The general Monza Murcato was the most feared mercenary in Grand Duke Orso’s employ. Her fame and popularity were making the Grand Duke uneasy. When Monza and her brother met the Grand Duke and his closest circle of people they were betrayed, stabbed, their bones crushed and thrown off the Duke’s balcony. However, Monza survived and swore vengeance upon the seven men who were in the room when she was betrayed.

To help in her vengeance, Monza hired a mercenary barbarian who wanted to be a honest man, a treacherous poisoner and his apprentice, a mass murderer obsessed with numbers, an unpredictable ex-general with drinking problems, and a retired torturer.

The story of Best Served Cold has many similarities with The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas. The main character was in her moment of success when she was betrayed by a group of people whom she trusted. When they thought they had gotten rid of her, she comes back, richer and focused on taking revenge. However, Best Served Cold falls short in comparison with Dumas’ work; mainly for the lack of the suspense Duma’s writing creates even if the reader already knows the story. The ending of Best Served Cold can also be a bit disappointing. The details are well treated, but in general it seems rushed in the easy way – it does not stand the comparison with wonderful ending of The Count of Monte Cristo (in content and in style).

What makes Best Served Cold special are the characters. Each character, ally or enemy, is vividly described and attracts the reader’s sympathy for all his/hers psychotic and amoral features. The past of each character is slowly disclosed throughout the book, which turns them progressively more interesting.

As it claims to have “splatterpunk” influences, many scenes with stabbing, violence, torture and lots of blood can be found in Best Served Cold, and there is not the feeling that the main characters are being spared of the worse treatments. However, after the shock of the first violent scenes, the bloody aspect is also mixed with a huge load of dark humor.

Milena is a young actress who has never been read and is immune to most viruses. She meets Rolfa, a half-polar bear woman who is also a musician, and falls in love with her. Homosexuality is rare, it is regarded as “bad grammar” and “corrected” with viruses.

Milena has to deal with her own unsocial problems while she attempts to stage a mega-production of an opera composed by Rolfa, based on Dante’s Divine Comedy, and keeps wondering why “The Consensus” seems to support her instead of eliminating her.

The Child Garden is a complex novel that deals with many subjects in a rich and poetic manner. Mainly, it deals with the transformation of human beings and human culture to an uniform society and the impact it has in the individual. And the story is entirely given in the point of view of an individual who is not well connected to the tissue of society – Milena.

The Child Garden deals with some of the problems and losses that arise from solving human problems by means that were once considered a problem. Decreasing the lifespan by curing cancer with the viruses was the crudest example given, but the same could be applied for what is lost when individuality is sacrificed to create a completely unified society.

One issue approached was the solitude that can be created in the unification of a group. When a society is an integrated group of individuals, might feel solitude as a lonely animal – which is nothing more than an integrated group of cells (that is believed to have evolved from a group of unicellular organisms).

It is also worth mentioning the rich way the story is told. There is much to tell in this aspect, but what especially caught my attention was:

• The use of metaphors, which is luxurious and delicious: 1) especially as they come in colourful images and 2) even if morbid meanings are cruelly expressed through beautiful images (or the opposite).
• The use of music references in the text, as music playing in certain situations or as characters singing their own words with classical music /opera music. This is particularly special as the music referred not only enriches the meaning of the text, but it may give it a second meaning, an ironic meaning or even alter its meaning completely. The music references are inserted in the text with Wagnerian precision, where not a single note is useless, maybe to give an image of how Rolfa’s music was written in the Divine Comedy to be read together with the text.

The Child Garden is no light reading. It is very dense and complex both in its form and content. After reading it I went back to some of its parts and I surely intend to read it again.

The Child Garden was first published in 1989 and won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Memorial Award in 1990.

Harper Connolly is honest, ethical and loyal – and ever since a bolt of lightning zapped her on the head, she’s had an extra-special talent: she can find dead people. It’s not a common-or-garden job. Some people find Harper’s talent useful and fascinating, but she’s getting to most people treating her like a blood-sucking leech. She’s become an expert at getting in, getting paid and getting out, fast.

When Harper and her stepbrother Tolliver travel to the Ozarks to find a local teenager, missing, believed dead, they discover that someone is willing to go to great lengths to bury a secret.

The summary in the back tells quite well what this work is about. Harper Connolly has the ability to sense the last experiences of corpses. Therefore she also perceives when a dead body is near by its last memories. However, she is not able to communicate with dead people, see who murdered them or any other kind of medium abilities. She and her stepbrother travel through the USA, to where they are hired by people who pay for Harper’s services: finding dead bodies and discover the cause of death.

This is an all-American work, about all-American people aimed to all-American readers.

The story is a crime plot, which is told in a direct straight-forward way, without any literary embellishments. The characters are all-American people, and it is hard for a European reader to feel some sort of identification with them. Also, there are no characters deep enough to become really interesting. Even Harper, who the author took great care to remark that was intellectually superior to the other characters, seems quite shallow.

By this book, the Harper Connolly series seems very similar to the Sookie Stackhouse series in the kind of characters, way of writing and sense of humor, but the Sookie series feels more special for the higher amount of fantasy elements, and the way it makes the characters more appealing.

