Scott Graham

A welcome harking back to the Garp through Owen Meany years with Dickensian characters and situations revolving around the main character Jimmy Winslow, son of the titular character Esther Nacht. Once a foundling at the St. Cloud orphanage, Esther is adopted as an au pair to the Winslow family’s youngest daughter and ultimately acts as a surrogate birth mother for her to have a child without all the trappings and processes that go into conceiving, gestating, and delivering. The greater part of the book follows this young Winslow boy, Jimmy, born of Esther but raised by the youngest Winslow daughter, through his formative years, into his colorful years as an exchange student in Vienna Austria, and finally as an adult novelist, always with his adoptive Winslow mother hovering over his daily life, and in the background, in the shadows, is Esther, safeguarding his well being. This novel strikes this reader more than any of Irving’s other books as both a bildungsroman and roman à clef for his younger days through the peak of his writing career. Immersive, compelling, and captivating through to the last sentence.

Book 2 of the Game Changers series and the source novel for the phenom Crave/HBOMax streaming series tells the story of arch rival hockey stars engaging in a series of clandestine sexual encounters lives up to the hype. The main characters are both immensely likeable, Canadian boy-next-door-type Shane Hollander and snarky, arrogant Russian Ilya Rozanov become entangled almost from the first moment of their non-meet-cute. The built-in animosity is emotional for Shane but more performative for bad-boy Ilya and isn’t much of an obstacle to overcome. Ilya is the more sexually experienced of the two as Shane almost blindly feels his way into new territory beyond his awkward, unfulfilling prior encounters with women. As the characters wrestle with their emotions and the relationship evolves, the author does not shy away from being descriptive, so warning to those squeamish over descriptions of homosexual activities.

The Grace Of Kings was interesting, but not enjoyable. This story with a Far East Asian sensibility relates the tale of the end of one dynasty at the hands of a fractured rebellion that evolves into a second dictatorship (hegemony) at war with another faction of the original rebellion could also be seen as the War of the Roses in England, or the infighting between the players of the French Revolution or the Russian Revolution. It was work keeping track of the world of characters and place names. It was akin to watching a tennis match at Wimbledon where the advantage for the characters in the story was the ball. And it kept getting swatted back and forth. Early major players have nothing to do with the bulk of the story. Gods appear with a wink and a nudge and parallel the battles between the factions in the story but at the level of sibling rivalry. Liu’s writing was difficult to follow at times, primarily due to the difficulty in maintaining a strong frame of reference. To me, he seems to write better short stories than this one experience with his novels. I will continue on with the other two novels in the trilogy, and pray that I don’t reach a point of diminshing returns (à la the Red Rising Trilogy).

Cringy dialogue and dei ex machina abound. But the story is entertaining, with a unique approach to the Greek gods and classical civilization. Souls are retrieved from the afterlife by Zeus, to aid in the resumption of his control of Mount Olympus and the worship by his less than loyal human devotees. At the same time the warring Greek city-states meet in an unlikely battle with an expected outcome. Leave all expectations of competent storytelling at the title page. Like a horror film with a lot of jump scares but no suspense, or a murder mystery with clues that don’t appear until the big resolution, this story offers action with no compelling plot; much of it seems to be made up as we go along. Betrayal lurks behind every page, and character capabilities appear out of nowhere. However, the family at the center of this tale and the surrounding characters are likeable and are up against a menacing obstacle or three. Alex Robins interlaces the threads of the story very well; now if he could just make the characters speak a non-cliched sentence or two, this reader could more easily overlook the amazing coincidences of it all. Book three awaits. Wish me luck.

It’s difficult to write a review of The Ruined Gods series with all the pitfalls it contains: it’s historical fantasy that plays havoc with the historical elements that it emulates. It contains a Greek flavor, classical Greek terminology, personification of the Titans and Gods, but it does not remain faithful to the accepted anthropology and archeology of proto-classical and classical Greek periods. That caveat being said, it was a fun series to read. Robins creates a new mythology for his universe, with new inventions, new roles for women, a new concept for a war within the pantheon and the effects on humanity. Centered on a new Greek general and his wife and son, marital tension and hero worship by a son for his often absent father is established early. Other characters are introduced, mostly other soldiers, politicians, and tradespeople (not to leave out Gods and Titans) that round out the cultural of the central town, Thena. A neighborong city-state calls for help per a treaty drawn up earlier and things do not go to plan. As in classical Greek mythology where the gods liked to influence outcomes in the wars, you can imagine how things turn out when gods with mutual animosities start to affect how battles and alliances play out. The reader traverses battlefields, barely aligned cities, the afterlife and other worlds by the time the story concludes. Reimagined minotaurs, centaurs, harpies, cerberus, and a guest role by the Colossus of Rhodes make things much more interesting. Recommended for the non-pedant where ancient Greek civilization and mythology is concerned.