Lord of
the Night reviews the absolutely fantastic debut novel from Ishbelle Bee, The
Singular and Extraordinary Tale of Mirror and Goliath, the first in The
Peculiar Adventures of John Loveheart, ESQ series, published by Angry Robot
Books.
"A debut novel that is truly weird and
wonderful at the same time, and while not everybody will enjoy the bizarre
narrative, insane characters and mix of madcap comedy and gory horror, I do
believe that everybody should try this novel anyway, because you never know.
With her dark, gothic fairy tale first release Ishbelle Bee is already my
choice for Best New Author of 2015." - Lord of the Night @ Talk Wargaming
TSaEToMaG,
for short because I ain't typing that title more than thrice, was a novel that
caught my eye during a brief flick through incoming titles on Angry Robot. I
found the premise interesting, and I felt it might have a bit of the dark magic
that I loved so much in Laini Taylor's Smoke and Bone Trilogy or the acclaimed
movie Pan's Labyrinth. Starting it on the bus ride to work one morning, I had
finished it the same afternoon; I simply could NOT put it down. Never before
have I encountered a book like this, truthfully I can't even tell you what
genre it is in the end; Fantasy? Gothic? Horror? Fairy Tale? This book truly
felt unique to me, something that stands apart from the other fantasy and fairy
tale series available now, and that is no mean feat. Not only does the book
feel unique in subject matter, but in other areas as well, and it isn't lacking
in the more straightforward areas. The story was engrossing and filled with
surprising twists, the characters were brilliant and each and every one felt
like someone the author had spent a good amount of time on, there were no
bystanders or one-note redshirts here, the book itself was hilarious and had me
laughing at the madcap antics of the protagonist, the bizarre situations and
dialogue, or the comedic-horror worthy of Sweeney Todd himself. With one novel
Ishbelle Bee has barged right into my favourite authors, along with Jim
Butcher, Aaron Dembski-Bowden, Brandon Sanderson and Derek Landy; the woman
knows just how to meld horror and comedy in just the right amount to make it
enjoyable rather than corny.
The year
is 1888 and a little girl named Mirror and her shape-shifting guardian Goliath
Honey-Flower have landed in England. Ever since her father forced her inside a
mysterious clock painted all over with ladybirds, something has been wrong with
Mirror. Whatever she is, she is not a simple human girl anymore. But to Mr
Fingers, demonic Lord of the Underworld and the Demon of Clocks and Time,
Mirror is the key to his eternal reign over the Underworld and perhaps even the
world itself. Mirror's only hope is John Loveheart, ESQ, and personal servant
to Mr Fingers. Taken as a child by the demon lord after the deaths of his
parents, many say Loveheart is as mad as a hatter; he is inclined to agree.
Called upon by his otherworldly father to find the mysterious little girl and
claim her, Loveheart knows that his father plans on eating the little girl, but
Loveheart was not born wicked, and a choice is soon before him. Good or evil?
Where is a mad man to stand these days?
The story
in TSaEToMaG is split into a lot of narratives, using multiple characters in
separate stories that are eventually drawn together into the primary story.
This is very much a character driven book, the actions of each character
driving the story into unexpected twists and surprising turns, sometimes their
actions affect stories other than their own and those definitely produce
interesting results. The first story is about Mirror, a twelve year old who
both is and isn't a little girl and her shape-shifting companion Goliath
Honey-Flower as they attempt to discover what happened to Mirror inside that
clock and what she has become, which quickly becomes a lot more complicated
than simply knocking on doors and asking questions. The second story focuses on
John Loveheart as he begins to question his allegience to his adoptive-father and
murderer of his real father, remembering that he was not born wicked, and
trying to discover if it is too late for him to return to the light, or if he
is lost to the darkness of the Underworld forever. The third story is an
investigative mystery as Detective White and Constable Walnut attempt to find a
series of missing girls and unravel the connection to a small out of the way
watchmaker and a group of people who seem to be ageless. The fourth story
features the young maiden Pomegranate and her Auntie Eva and shows how these
two rather strong women met the diabolical Mr Fingers and the origin of the
Tale of the Thirteen Princesses and the Thirteen Dark Princes. With so many
stories and characters you can be forgiven for thinking the book is hard to read
or that the stories are underdeveloped, it is not so. The book reads smoothly,
each story is given appropriate page-time and exploration, and at no point did
I feel that any story was treated less seriously or importantly than the
others. Bee brings these stories together very well when the time comes,
something that felt natural as the links between each of the stories, both the
links found by the characters and the ones they made themselves, became
apparant.