Grave Sight is entertaining, easy and fast to read, but feels too light.

Glogauer suffered from many neuroses and chronic psychological problems related with childhood traumas, his strong Christian education, the rupture with Christianity in later years, and his messed up views upon sexuality. Although he felt no longer a Christian, he volunteered to test the time machine built by a friend. And so he decided to go to Palestine and witness the crucification of Christ, a decisive event in human History and in his own life.

However, when he arrived (one year before the death of Jesus) John the Baptist’s group never heard about Jesus and they were still waiting for their Savior.  Glogauer was stuck in the past, the “greatest moment” was approaching, and things were not happening as they should… someone had to do something for the sake History!

Behold the Man is a novella with a plot that becomes interesting by the way it is told. The story starts by Glogauer’s arrival in Palestine, and the events before the time travel (London, 20^th century) are given by flashbacks and memoirs that come parallel with the events in Palestine. Also, some passages from the Bible are placed in the proper places to offer the alternative description of the events, and to give the final touch to the dark humor of the tale.

Even the main character, Glogauer, becomes interesting by its frailty, as he is the opposite of what is expected in a hero: he is weak, depressed and neurotic, with a personality crushed by the society that, after all, was his own creation.

Behold the Man won the Nebula Award for best novella in 1967.

The Third God is the third and final part of The Stone Dance of the Chameleon, and unifies it into a three volume epic, rather than a trilogy. The plot is complex, taking many twists and turns, to reach an apocalyptic ending. Carnelian – from whose point of view the whole story is told – although not a strong and active hero, proved to have the key role in the events.

The main weakness of Carnelian as a character is his emotional dependence on other characters. But that “over-humanity” may be intended to mark the difference of the deity he represents and emphasize the sadism that is characteristic of the Masters and the Wise.

The ending makes justice to the size and complexity of the work, and it amazed me for its credibility. Political systems tend to be cyclic: sooner or later dominant groups loose strength and fall. Our History tells us that the most stable systems are the ones with strongest hierarchy and religious faith, but even those may fall. It is also interesting to think how time/habit/tradition can give strength to one system that starts in fragile conditions, and how dominant parties seek tradition to make their beginning fall into oblivion.

The Stone Dance of the Chameleon is written in a vivid and colorful way, even if sometimes the presence of blood, death and violence may be considered a bit excessive by some readers. As a Fantasy Epic, its original characters and setting lead the plot to a completely new direction. Time will undoubtedly put it among the Fantasy Classics.

Although The Standing Dead is the continuation of The Chosen, and the events of The Chosen are essential to understand it, the plot and the thematic take a huge turn. In The Chosen the background unfolds in front of Carnelian, who was taking his first steps in the (poisoned) heaven of Osrakum. In The Standing Dead the main characters – Carnelian and Obsidian – were in a critic situation and were forced to develop themselves, which they did according to their own natures. Carnelian, with his simplicity and kind nature, wished to mingle with the tribe’s people, who were more similar to him than the Masters; and Obsidian, intrinsically Master of the Masters, recoiled to himself to show later his ability to manipulate and dominate people.

The comparison of the societies in Osrakum and in Earthsky is fascinating, as it is the way that Osrakum controls the people of Earthsky by their most individual and human egoism. The deep changes operated by Obsidian in Earthsky are also amazingly credible, especially as the human factor in them is perfectly recognizable. We may find examples of similar changes in World History (even if we are not proud of them).

The relationship of Carnelian and Obsidian also suffered a strange development. As both characters evolved in such different ways, and the strain imposed to them would not allow romantic love, their relationship evolved to a strong and weird partnership as if they were a long married couple. Although this relationship became so strange that it merged the impossible, it is so well (and subtly) described that it becomes amazingly credible.

And the plot continues in The Third God…

Lord Suth was one of the most powerful noblemen in Osrakum, but was forced to exile by his enemies. His son Carnelian grew up in exile with a luxurious household, but without ever knowing the excesses of life in court.

One day a delegation arrived from Osrakum bringing the news of the eminent death of the Emperor, and the need of Lord Suth’s return to supervise the election of the new Emperor – every Emperor must have twin sons, one should be elected Emperor after his father’s death, the other should die during the coronation of his brother.

The journey of Carnilean and his father back to the court in Osrakum begins, bringing back all social ways that were neglected in exile and that Carnelian never knew about.

The society in Osrakum is highly stratified, with an aristocracy made of big and beautiful people who live in luxury and have an obsession about blood purity and lineage, which is directly related to social status. The aristocracy is served by slaves, who are smaller and uglier people taken as a tax from tribes that consider the aristocracy as divinity. The slaves are treated as objects that could be used and discarded at will.

Another feature of this society is the use of masks. Aristocrats wear masks that must be taken out as soon as the highest one shows his face. If the difference of rank is too big, it is a crime for the lower ranked aristocrat to look at the face of his superior, and the sentence for this crime is death. A slave that sees the face of a Lord must die immediately.

