Voima (1995)

Three younglings - Roric, Valmar, and Karin - find themselves embroiled in a conflict between groups of immortal entities vying for control over the realm. They leap to the world of immortals. Then back to the world of mortals. Then back to the world of immortals. Then back to the world of mortals. In between, two stupid kings have a dick measuring contest and a dragon appears for some reason. But mostly it's leaping back and forth between the two realms. And so Roric, Valmar, and Karin finds themselves leaping from life to life, striving to put right what once went wrong, and hoping each time that their next leap - will be the leap home... 

Wait a minute, I think I got a wire crossed in this intro...

Voima is certainly an interesting one. At the outset I was wondering if this could be an underrated, somewhat forgotten gem of 1990's fantasy, but by the halfway point I realized the book fell off a cliff somewhere along the way and never recovered. Towards the end I was flipping pages as fast as I could just to get it over and done with.

The "voima" the title of the novel alludes to is basically author C. Dale Brittain's version of the Force from the Star Wars universe. It's the magically delicious energy that controls the flow of everything and if you're strong in the ways of "voima" then you're probably a bad mamma-jamma. Got that? Cool. Next we have this group of immortals called the Wanderers who are kinda-sorta revered as gods but, as we come to find out, are mostly lame and aren't really the ruling deities the chumps of the mortal world seem to the think they are. We're supposed to care about the Wanderers being overthrown by another group of immortals for... reasons, I guess.

Then we have the main characters from the mortal realm, who, yes, are meant to be youngsters, but inherit all of the most insufferable traits of perpetually immature youths to the point of being unbearable, made worse by the fact that they're more or less the only characters to be truly featured for the first 200 pages or so. I found the forbidden romance between Roric and Karin in particular to be one of the more unsatisfying aspects of Voima. These two characters are so deeply "in love" they'll go into weepy hysterics at the thought of not being together instead of gritting their teeth and persevering like heroic characters are generally supposed to do. It got to a point where I was actively rooting for these two to suffer some horrific fate to deny them their happily-ever-after... sadly, this was not to be. The plot contrivances to keep these two characters together almost made me launch the book across the room at one point: the two dopey kings mentioned in the intro above travel hundreds of miles with their retinues in tow to capture Roric, only for the kid to simply wander off and escape from their watchful eye a few pages later to rejoin Karin, who had also managed a completely improbable escape from her own delicate situation.

And for a fantasy novel, Voima is extremely light on any kind of world-building or atmosphere. Supposedly great distances between kingdoms are traveled in the space of a page or paragraph, and towards the final stretch of the story the jumps between mortal and immortal realms became almost comical, nevermind the fact that these gates between worlds that have been hidden for eons are found almost immediately by a trio of irritating nosey kids who just fell off the back of the Mystery Machine. I will also point out the occasional appearances from fantasy creatures straight out of the D&D bestiary were random and without any real pay-off. All things an author probably shouldn't do when they're aiming for epic fantasy.

Role of Honour (1984)

After receiving a surprise inheritance from a rich relative he never knew he had, secret agent 007 resigns from the service, spends way too much money on an old Bentley, then wines and dines babes in Monte Carlo. But it's all just a cunning ruse to gain the trust of the baddies. Bond is soon training at a terrorist camp and channeling his inner computer nerd to play wargames with the villains... all in the name of taking down their dastardly schemes from within. Bentleys, blimps, QBasic..? Da-da-DA-DA!

So here we are barreling on ahead with the John Gardner 007 re-read marathon, and I feel as if Role of Honour is a return to form over the Scooby-Doo style shenanigans of Icebreaker. As I said early on in this series of reviews, John Gardner's Bond novels definitely feel like products of the 80's, and this particular novel is painfully dated in many ways, especially where it concerns computing and programming languages, but if you can accept it as a snapshot in time of the early 80's computer craze then you'll have fun. I admit to chortling out loud several times as Bond is being taught the inner workings of the "highly sophisticated" QBasic computer language by an improbably hot American agent who specializes in such "advanced" technology.

Still, I found myself turning the pages of Role of Honour fairly quickly. It's a book that has that sweet spot of literary Bond that I'm looking for: a decent amount of espionage, some action, at least a small serving of travelogue feel, and the main character drinking like a diabetic fish and smoking like it's going out of style. But let's get to the really good news here... the Saab is gone! Bond is back in a Bentley, baby! Albeit a custom job that seems to be capable of withstanding multiple head-on collisions with goons on the roadways, but who cares? Our suave secret agent man is traveling in style again, and that's what we're all here to see.

An interesting twist in Role of Honour is Gardner trying his hand at a small cabal of villains for Bond to contend with instead of one main antagonist. The plot certainly sets itself up for the reader to believe there's only one major villain, but as the book rolls along it becomes evident Bond has several players, and indeed an entire organization, that needs to be dealt with.