The
characters are a truly memorable bunch. Firstly we have our protagonist, John
Loveheart; a man with a mind like the Mad Hatter, but with the Red Queen's
predeliction for taking heads, the fashion sense of a peacock and the capacity
for violence of Sweeney Todd. Loveheart is not your standard fantasy or fairy
tale prince at all, he's completely bonkers and likes to cut people's heads off
if they offend him, he dresses like he's always at a costume party, and he's
the adopted son of the Demon Lord of the Underworld who likes to eat little
girls. Loveheart is mad and wicked, but he wasn't born that way, and it's his
struggle to determine whether or not he can be something more than wicked that
makes him a compelling character; that and the total irreverence towards pretty
much everything and his bloody yet zany actions that capture the reader's
attention whenever he appears on the page. One of the best things about
Loveheart though is that he really does read like he is insane, not just
different or a little touched; completely 100% cuckoo. But there is a core of
kindness and nobility in Loveheart that really adds to his dynamic and creates
a wonderfully complex character that is as likely to rescue the damsel in
distress as he is to slice off the heads of some angry drunks. Mirror and
Goliath themselves are a rather heartwarming pair, the little girl and her
loyal protector, and as Mirror grows over the course of the book we see a brave
little girl who will become a strong woman, and in her companion we see a truly
good man who simply wishes to do right by a girl who has gone through a lot of
bad things in her life. Other characters include the rather badass Auntie Eva
who matches Loveheart in sheer awesomeness and Mr Fingers in ruthlessness;
Constable Walnut whose rather dim and simple outlook on life meshes well with
the more analytical and complex Detective White, the straight-men of the novel
and a pair that could have novels of their own about their various cases about
the mysterious and the unexplained; the boisterous and very very English
explorer Rufus Hazard who would fit right in with the cast of Blackadder the
Third; and Death himself who comes across as a very morally ambiguous
character, and yet one that definitely has some of Sir Terry Pratchett's
legendary depiction of the Grim Reaper in him. One of the best parts about the
book is that each and every character from the leads to the secondary
characters to even the bit players feels like someone the author has really
worked on, from the fairy-tale-esque names to the bizarre personalities and quirks,
each character feels a bit like a labour of love, something that makes the
novel so much more enjoyable, you can tell that Bee had a blast writing this
book and creating the characters, and it shows very much.
The world
of John Loveheart is a mad yet wondrous one, a Victorian London with Demons who
eat little girls souls and collect clocks, where a man can slice people to bits
in the morning and be having sponge cakes in the afternoon, and where Death and
the Demon Lord of the Underworld have tea in an outdoor cafe and nobody bats an
eye. Magical little girls and shape-shifting former police officers, ageless
dilletantes wth a dark secret and a deranged serial killer with father-issues
who collects teeth. I mentioned before that it is hard to categorize this novel
as one genre, that is because I feel it isn't just one genre or even just two;
it is a mix of many genres that Bee has combined to tell a very memorable story
in a way that will stick with you long after you have finished the book. The best
way I can describe this novel and the series as a whole is "Alice in
Wonderland... in Hell... and on crack." Fans of Neil Gaiman's
twisted take on fairy tales, Catherine Valente's Fairyland series, or Guillermo
Del Toro's critically acclaimed Pan's Labyrinth, will find a lot to love in
Ishbelle Bee's world where the hero is a head-chopping madman with a heart
fetish, a witch with no problem killing children is a heroine, and the villain
is a misogynistic rapist demon with a clock obsession, and where the
Grim Reaper finds time to pop in for desert. However while the world-building
that Bee does is well done, it clearly comes secondary to actually telling the
story, Bee clearly prefers to allow the world to be built up naturally as the
reader progresses through the story with the details we do learn being
pertinent to the story we are actually reading rather than overload the reader
with information that while interesting is irrelevant to what we are actually
reading through info-dumps or conveniently placed explanatory characters.
