, deeply connected with the Storm Troopers.

As she searches for the truth, Hannah begins finding things that put her at even more risk; an expensive ruby ring, a packet of letters, and most importantly, a six-year-old boy named Anton with a birth certificate that shows Ernst Vogel as his father and Hannah Vogel is his mother. Anton’s parentage is a bigger mystery in the book than who murdered Ernst. Anton is a charming character; vulnerable and brave.

Ernst, remembered by Hannah but also seen by his coworkers, boyfriends and rivals, is also a complicated character. He is brave, having enduring savage beatings from their father when he was a boy because of his sexual identity. He was mercenary and heartless to some, but Hannah discovers people he helped. Hannah was also scarred by their upbringing; the rigid and controlling military father, the alcoholic mother. Hannah’s sister Ursula chose to be the obedient and submissive daughter, while Ernst and Hannah rebelled. Each of them lived behind a mask; Ernst dressed as a woman and sang at the El Dorado, while Hannah wrote hard-boiled crime stories under the pen-name of Peter Weil.

Trying to avoid the eye of the Nazis, solve her brother’s murder, and keep her job, Hannah also wrestles with a new romance with Boris, a wealthy banker, which brings its own set of dangers.

Cantrell did a lot of research for A Trace of Smoke, and it shows. Sometimes it shows a little too much. Every brand of cigarettes is named, and Cantrell even tells us the brand name of Hannah’s stockings. In moderation, this helps create an authentic setting, but overdone, it’s distracting, and in a couple of places Cantrell overdoes it. I did like the El Dorado, though, and the newsroom/bullpen of Hannah’s paper. Hannah is a good journalist and investigator, getting people to tell her their stories and putting the pieces together quickly for the most part.

The ending is filled with action, suspense and a frightening, creepy scene in one of the “private cubicles” at the drag club, where Hannah is impersonating a man. Cantrell chose historical Nazi characters in several places, and she is careful about putting a disclaimer at the end that all of the encounters her historic characters have are fictional.

I found A Trace of Smoke to be an intriguing read. This is the first book of a series. To my intense disappointment, when I read the opening chapters of the second book, which were included as an “Extra,” I discovered that much of what Hannah resolves in this book is immediately undone. This does not make me want to run out and buy A Night of Long Knives.

The Carolina Chocolate Drops played at the Mystic Theater on Easter Sunday. The band plays roots music; 1920s black blues, jug band and string band music, jigs, reels, and Scottish airs.  Rhiannon Giddens and Dom Flemons are the founding members. I heard one of their songs on the KRSH last year, and then, when I went to the Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, I missed them by two days apparently. Well! Not this time.

The Mystic is a wonderful music venue; a former movie palace remodeled. On the first floor, most of the seats have been taken out to make room for a dance floor and a bar. There are seats along the sides, though, and about 75 seats in the balcony. Those seats are terrible; one seat had fabric stretched over empty space and no cushioning whatsoever. A row of old-school folding metal chairs had been added down at the very front. I didn’t care that the seats were bad. The space is pretty, and the acoustics were limpid.

The David Wax Museum Band opened for the Chocolate Drops.  A trio, Dave, Suz and Greg, they had some nice three-part harmonies and wonderful energy. Dave and Suz are the core of that band. Suz plays the fiddle and the jawbone (which, I confess, I didn’t know was an actual percussive instrument), and sings. Greg plays guitar, sings, and plays a percussion instrument. David Wax Museum plays historical Mexican and Mexo-American folk music and some original compositions.  They came out and sang a song called” Jalopy Heart.” I didn’t care for it very much — their harmonies seemed off and the instruments overpowered the voices. David stepped up to the other microphone, while Suz gestured to the sound guy, and suddenly, on the next song, they were much better. They invited Rhiannon and Dom to join them on two songs. Halfway through their forty-five minute set they walked off the stage and wandered through the crowd, playing and singing. David apparently sprinted up the stairs, because he appeared in the balcony, playing the mandolin and singing a lament. Then he rejoined Suz and they segued into a reel.

The Chocolate Drops played a much longer set, and I had to leave before the concert was over (work the next day), so I missed “Jelly Roll,” and “Hit ‘em Up Style.” I did get to hear “Trouble on Your Mind,” which they opened with, “I am a Country Girl,” and an exuberant 1920s Ethel Waters blues song about divorce, called “I’m No Man’s Mama.” The song is hilarious, and Rhiannon belts it out. She plays fiddle and banjo and probably some other instruments, and she sings; low and melancholy or brassy and belting. Dom plays banjo, guitar and the bones. HubbyJenkins plays guitar, mandolin, banjo, and bones. Leyla McCalla is an exquisite cellist with a lovely voice who helps on back-up vocals. They were relaxed, funny, and completely on.

I learned all kinds of interesting things. For instance, I hadn’t known that the banjo was inspired by an African instrument. I couldn’t figure out why roots bands, especially African American bands, played so many reels and jigs until the Chocolate Drops explained about the crossover between poor Scottish immigrants and children of slaves. There’s also just something basic about the music of regular people — folk music.