The Chosen is the first volume of The Stone Dance of the Chameleon, and it mainly consists of the return of Lord Suth and Carnelian to Osrakum. The narration is centered in Carnelian, who is so familiar with that world and that society as the reader. The story itself just begins by the end of the book, when Carnelian meets and falls in love with Obsidian, and the election takes place. Although most of this volume seems like a contextualization, it does not become boring as there is always the feeling of excitement as this fantastic – and sometimes nightmarish – world is created in front of Carnelian (and the reader). It is a kind of big scale social experiment.

The Chosen is followed by The Standing Dead and The Third God.

Arren, the young prince of Enlad, travelled to the island of Roke to ask help to the Archmage of the wizardry school. Magic was losing power throughout Eartsea, except in the well protected island of Roke, and magical animals and wizards were sickening and going mad. In the Assembly of the highest mages of the school, the Archmage (Sparrohawk/Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan) decided to go himself in search for the reason of the disturbances in magic. He only accepted the company of Arren, who had no magic, in spite of his royal lineage.

The Farthest Shore is the third book of the Earthsea series. As in the two first books, the plot stands by itself, and is about the personal growth of a character, in this case Arren, from whose point of view the story is told. It is also centered in the character of Ged/Sparrowhawk, who became a mature magician and the Archmage of Roke.

As there are many thematic and structural similarities between The Farthest Shore and A Wizard of Earthsea, and the third book lacks the novelty that was offered in the first book of the series, the comparison might favor A Wizard of Earthsea. However the two books are brilliantly written, and there are many slight differences between Ged’s and Arren’s stories so that it is worth to notice how they complement each other. The Farthest Shore also brings a different kind of gloomy and vicious environment to the Earthsea World, which makes it essential to anyone who became fascinated by the first two books of the series.

The Farthest Shore won the 1973 National Book Award for Children’s Books.

The world population has decreased to an extremely low number and no children have been produced in the last years. People are educated to live in a constantly drugged state, caring just for their individual pleasure, and to interrupt someone’s inwardness is a crime. The teaching of reading is forbidden, as it is a way of someone’s thoughts invade other people’s minds. Decaying robots care for (and control) the humans.

By chance, Paul Bentley learns how to read by himself through old children’s books. He is employed by the dean of the NYU, Robert Spofforth, a Make Nine robot. Make Nine robots were the most perfect super-intelligent robots, but all of them committed suicide, except for Sporfforth, that wished it, but was programmed not to. While in New York, Bentley meets Mary Lou, a woman who had a very high IQ and escaped the educational program. These three characters are the only intelligent beings left in the world…

Mockingbird is the story of three very different characters that, together, hold the key of humanity in their hands and don’t know how to deal with each other. This book is built in a very interesting concept: humans created technology to help them; humans relied on technology for all their problems and lost all technological knowledge; humans got controlled by technology; without supervising, technology started decaying and dragging humanity with it. The main storyline becomes rather ordinary, especially towards the end, but the book is brilliant for its intelligent writing and awareness of the social problems that started to be felt in the 80’s, when it was first published, and became worse nowadays.

While shooting polar bears in the Artic he was attacked by a female bear that left him in coma for several weeks.

Will revisited his childhood in his coma, at the time when he met a couple who had a major influence in his life as an artist and as a man. Will’s parents lived with the trauma of the loss of their favorite son and so Jacob Steep and Rosa McGee offered Will the love his own family denied him. However, this was no ordinary couple: Rosa and Jacob were centuries old, didn’t remember their childhood or even knew who they were. They wandered together around the world, Rosa lusting for sadistic sexual pleasure and wishing to have children, and Jacob taking pleasure on the death of animals (especially if they were the last of a species) and killing his and Rosa’s children.

Although Will was separated from Rosa and Jacob, a mysterious bond between him and Jacob was created.

When Will woke from the coma he started a journey to discover the nature of his bond to Jacob and Rosa, and the role all them would play in the destiny of Life.

Sacrament is rich in symbology, which is used to tackle two main subjects at the same time and to draw a parallelism between them. The first is the boom of animal extinctions caused by Man, the “disease” of Life in Earth. The second is the boom of death among gay people caused by AIDS. Will Rabjohns, as a photographer and a gay man, watches and portrays the disease, struggle to survive and near extinction of wildlife/gay people.

The characters in Sacrament are well drawn and filled with pure raw energy – life and death energy. The symbolic elements give a vivid color to the novel, especially in the most melancholic parts where it could have turned dull. There are also some funny and dark humored moments and thoughts. For instance,  Jacob Steep, whose hobby was to kill the last specimens of a species, was strongly annoyed by homosexual people. Even if he managed to wipe out every homosexual from the Earth, they would still be born and “slyly” recover their numbers.

However, sometimes the symbology seemed a bit forced, or that it was getting out of control. Also, the references to God did not help.

Even with its flaws, Sacrament is highly imaginative and interesting to read. A special praise must be done to it: the plague of AIDS in the American gay community during the 80’s inspired thousands of novels (to nausea), but in Sacrament the approach is different enough to make it worth reading.