Greg van Eekhout

You ever have that experience where you finish a book, and are left feeling all discombobulated; not sure exactly what time it is because the sun set while you were reading, and actually kind of hungry because you might have missed dinner? California Bones did that to me.

It wasn’t an instant draw; it had blipped across my radar long enough to make it onto my TBR list, but it wasn’t until bookaneer’s review that I was motivated it to move it up. I picked it up from the library and was sucked into its pages until a solid two hours later. Unbelievably good, it was a breath of fresh air–the forceful Southern California Santa Anas, perhaps–blowing away an urban fantasy landscape cluttered with vampires and werewolves. Van Eekhout combined an almost-now Los Angeles with fast-paced heist, built it on the foundation of serious family drama, added an upbringing in a thieves’ gang, and wrapped the whole thing in some of the more interesting magic I’ve read in years.

“‘Our bodies are cauldrons,’ he said, ‘and we become the magic we consume.’ He often said things like that, things that circled around the perimeter of Daniel’s understanding, sometimes veering just within reach before darting away into ever-widening orbits. Daniel could remember the names of osteomantic creatures and their properties–mastodon for strength, griffin for speed and flight, basilisk for venom–but he grew lost when Sebastian spoke of the root concepts of magic.“

The story begins with a quick flashback to Daniel Blackhand’s childhood, learning magic from his father Sebastian; then forward to a powerful moment his family is ripped apart by the Hierarch; and then a third jump into current time with Daniel working the open-air market. He lands from one frying pan into another fire, only to be offered the ultimate thieves’ job, complete with the opportunity to recover a very personal item. At the same time, Gabriel, a bureaucrat and minor relative of the Hierarch, has sensed unfamiliar magic and is troubled that some of the city powers are starting to talk of sedition. When he meets the handler and dog who were chasing Daniel in the market, it sets him on Daniel’s trail, and brings an unexpected chance to confront his own past.

The writing is enjoyable; fast paced, descriptive enough to cause a vivid image or two but never lingering too long, naval gazing at the scenery (I’m talking to you, Way of Kings). An almost perfect tone for the story, it waxes a bit lyrical when describing the magic of osteomancy in all its grim powerful, glory. I found the degree to which Van Eekhout could make the The Hierarch and his six underlings menacing remarkable, despite their rare appearance.

I liked characterization of Daniel, an ambivalent hero who is mostly trying to keep his head down after the destruction of his childhood. Gabriel is an interesting foil, essentially using the same strategy within the Hierarch’s organization. Side characters are fleshed out enough, and the fact that they are able to still surprise Daniel seems entirely possible, given his youngish self-centeredness. I rather enjoyed Emma and Max, who each played rather interesting sidekick roles to Daniel and Gabriel.

Plotting is quick and ultimately, surprising. The heist is great fun at the beginning, the standard untouchable _target. If it also employs a standard set-up of recruiting the team and planning for the gauntlet, at least it comes complete with humor:

“Who the hell put tequila in their coffee? It was disgusting and obscene, and it made everyone on the crew feel better about what they were going to do to Sergeant Ballpeen.“

During the heist, crew member Emma takes a moment to wax poetic:

“‘All my being,’ Emma whispered, ‘like him whom the Numidian seps did thaw into a dew with poison, is dissolved, sinking through its foundations.’
‘That’s from a poem,’ she said with some despair to the crew’s stupefied expressions.
‘Yeah, Shelley,’ Moth said. ‘It’s just we usually don’t do poetry during jobs.’“

The humor nicely sets off the dark feel of the osteomantic magic, and the tough situations the team members find themselves in. All in all, it worked for me, and I’m looking forward to reading it a second time, and eventually adding it to the paper collection.

At the moment, the first three chapters are available for free on Van Eekhout’s website. I highly suggest you give them a try.

As always, full review with links and highlighted text at my blog, because damn if GR doesn't make editing extra work:
https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/07/03/california-bones-by-greg-van-eekhout/… (more)

From my blog at https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2015/02/13/pacific-fire-by-greg-van-eekhout/

Water mages. Bounty hunters. Kraken magic. Pirates. Fans of fast paced, fantastical-element thrillers should love Pacific Fire. Clever world-building, a wry dose of humor, and occasional winks at genre conventions all made for an entertaining read.