TSaEToMaG, with all it's gore and darkness, is clearly a fairy tale for adults,
though I suppose that a modern-attitude child would enjoy this as much as an
adult.
The
pacing of the book is as different as the rest of it; the novel starts off
slowly but quickly finds it's way to the final confrontation... at the end of
Part 1. The subsequent parts show the backstory of the characters, both the
leads and the characters that while not a part of the main story affected it through
their personal stories, leading up to the final part that resumes the main
story and leads to the conclusion of this singular and extraordinary tale. But
it's the chapter format that is the most striking part of the narrative, some
chapters being only a single page long and with less than a few words in
differing font sizes, formats and spacing positions; these strange chapters
really gripped my attention and drew me into the madness of John Loveheart's
world, and really conveyed meaning in the shorter chapters where simple and
unformatted text would have been dull and jarring. One of the best parts of
this book I must say is the humour, both intentional and bizarre; I have not
laughed this hard when reading a book since I read the Skulduggery Pleasant series,
the mix of comedy and horror really gives the book a dark sense of humour,
something I appreciate a lot more over straight humour, but that said the novel
does have plenty of moments that are funny simply because they are funny rather
than due to character madness or the bizarreness of the situation; or the
moments of self-awareness some characters display. It's a really nice thing to
be able to laugh as you read a book, and this novel will do that for you on
nearly every page.
My
favourite quote, I am torn between these two lines;
"Because I have standards."
"Time for the ending. I like the happy ones the best."
The
ending is a very good one. Bee wraps up the tale of Mirror and Goliath while
leaving the door open for more adventures with John Loveheart, who is the true
protagonist of this story and series. This series is clearly meant to be one of
self-contained adventures, each novel featuring John Loveheart and company in a
new adventure, though the potential for a story stretching over multiple books
is possible, but the tale of Mirror and Goliath ends here, and I think that it
was best that way as it prevents their story from being dragged out. Each
character, that lives, also gets a brief epilogue to show what ending they get;
a nice touch that leaves no stone unturned and makes sure that no matter who
your favourite character was, you get to know what happens to them in the end.
Unlike some series that leave story threads open, this first novel does not and
closes off all of it's story threads by the end, which means that the second
novel in the series will pick up with a new story and characters, alongside the
returning cast.
For it's
gripping storytelling that made me unable to put the book down, wonderfully
enjoyable characters that I am already looking forward to seeing more of, lots
of blood and violence combined with hilarity on practically every page, and a
world that is filled to the brim with the same dark magic that made me love the
Smoke and Bone trilogy so much, I give The Singular and Extraordinary
Tale of Mirror and Goliath: The Peculiar Adventures of John Loveheart, ESQ
by Ishbelle Bee a score of 9.7/10; this is a Great novel that was a true joy to read, so much so that I immediately pre-ordered the
sequel, and has many factors that made it an incredibly enjoyable book for me
and my choice for Best Debut Novel of 2015. I do believe that this is a novel
that should be on EVERYBODY'S must-read list, and I wholeheartedly recommend
this book to anyone willing to take a chance and the time to read it, you might
just fall in love with Ishbelle Bee's world and characters as I did, or you
might dislike them and find the book too weird to suit your tastes, but if
that's the case then at least you tried it.
That's it
for this review. Thanks very much for reading, until next time;
AVE DOMINUS NOX!