Rhiannon had some trouble with the minstrel banjo. This instrument had a lower tone; she was going to accompany Dom on a song, but she lost the tuning about a third of the way through. So, she just played it like it was a drum, tapping out a rhythm on the soundbox. It was an awesome piece of music, totally extemporaneous.

IF you get to see them, do it.

Meet the Vickies:
Petaluma is famous for its restored Victorian homes.  These pictures aren’t even of the glories – those are on D Street. This is in the neighborhood of Keller and B Streets.

Two of the houses are up the hill on Kentucky Street, across from Penry Park.

My home town has some restored Victorians that I think are prettier than the Petaluma ones, but is doesn’t have as many that are as pretty.

The Old Library:

Like Healdsburg, Petaluma has converted its old library into a town museum. I love this building. It looks like a temple to books, Free to All. Like the Healdsburg building, this library, built in the 1850s, was a Carnagie library. Yes, imagine, a tycoon, a 1%er even, who decided to give back something of value to the communities that made him wealthy. Instead of creating a SuperPac or investing in a propaganda organ, Carnagie tried to purchase spiritual redemption by providing libraries and public auditoriums to the people. Seems unbelievable, now, doesn’t it? It’s almost like alternate history, but it really happened.

The beautifully restored interior is crowned by a huge stained glass skylight.

The current exhibit is about the Kosavo Romany (gypsies), probably provided by the same non-profit group that put on the Roma Festival every year. There was some nice artwork, and an interesting video documentary, but I didn’t see anything uniquely Petaluman about it. Upstairs, along the gallery, were the local historical exhibits with information about the riverboats and the egg industry.

The River:

The Petaluma River wasn’t even designated a river until 1959, and it took an Act of Congress to do that. I’m not exaggerating. The waterway is actually a slough, but Petaluma Slough just doesn’t sound that attractive. (Although growing up around here, that’s what we called it.)

No pictures, and no point. I just wanted to say that.

Copperfield’s:

What?  Walk down Kentucky Street and not go into Copperfield’s Books? Unlikely. I went downstairs to the used book section, where my friend Brandy, who used to work at the Sebastopol store, is now working. They have completely remodeled and refurbished the downstairs. The counter has been moved to an area just in front of the stairs, the aisles are wider, and the faint sweetish smell of mold is gone. It is easier to see the subject areas, and quite a bit brighter. I went to the Fantasy and SF Section, where I came across three David Gemmell books. David Gemmell was the inspiration for Andy Remic, who write The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles. I walked away quickly, trying not to start a panic. I’m sure bad writing can’t be contagious, but it’s better not to take chances.

Dazzled at Zazzles:

I ended my jaunt at Zazzles Café, where I had one of their Mayan mochas; coffee, chocolate, cinnamon, other spices I couldn;’t quite place, and a bit of chile, just for the heat. I had an order of coleslaw, with green and purple and matchstick-shaped strips of jicama in a thin, creamy dressing that has kind of a Thai taste to it. Then I had key-lime pie, while I read the first couple chapters of The  Troupe, by Robert Jackson Bennett, one of the strongest voices in dark fantasy right now.  I left dazzled.

I ordered a book, an omnibus edition of a trilogy, to review for Fantasy Literature. The omnibus title was The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles, written by Andy Remic. I ordered the book by mistake; thinking it was another book. When I started reading it I was terribly disappointed. It wasn’t what I had been expecting. I stayed with it for 150 pages, because I have reviewed other books for fanlit that weren’t to my usual taste, but with this one, I just couldn’t hang in. I sent the book to another reviewer. It didn’t seem fair to write a Did Not Finish review for Fantasy Literature –as if I’d ordered a lemon dessert and then complained because it wasn’t chocolate-ly enough.

Here in the privacy of my blog, though, I can write whatever I want. And I may have ordered a lemon dessert by mistake, but I can still say that the crust was stale and tough, and the lemon was rancid.

The Clockwork Vampire Chronicles features villains called “the Vachine;” half vampire and half machine creatures (vampire+machine =vachine ,get it?), with shock troops who are albino clockwork vampires, called the Iron Army, and two “heroes;” a handsome male thief and a geezer soldier with a magic battle-axe. The Iron Army pillages the city where the thief, the soldier and his daughter and grand-daughter live.

Evil Overlording:

Peter’s Evil Overlord List gives excellent advice for potential evil overlords. Andy Remic might do well to review it. The villains do everything stereotypical villains do including talk too much. Remic’s villains engage in what the clever movie The Incredibles called “monologuing.” Here is Vashell, the “V Hunter,” an aristo who is part of the Vachine:  “Machine Vampires. We feed on the human shell; revel in our total superiority.”  If Vashell had worn a mustache, he would have twirled it and followed this with, “Bwahahahaha!” Revel in our superiority? Gag.

Here he is again, lecturing Anukis, his hostage/captive audience:  “Your naivety both astounds and amuses me. Here, the rich noble daughter, blood-line of our vachine creator, and you do not even understand the basics?”

