2017 fantasy, first of a projected series. It's 1923, and most of England's
occultists died during the War. But magical threats haven't gone away…
This is also a romance: Saul Lazenby is an archaeologist trying
to build a life after he was disgraced and imprisoned during the war;
he knows nothing about magic, but in his researches for a daft major
who's the only person willing to employ him, he seems to keep running
into it. Randolph Glyde is the last survivor of one of the old
occultist families, and during his investigations he seems to keep
running into Saul…
We get quite a gentle introduction to the setting, but it's a pleasing
one: the same thing that killed most of the occultists has made occult
problems more common, and there are tenuous connections drawn between
a variety of real-world obscure places with occult rumours attached to
them. (And Geoffrey de Mandeville. The one from the Anarchy.)
The research is pretty decent, with only a passing mention of a Sten
gun striking me as profoundly out of place (it's only being used as a
simile for a dangerous weapon, so talking of a Lewis gun would have
got the job done). Also, you get me on your side by talking about that
unpleasant occultist
Karswell killed by
a falling stone at St Wulfram's in Abbeville, and more by not making
a huge thing out of it. This is very much the sort of world I enjoy,
with magic newly important but still hidden from most people.
I just wish I liked the characters more. Both the principals are quite
broken people, and to some extent they start to overcome that
brokenness, but I never found myself particularly liking them. The sex
scenes are well integrated with the characters and story rather than
being pasted in, but when I'm reading about two men going at it I
don't get the frisson that I'm obviously supposed to.
Not every book needs to be aimed squarely at me, of course, but it was
a little unexpected to meet a setting that's such a good match for my
tastes combined with characters who had little to say to me. Some
minor characters, sole survivors of the British Army's wartime
attempts at monster-making, seemed as though they were shuffled out of
the way just when they were getting interesting in order to get back
to Saul and Randolph.
A second book is planned, but has been delayed.
Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.