Stiletto

Originally posted on bluchickenninja.com :)

Stiletto by Daniel o'Malley is the long awaited sequel to The Rook (which you should totally read if you haven't already) and the only way I can really describe these books is it's the british version of Men In Black but with more fantastical creatures and British humor. In fact I think the very very British humor in this was the thing that stood out the most to me. This book is very very silly, it doesn't take itself too seriously and that makes for a very enjoyable read.

However that doesn't necessarily make this a good read. I liked it but it wasn't great. It seemed to drag on forever in parts. There was quite a lot of unnecessary exposition especially around the history of the Grafters. The Rook was written entirely from Myfanwy's point of view so I was thrown off quite bad when I found this was written from a number of different pov's. The end part takes place in Scotland and I couldn't enjoy it because it seemed that o'Malley hadn't consulted a map at all before writing distances. I realise there are parts of Scotland that are totally uninhabited for miles and miles but it would have taken all of 5 minutes for him to learn that everything is very close together in central Scotland. Okay mini rant over. But I have to say though it wasn't very good, I still enjoyed it. Maybe even if you don't read this give The Rook a try because it works very well as a standalone novel.

This book has alot of the writing qualities of the first book that I enjoyed but there were some changes that put up some roadblocks to my enjoyment. First there are whole chapters, some are quite long, where it's all backfill. I prefer short bursts of getting off-track.

Second, there are quite a few people that you're looking thru their eyes at the goings-on, and there is no effort made to give you a heads-up that you're changing viewpoints. Too much getting lost on my part.

I was glad to see that the main character of the first book shows up. The tricky thing is the shifting perspective; looking thru her eyes as well as looking at her from others.

I'm 25% in to a TWENTY-THREE HOUR book. I'm not sure where the plot is going, and I'm not interested in putting up with all the above issues that long.

Let's get a few things out of the way: Stiletto was a very different book from the Rook. But it was a very, very good book. In fact, I think it might be a better book than Rook (although not quite as enjoyable.) In Stiletto, O'Malley zooms out from the narrow perspective of Myfanwy to a much bigger story about the Checquy, told primarily from the point of view of the Checquy's mortal enemies, now nascent allies, the Grafters. By switching perspective, O'Malley uses the different takes on supernatural and what each considers the proper way of things to really explore cultural dissonance. I thought O'Malley had a lot of interesting things to say about assimilation, alliances and immigration through the lens of these secret, ancient, supernatural organization. As an aside, I felt pretty anxious about how bring the Antagonists into the story would work with that because I was worried that they would be yet another, totally separate secret, ancient, supernatural group that would really unbalance the novel. I was extremely pleased with the direction that he went in. Also, it's very unusual for me to come across a book with a twist that both makes sense and surprises me.

I also continue to be extremely pleased by how deftly O'Malley writes female characters: they are distinct, nuanced, not sexualized and have agency. Yes, they tend to be dismayed to wear extremely expensive clothing, which they subsequently manage to ruin during action sequences, but everyone has their quirks.

Speaking of literary quirks, people who didn't like the Rook won't like Stiletto either. O'Malley loves info-dumping, and uses the merger between the Checquy and the Grafters as an excuse to go off on historical tangents (I'm pretty into his world-building, and found this fun, but it's an odd pacing choice.) He is intent on sharing the backstory of every character in the universe, even if they only survive for two pages. And he paces books like a TV show, with lots of monster-of-the-week encounters (including one that's kind of poorly paced.) But he's a fresh new voice on the speculative fiction scene, writing new, fun, things with well-written characters, well-drawn settings and something new to say with fantasy worlds, so, yeah, I'll read anything he writes.