Book Review: Widdershins

One of my favourite things about reading Charles de Lint's Newford stories is how characters will pop up as main characters for a novel or a short story, and then step into the background for the next story; sure there are mainstays like the Riddell brothers or Jilly Coppercorn, but overall you get a different view of the city each time you go back sort of like Terry Pratchett did with Discworld.

Sometimes, however, you do really want to know what happens next, and in the latest of his books I've read, Widdershins, we follow up with Jilly a few years after the events of The Onion Girl and get to see what may be one of my favourite things in these types of stories, a collection of almost all my favourite characters over the twenty-years of stories working together to help a friend in need.

Like Louis L'Amour's The Sackett Brand (1965) or heck, even Kevin Smith's Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001), this book is really for the fans. For the people like me who have been reading about Jilly and Geordie since the short story "Timeskip" back in 1989, this is a really fun reward.

Almost every new story de Lint sets in Newford works as a standalone, but I will say this one works best if you've read the short story collections, The Onion Girl and Spirit in the Wires.

Well worth reading, and as I'm nearing the point where I'm up to the books published ten years ago, I'm already starting to get nervous about when I'll have to wait like every other de Lint fan for his new books to come out.

Book Review: The Onion Girl

When reading any series, in any genre, you eventually come across a book that works to put everything you've read together, showing you a perspective on the world you haven't seen before, sometimes this happens quite early (like Stephen King's The Drawing of the Three - book two of his Dark Tower series, or Louis L'Amour's The Sackett Brand - book five of his series focusing on the Sackett family).

For me, Charles de Lint does this in his tenth book focusing on his fiction city of Newford The Onion Girl, which focuses finally and specifically on artist/waitress/fierce woman Jilly Coppercorn, and finally grants her the wish she's had in all of his books, to see the world of magic; of course, seeing the larger world has it's own costs as well...

The book begins with Jilly awakening after a hit-and-run car accident, stuck in a hospital bed and in significant pain, and as she is now the person who needs support, all of her friends (and many of the leads from previous de Lint novels and short stories), rally around her in her time of need. But the accident, which seems to have put a complete stop to her life in Newford, seems to have awoken something else in her, as she now begins to travel in the realm of the spirits while sleeping, letting her see true magic, but also potentially stopping her from focusing on her life in Newford.

As a parallel story, the book introduces Raylene Carter, a woman with a history similar to Jilly's and who took a decidedly different path. Raylene is fun, brash, and more than a little dangerous, and her story was a really nice counterpoint to Jilly's.

The novel does include a previously released short story "In the House of my enemy" (1993), which fits nicely in the narrative and gives necessary backstory to readers new to de Lint's work.

A great book

Book Review: Legend, by David Gemmell

David Gemmell's Legend (1984) is pretty much a perfect example of what I love in high fantasy novels.  High Fantasy, being stories told in a fantasy world populated by characters, events and plot best described as epic (think Lord of the Rings), is a sub-genre of Fantasy, and both Conan the Barbarian and Bilbo Baggins can fit in it with ease.

I've actually read a number of David Gemmell novels before, even ones set in the his Drenai Saga, but as I read those in Junior High and High School, I had never done the research to see if the books I was reading were part of a larger whole.

Legend is largely a novel about a siege.  In many ways it echoes the American story of the Alamo and Gemmell did cite western author Louis L'Amour as an influence.  The story involves thieves, farmers, warriors, townsfolk and an old warrior known simply as Druss the Legend, and follows these people as they defend a castle against an overwhelming force.

The story moves along at a great pace and puts a lot of value into all of it's characters, from the top down, drawing the reader into the story of this last great defence of a dying empire.

If you've never read fantasy novels before, I can't think of a better place to start.  This book reminded me of everything I fell in love with the genre as a young man and although Gemmell passed away in 2006, he left over twenty novels that I guarantee I'll be checking out myself very soon.