Features

September 7, 2008

A familiar spell is cast

Tale is derivative but still holds charm

ROBERT FOLSOM McClatchy Newspapers

Fans of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters will be in a familiar landscape reading “The Magicians and Mrs. Quent.”

This fantasy debut uses those authors’ famous works as a template. Does the place name Heathcrest Hall ring any chimes?

Ivy Lockwell is the eldest of three sisters. It is Ivy who is caught in polite society between holding the family together, after the reclusion of the sisters’ father in his library, and her chafing against the stricture of not being able to use magic (or magick, to use the genre spelling). She is female, after all, and magic also is seen as the cause of her father’s reclusiveness.

Of the novel’s three parts, the second, “Heathcrest,” limns relationships nicely from Ivy’s point of view. She applies for governess to Mr. Quent and thinks her troubles eased when hired. If only she had not uncovered an ancient tome about magic still afoot in the world, she would not have met its willful protectors.

Beckett’s first novel works in a what-if fashion: It is accessible because you know the conventions. But a little less derivation next time, please.

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“Reading the Wind,” by Brenda Cooper (Tor; $25.95)

The sequel to “The Silver Ship and the Sea,” “Reading the Wind” is one of the better young-adult books with adult appeal to sail this way in a while. The young adults (teenagers, actually) Chelo and her brother, Joseph, are castaways on Fremont, a colony planet that resents genetically altered humans such as Chelo and Joseph. When Joseph escapes to their homeworld, Cooper sets up a tense race for time when mercenaries are sent to wipe out Fremont’s not-on-our-planet population. Chelo is still there.

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SHORT TAKES

• “Marsbound,” by Joe Haldeman (Ace; $24.95)

Master of economy Haldeman relates something of a YA tale: Teenager Carmen Dula is saved after an accident on Mars by a many-limbed “angel.” Poignancy and humor recall Robert A. Heinlein’s “Red Planet.”

• “The Man With the Iron Heart,” by Harry Turtledove (Del Rey; $27)

Pre-eminent alt-history author posits a WWII scenario where SS Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich was not assassinated but draws nations into an Iraq-like quagmire.

• “City at the End of Time,” by Greg Bear (Del Rey; $27)

The Kalpa is a fated city eons uptime from present-day Seattle, where three drifters meet their albatross destinies. Dense, inexplicable and reader-worthy.

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