While connected to events in [b:California Bones|18490594|California Bones (Daniel Blackland, #1)|Greg Van Eekhout|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1393646834s/18490594.jpg|25312108], Pacific Fire takes place ten years after the evens in Bones. Sam, magical child of the former ruler of the L.A. Basin, and Daniel, an osteomancer, have been on the run ever since, never in one place for more than a few weeks. It’s a lonely existence, and Sam is desperate for a friend. Or girlfriend. The chief of the L.A. Department of Water and Power tracks them both down to their Salton Sea hideout with a warning. Daniel’s former guardian Otis has a new plan to dominate the magical factions fighting over Los Angeles, and wants Sam to act as the power source. Daniel determines to bring the fight to Otis, but events sideline him, leaving Sam in charge. Sam heads to a safehouse run by some Emmas, clones of one of the more brilliant L.A. osteomancers. From there it is a race to disable Otis’ plans.

Characters were interesting. At least, I felt they were interesting, but I may have been misled by my involvement with the prior book. Told from a third person limited point of view, the book blurb definitely misleads when it quotes Sam’s thoughts in first person. I was actually glad for the change in voice, but be forewarned. The Emmas were particularly stand-out characters, perhaps because Van Eekhout had to take pains to distinguish them. I might have exclaimed, “go, girl” when Em said:

“I didn’t partner up with you because I have a crush on you. I didn’t partner up with you because I was swayed by your charismatic leadership qualities. I’m not interested in being your sidekick while you see redemption, or closure, or trot ahead on a quest to fulfill your destiny. Not everything is about you, Sam.“

It’s a ‘huzzah’ moment of self-awareness, guaranteed to hit most female readers in the feels. I’m a person that’s reasonably willing to follow the yellow brick road of a well-made story, so it was only at the finish that I realized she was the sidekick, even if she had her own motivations for going. Likewise, on reflection, I realized Sam’s voice didn’t make any sense. One of the quotes I highlighted–because I loved it–actually shouldn’t have been thought, because Sam didn’t attend school in any normal sense of the word. I realized VanEekout was taking some shortcuts with Sam’s voice, and that it sounded far more contemporary–and inappropriate–for the child of a thief, and someone who has been on the run for ten years:

“There was something about Em that made him think of high school hallways and solving mysteries. Also, he liked her nose.”

Daniel hasn’t evolved too far from California Bones, except for an increase in paranoia. He still allows guilt to eat at him, but his friendships keep him from getting too far off track. The dialogue between him and his best friend Moth is always entertaining:

“Daniel took another long sip. ‘You know that thing about true friends, how they’re the ones who can tell you anything?’
‘Yeah,’ said Moth, a little puffed up.
‘I hate that thing.'”

The emotional center of the book wobbled midway through and then lost control entirely at the finish. Like [b:The Rook|10836728|The Rook (The Checquy Files, #1)|Daniel O'Malley|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327619585s/10836728.jpg|15750881], the story needs to walk the knife’s edge of risk and humor; it needs to take itself seriously enough that the reader worries about the outcome, but not so seriously that we can enjoy a self-aware wink on the way. When the stakes get truly high, with a series of devastating outcomes, the story loses its balance. Not terribly, and potentially saveable in the the third book. I will also add a general note of disapproval for the only technically resolved ending.

Fans of The Rook and [b:The Lies of Locke Lamora|127455|The Lies of Locke Lamora (Gentleman Bastard, #1)|Scott Lynch|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1386924569s/127455.jpg|2116675] will likely enjoy this series by VanEekhout. I’m still looking forward to the third book, but I think I’ll wait on adding this to the library. Many thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan-Tor/Forge for the review copy.


Okay, if anyone read and would like to discuss, spoilers follow:

On the island, Daniel discovers that his long-lost golem brother is alive. Along with his mother. I felt like he should have been more shocked, more conflicted over this discovery, as he had spent so long on his own, and missed the sense of family and tribe. California Bones was filled with reminiscences. In an article, Van Eekhout discusses the book, which makes me feel like he missed the mark even farther. When Daniel is willing to kill Paul only moments after meeting him, I was thrown out by what felt to be inconsistencies in his thinking. When he displayed anger and resentment to his mother, I was confused (again, her role seemed more minor in his memories; I didn’t understand where his anger came from). The scene was over too fast to feel right for me, and largely left me perplexed and disappointed in VanEekout’s lack of focus (if Daniel and Sam are undergoing parallel journeys of discovery, it was not done well). Sam’s sacrifice seemed only vaguely foreshadowed, and again, emotionally weird. I thought Sam wanted a normal life with a girlfriend and kisses? It was all so strange, I was left with a scrunched forehead, and not a sense of wonder or awe at the developments.… (more)

There’s so much here I could have loved… water magic, firedrakes, a L.A. that resembles Venice, San Francisco, a kick-ass woman. So perhaps you can understand my sadness when I say it failed to gestalt into something remarkable for me.

