Scooter Chronicles

On Wednesday at lunch, I finished reading “Last Dragon”, the debut novel by J. M. McDermott.

I mentioned in a meme before that I have never received an “advanced reader copy” (or ARC’s for short) of a novel before. I have come across a few people on the internet that have enough clout that they do get them. Well, by luck, I am a member of LibraryThing.Com and recently members have been able to sign up for ARC’s of certain books. They are sent out to you directly from the publisher. Though it seems that it is AFTER the book is released. My thinking is that they printed more then they needed, so are willing to give them out to Joe and Jane Public. Regardless, I was glad to get a free copy! (I also have an ARC of Neal Stephenson’s new book coming sometime soon.) This book interested me for a while given the amount of hype surrounding it. I had it on my wish list at Amazon for a bit, then decided that I might grow frustrated with it given the style of writing. However, I wasn’t going to pass up a free copy of it.

For a synopsis, I am borrowing parts, with my alterations, of a REVIEW by Michael Levy for Strange Horizons.

Zhan, an aging woman, perhaps an empress, is recalling her life in what we eventually realize are a series of short letters to a long-absent lover named Esumi. As a young woman, a member of a primitive northern tribe, Zhan was quite literally in the midst of taking her final vows as a warrior when she was called back home by a terrible tragedy. Her grandfather, a wild, perhaps mad, wanderer who had spent years away from their ancestral village, had returned home and slaughtered Zhan’s entire extended family before escaping south through the snow. Zhan and her shaman uncle, Seth, have been charged with tracking him down, executing him, and returning him (in zombie/golem form) to the village to bear witness to his crime. Along the way they accumulate companions – a renegade noblewoman, an aging mercenary, a simpleton, a beautiful gypsy who turns out to be something other than entirely human. Unwittingly during their stay in a country called Proliux, they have alerted the vicious and greedy rulers to the existence of a perhaps less powerful civilization to their north and Zhan and her friends soon find themselves racing ahead of an army, hoping to reach home in time to spread a warning of impending invasion.

Now this, as Levy says, is the straightforward edition of the plot line. But the book does not follow this chronologically at all. It jumps all over the place. Some found it tough to get a hold of at first. Knowing this going in, I found it less annoying and not as difficult. But it’s strange to learn that someone has died by another’s hand, yet in the next section of the book that person is still alive.

This way of telling a story can be seen as literary genius, or just plain stupidity. It’s somewhere in between. I wouldn’t call it genius, but it leans much heavier on that side. The biggest reason for this is the only part where it seems like a bad idea is the breaks in momentum. This style could have still be used very liberally, and to great effect, with even less jumping around and letting sections play out more then they did.

J. M. McDermott

Many have called this book a “fantasy novel for adults”, which kind of disses just about 90% of the fantasy writers out there, including some that have very well respected reputations. However, I see where those kind of comments are going. There is no build up of heroes or heroines. There is no precise descriptions of the elegance around. There are no lilttle bits of whimsy or humor. It is stark in description, and when it is there, it is a gritty, dirty world, and beyond which some already consider as such in normal fantasy tropes. There is not a lot of explanation. It is up to the reader to put light to facts and surroundings or references to the past or other objects/subjects. The book makes the reader work. It’s literature that just happens to be set in a fantasy type setting, meaning not of our history, and with a little bit of magic, and that is dark as well and not used to get out of trouble.

So there are things that are both good and bad about the novel, but it is clear that Mr. McDermott is a talented writer and will be making a good first impression across the board, even through the shortcomings of the book.