Something I haven't really addressed with these Gardner reviews yet is how much the film series seemed to acquire... shall we say, inspiration from his books? It's often bandied about on various Bond fan sites that the filmmakers weren't legally allowed to use the Gardner books, but clearly that didn't stop them from cribbing important set pieces here and there. For instance, Role of Honour features a lot of computer jargon and a climax that takes place on a blimp... which is totally not featured in A View to a Kill, right? As a fan, I've never been bothered by the idea of the films taking a cue from continuation novels instead of being strictly adherent to Ian Fleming's ideas. What bothers me more is EON Productions' insistence that they weren't copying the test answers by looking over at John Gardner's desk, because the examples are too numerous to be mere coincidences.

Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse (2008)

Mortimer Tate is a former insurance salesman who holed up in a cave while the world went to shit. When he emerges nine years later, the land he once knew has changed forever. Armed with several cases of whiskey that survived the apocalypse, Mortimer embarks on an epic journey to the fabled ruins of Atlanta to find his ex-wife and a damn good cup of coffee.

Just to give you an idea of the level of sleaze author Victor Gischler has on offer here, after a modestly violent introduction, Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse really gets the action going with the main character tied up, forced to watch his future love interest being raped, then receiving a very unwanted golden shower from said rapist... and this might not even be the most fucked up part of the novel. What we have here is the most edgelord version of a Fallout video game you could possibly imagine. And I'm here for it.

There was a period of time in the mid-oughts when Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse was published where everything in the post-apocalyptic genre had to be dour, grimdark, and serious. For me, that got old in a hurry. While this novel definitely pushes the boundaries of darkness and violence to extreme levels, there is an undercurrent of irreverent humor that helps the piece stand out from the overabundance of Cormac McCarthy clones out there. The material never ventures into full slapstick mode, but you can't help but laugh sometimes at Gischler's Texas Chainsaw Massacre style redneck cannibals populating his version of a post-apocalyptic southern United States, or the women in bikinis who are improbably armed to the teeth popping caps in fools. It's a completely absurd and violent cartoon version of the end of the world, but there is just enough grit and realism to keep the story from careening out of control.

It helps that the main character is just your average joe everyman kind of guy. He's not especially strong, he's not the best shot, he's got some brains but he's not necessarily a genius... Mortimer is a great foil for the more colorful characters shaped by the apocalypse that he encounters and eventually travels with. There is some light commentary on what the fall of the United States could mean to your regular nine to fiver closing in on middle-age and still clinging to the vestiges of the American Dream like Mortimer, but again, Gischler knew he wasn't going to be competing for overwrought literary awards with this one and quickly moves on to the next gunfight before anything can get too introspective.

As a final thought, some have argued this book is sexist. And they're probably right. But who cares? It's a good time. Have some fun in your escapism for a change.

Pathfinder Tales: Liar's Blade (2013)

Rodrick, a rakish scoundrel, and Hrym, his sentient magical sword sidekick, are on the hunt for fortune and glory, and what better way to line your pockets than collecting an ancient artifact from a frozen wasteland? Rodrick and Hyrm find themselves in the company of a religious fanatic, his somewhat creepy servant, and a potentially addled ranger on the hunt for the treasure. Magic, monsters, and perception checks await! Huzzah!

Despite being a tabletop RPG nerd for the vast majority of my life, I've never actually played a game of Pathfinder before. I lost interest in new versions of D&D after Wizards of the Coast assumed control of the brand and slowly started allowing the pronoun brigade to infect it, so Pathfinder, being this sorta-kinda offshoot of D&D initially, wasn't exactly on my radar for the longest time. However, a modern fantasy novel that's said to channel Fritz Leiber? Maybe I could get behind that.

That said, I'm never certain if author Tim Pratt knows exactly what he wants Liar's Blade to be. The concept of a sentient weapon in a fantasy story has been used plenty of times before, but turning the weapon Hrym into a smartass rogue wielded by another smartass rogue in the form of Rodrick is a novel turn. There's more than a hint of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser in Rodrick and Hrym's relationship (one chapter is even titled 'Sword and Deviltry', so we're getting really on the nose with the Fritz Leiber influence here). However, it feels as if these two would be better suited in their own buddy cop misadventure. Instead, we have them teaming up with an offbeat party of adventurers who never seem able to fully trust one another on what appears to be a typical fantasy style epic quest to snag a mystical widget of extreme power.

I do appreciate that the author didn't feel the need to give us a long-winded origin story for how Rodrick and Hrym came to be a pairing, and the action is pretty decent when compared to other fluff fantasy tie-in novels in the same wheelhouse. It's the dialogue and the banter between characters that I have a problem with and where Liar's Blade comes starts to come undone. The author spends a lot of time making his cast of characters unbearably quippy with one another. I get the impression Tim Pratt is a big fan of Joss Whedon... and that's never a good thing considering Whedon is one of the main perpetrators of why modern film and television has become so goddamn unbearable.

Liar's Blade is not the worst read if you're looking for some fast-paced fantasy, but it doesn't exactly maintain my interest and certainly doesn't inspire me to read the direct sequels to this story or even other Pathfinder novels.