Dragon Coast is the continuation of the story began in [b:California Bones|18490594|California Bones (Daniel Blackland, #1)|Greg Van Eekhout|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1393646834s/18490594.jpg|25312108] rel="nofollow" _target="_top">(my review)and continued in [b:Pacific Fire|22238140|Pacific Fire (Daniel Blackland, #2)|Greg Van Eekhout|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1405300906s/22238140.jpg|41612036]. It most directly connects to events in Fire, so much so that I’d consider the two a duology. One can see how the success of the first book likely gestated contracts for more storytelling in that world. At any rate, consider my summary to have spoilers for Fire.

Daniel is a powerful osteomancer, or bone-mage, seeking a way to free his adopted son, Sam who disappeared during a conflict with a magically-constructed firedrake, and Daniel’s hoping he’s alive inside the creature. He’s right–Sam is alive, although it’s a schizophrenic sort of reality where he feels as if he has a discrete physical body inside the firedrake, although logic tells him he doesn’t. Unfortunately, he’s unable to operate the controls guiding the creature. Daniel has a plan to magically transfer Sam out of the drake and brings a couple of valuable friends to help–the unkillable Moth, and one of the Emmas who has developed a special relationship with Sam. In the midst of capturing the drake, the mission goes sideways: now the beast is missing and the critical and extremely rare ingredient to transfer Sam to a new body was destroyed. The only solution will take them north to the hostile country of Northern California.

The world was well-developed over the previous two books, so the author wisely avoids detailed explanations and history. Previously, I was fascinated by the canal riddled L.A., but unfortunately it appears that in this world, Northern California looks about the same as the real one. Details on the setting are largely sacrificed in favor of plotting and character.

Speaking of plotting, for a caper/heist set-up, it felt disjointed. There’s an arc regarding Sam and his experiences inside the drake, as well as Gabriel’s attempts to oppose the drake due to the destruction it has wrought on L.A.. There’s Daniel’s attempt to capture the drake. Those both come to an end with Sam’s capture, but then new conflicts arise. Gabriel and Daniel combine forces, with Gabriel and the team attempting to find Sam, and Daniel attempting to steal the ingredient needed to save Sam through an extremely complicated scam that involves impersonating his half-brother. I was reminded of The Likeness when I had to consciously accept implausibility, but it was a bit much when Daniel remained undiscovered around two childhood friends and a former lover. Coherency is further challenged with narratives shifting between Daniel, Sam, Gabriel and Cassandra.

Sam’s personal struggle is about controlling and then exploring the drake–and yes, in that order–while Daniel’s is about rescuing Sam, the deaths of families (sometimes literally) and innocence. For me, it was hard to connect with either of them. By the end, both Sam and Daniel appeared to have failed to learn any lesson until it was tied up and handed to them on a silver platter by the women in their lives. More enjoyable were the indefatigable best friend, Moth, and skilled thief Cassandra. Their abilities to decide and execute were in stark contrast to Daniel’s static ‘research’ and self-immolation.

Also interesting was Gabriel, one of the chief powers in L.A. because of his water magic. and learning more about his view of the world and watching him put his magic into action was one of the enjoyable aspects of world-building. The relationship between him and his right-hand-man, Max was one of the more complex interactions. Layered with overtones from the second book, they’ve transformed the prior owner-servant relationship into something approaching friendship, and possibly love. Now that would have been a fascinating primary story.

“It occurred to him that he could simply bring down the dam and create a cataclysmic flood that would rip sequoias from the ground, push over buildings and send them smashing into bridges… and Gabriel could arrive behind the flood, like a general walking through the gates of a conquered city.

But he didn’t want to be that kind of water mage, so he continued to slip and struggle down the cliff side.”

Language is serviceable, but again, coming off of City of Blades, I can’t help but think that with more polish, it would elevated Daniel’s modus operandi into the truly tragic instead of annoying and pointlessly self-defeating. There was a lovely bit or two where it was able to get at the emotion of a moment:

“But right now, at this moment, I don’t have time to care. You are not the most important thing to me. My pain is not the most important thing to me. I have a job to do, and all I care about is how your presence complicates it.'”

Writing shone in the humorous bits of dialogue between the team:

“‘That’s a Rothko. It’s worth millions.’
‘How do you know?’
‘What’s that thing when the little inky bugs go into your eyes and make brain knowledge? Reading.’
‘Art books are mostly pictures, aren’t they?’
‘Don’t insult me when I’m busy insulting you.'”

I suspect I am so harsh on this third book because the first book was so absolutely fun, full of creative world-building around a fast-moving plot. While there are a few great moments–crawling through pipes and eavesdropping at lunch come to mind–it lacks both the planning and the madcap rush of a true heist. Yet, it can’t quite manage the complexity of a redemption arc either. I’ll be giving this one another read through, unless the library comes knocking for their copy, but won’t be adding it to my own library.… (more)