Vashell is just the one I remember. The General of the Iron Army, an albino vampire, gets plenty of scenery-chewing time as he lumbers about the stage, too. In a scene where the two girl are separated from thief and geezer, they are grabbed by bad guys, one of whom actually says, “Well, well, well… what have we here?”

Misogynists “R” Us:

In an opening sequence, eight hundred men are beheaded by the Iron Army and the nasty, scary creatures called Harvesters. Okay, that’s pretty terrible. It’s also one sentence. The first 150 pages of the book give us five women characters; Nienna, Katrina, Anukis, Shabis and the Queen. There’s a sixth woman but she gets disemboweled about three pages after we meet her.

Let’s review what happens to the five surviving-slightly-longer women: Anukis; beaten until bones break, raped, then masochistically surrenders to her rapist; disfigured, mutilated and enslaved; Shabis, lied to, betrayed and beheaded; the Queen, raped; Katrina; beaten, stripped, sexually humiliated and nearly raped (saved by the attack of a monster). Nienna has made it to page 150 without being raped, but she has been trussed up like a chicken and subjected to what can only be described as prose-rape (SEE evil Overlord, above) when a bad guy jabbers at her for about ten minutes describing how he is going to rape her.

Well, these are all the bad guys, and doesn’t this just really show that Remic is equal-opportunity? Men get beheaded, so women in tough times have to suffer too, right? It doesn’t wash. Remic spends too much time on the rape/humiliation scenes and they are too written in too juicy a manner. It’s like Remic can’t tell the difference between eroticism and violence.

It’s not only the villains who mistreat women, though. Saark, the swordsman-thief, bragging about his numerous sexual conquests, delivers this incoherent sentence, “It’s been commented in certain social circles how I can supply the most exquisite of pleasures to even the most buxom pigs with a face like a horse arse.” First of all, huh? When I laboriously parse that terrible sentence, I think Saark is bragging that he can have sex with fat, ugly women. Yes, even ugly women can have orgasms. Somebody alert the media.

(To be fair, that sentence is so badly constructed that it could mean that Saark’s face is like a horse arse. Or it could mean he enjoys sex with farm animals. Hard to tell. Many of the passages in this book read like that. Make of that what you will.)

But what about Kell, the geezer hero, the old soldier with his demonic (female) battle axe? He treats women all right, doesn’t he? Sure, his grand-daughter anyway. When the city is overrun with albino vampires, Kell runs immediately to the university. (Even though he’s never been there before, he finds Nienna instantly, with no trouble. I can’t even find a parking space on most campuses.) So see, he’s not a misogynist! Except that Nienna is the daughter of his daughter, a character who isn’t even given a name. Kell doesn’t waste a single thought on her when he goes haring off to save Nienna. On page 76, we find out that his daughter’s out of town, so it’s all all right, but Kell’s neglect is part and parcel of the treatment of women here. It’s like the GOP donned helmets and furs and picked up battle-axes.

And Really Bad Prose:

SEE Saark’s quote, above. The book is filled with bad writing and bad story choices. Kell forgetting he has a daughter until page 76 is a bad story choice. Kell, Saark, Katrina and Nienna are on the run from the Iron Army and they stop to spend the night in an abandoned farmhouse. Kell hears something in the woods, and tells Saark they have to leave, now. Saark goes to wake the girls and watches as they get dressed, so he can stare at their breasts. Okay, Saark’s a big old lecher, we get it. Here’s my question; who believes for a minute that the girls undressed? They’re on the run from a supernatural enemy; they’re in a strange place; it’s winter. There’s a fire in the room next door, but not their room. If you believe they took off their clothes, raise your hand. Really?  Anyone?  Andy Remic, you raise your hand, young man. What did you say? Oh, you don’t think they’d take their clothes off either. You just wrote that to give Saark some quality lecher time, I see.  Sit down, Andy.

On the micro level, I couldn’t read a page without tripping over a bad sentence. Kell flashes back to his history in the army, and Remic describes it thus: “Visions echoed.” Um, I’m sorry, but visions can’t echo because they’re, you know, visions; not sounds. Later, Kell fights a Harvester. The Harvester gets wounded and utters a “low, high-pitched moan.” Low, high-pitched? What? Do you mean a soft, high-pitched moan? Do you mean it whined? What?

To be honest, if there had been a single engaging character, I would chuckle indulgently at things like “visions echoed” and read on, but there isn’t one. Not one.

Brass Testicles:

Somebody has some. Actually, it’s the albino vampire and the vachine, and they aren’t completely brass. They are clockwork testicles. How do I know this? Because in 150 pages Remic describes them twice on two different men, in loving detail. Clockwork Testicles might have been a better title, in fact.

So what’s to like? Well, snarky sword and axe fighters even if they don’t like women. Scary monsters (the Harvesters are genuinely creepy); good action scenes and some interesting description. There’s an idea in here. It’s just a bit rancid, and the crust is stale.