cavalary's reviews
269 reviews

With a good director and a decent budget, 24 Bones would make a pretty cool action movie. As a book, however, it has some issues, one being that the writing can at times be somewhat difficult to follow and at others a bit grating. And then there's the fact that, in spite of the large amount of potential material, it was all squeezed into a single relatively short novel, so certain things are rushed, not being properly explored or explained, coming more or less out of nowhere or being too fortunate or otherwise questionable even if the premises are accepted.
Still, those questionable parts do tend to be mainly details, as the story is otherwise internally consistent and does give the impression of being properly researched, though I'm not exactly in a position to judge the accuracy of some of its supposedly more realistic aspects. Also, and fortunately for me, said realistic aspects are left mainly in the background, more specific elements being used sparingly, largely only to establish the time and place, so this is a case of urban fantasy where the fantasy aspect clearly dominates.
One final note, however, is that the story makes it clear from the beginning that the opportunity for this to happen appears every 500 years. As such, humans being humans, it only makes sense that it was attempted every 500 years. Of course, it may have failed every single time, it may have been stopped relatively early in the past, and the world at large may not have heard of it, but signs should have remained and they should have been discovered by the characters. And, while this is another likely positive element for that movie I mentioned, if past attempts didn't cause permanent damage, this one probably shouldn't have either.

Once you get past the present-time part, whose sole purpose seems to be to spoil the ending, it becomes increasingly obvious that there may be a good story in here, albeit a bitterly sad one. Actually, make that a great story; a thrilling, breathtaking story, which may well exist within an interesting world and have some deeper meaning to convey as well. I'd quite like to read that story, especially if the religious aspect was mainly added for realism and the deeper meaning is mainly what's spelled out in the last chapter. However, it seems I somehow ended up with the pile of highly detailed yet hastily written notes upon which a book, or even an entire series, is to be based. If, on the other hand, the author actually believes this to be a real book in any way worth publishing, my only advice to him is to either give away or sell the rights to someone who can actually write or hire a ghost writer to salvage something from it in his name.
Now I'm not even talking about the significant number of obvious mistakes, which reveal a lack of not only proper editing but even that of simple proofreading. I'm talking about the fact that nothing flows; nothing carries any weight or has any impact, no matter how momentous, shocking, desperate or heartbreaking the events and situations themselves may be; the dialogues seem like an endless stream of examples of how people couldn't possibly talk; developments are rushed and strung together beyond any shred of plausible suspension of disbelief... It's simply a pain to read and a shame, as this is a story which would deserve a better fate, if only it'd be unearthed from beneath the terrible writing.

Notice: I do not give the author or publisher permission to use parts of this review for promotional purposes. Saying this because it’s easy to see how certain bits could be taken out of context and used as such.

Another review would make no difference among the thousands and I could never do this book justice no matter how hard I'd try. Sure, I could praise it at length or, at the same time, find a few things to nitpick, but the former can be accomplished in few words as well and I simply don't want to even attempt the latter. Which should in fact be all the praise it needs, coming from me.
This is the story of a man, but not of some average person destined to save the world, who somehow manages it with the help of friends, a ludicrous amount of luck and perhaps divine intervention, as it's so often the case. No; this is the story of a truly extraordinary man, who knows it and shows it, and who has himself to thank and to blame for his successes and failures, at least most of the time. It is the story of a man the rest of us can't hope to become, and that is oddly reassuring, for reasons I won't detail.
Yes, it's the first book in a series. Yes, it's not some sprawling epic, but takes place in few locations, with few additional characters and, so far, no events that have that much impact in the grand scheme of things. However, the atmosphere truly pulls you in and never lets go, the weight of emotions and the connection created, albeit with only a couple of characters, is at times overpowering, and the wisdom that every so often springs to life from the pages can be startling and soothing at the same time. It left me speechless, breathless, stunned and in awe, and nearly made me cry multiple times, including now as I'm writing this. Which, again, is saying a lot.

I have to say once again that, for me, a good book must include non-humans, be they elves, vampires, extraterrestrials or whatever else, and/or magic. Or, at least, if it needs to happen in the "real world", have the decency to be placed at least a few centuries ago. I don't want to read a book that depicts things I can see around me. Also, I want a grand scale, the final outcome affecting the entire world, or at least a significant portion of it, not just the lives of a few characters.
Still, I'll have to do what those critics in the book did with Jeremy's paintings and grudgingly say... This book is a masterpiece and I'd highly recommend it to absolutely anyone, despite only giving it four stars; that's for the reasons I explained above.
All of Anne Rice's obsessions are, naturally, present, and her idea of relationships with outrageous age gaps between the two is obviously staring you right in the face. And while I still find something like this, being with someone who could be your (grand)parent/child, utterly disgusting, in this book I didn't mind at all. Of course, I'll ask what would Belinda and Jeremy be doing now, were they to be real? 20 years after the book was written, she'd be 36 and he'd be 65.
But I just said 20 years after the book was written, didn't I? And you know what? It would be accurate to the smallest detail in depicting the general reaction to something like this even now! Disturbing, isn't it?
The only thing not depicted as bad in the book that I found (very) disturbing were the fur coats...
And the sex scenes are just... electric. I heard the ones in "The Witching Hour" were her best but, after reading this, I have to disagree.

Spoiler

But I still won't believe you can get out of such a situation by being just nice to everybody, by not hurting back the ones who tried, and managed, at least to a point, to hurt you. Such an ending did make me say "eh, it's only a book after all".
I can understand Belinda not wanting to harm Marty, after what they had, though she could, and maybe should, have reconsidered after the attempted rape, but the others... Hit them till they grovel in dirt at your feet! They did the same to you!

Otherwise... 90% of people are rotten to the core and stink to high Heaven, if such a place would exist; "morals" do more harm than good; the legal system, the American one probably more than any other in the Western world, simply sucks; and hiding things from those who are close to you only hurts in the long run... Yeah, I knew that, didn't need a book to remind me. So we're back to my original complaint, which is actually a matter of personal taste and not a complaint about the book itself.

That's it, now I'll go back to feeling like shit... My story doesn't have a happy ending...

Seems completely believable. If you're open to such things, you'll think that it's entirely possible for something like this to have actually happened at some point, somewhere. And the fact that it seems so believable just goes to show the stupidity and evilness of the human race. The idiocy behind the witch hunt is historical fact and the idea that someone would summon a being of Lasher's power and cunning just for fun really isn't far fetched at all, so that's the stupidity part. And the evilness is shown throughout the book, seeing how many of the Mayfairs used their power, in Cortland's poisonings, even in the Talamasca, but especially in Carlotta's schemes. These are fully believable; many did such things when they could and, granted such power, many would do all of them. As for Carlotta, her "quest" lacks a point.

Spoiler

Using her power to defend herself is one thing, but arranging to have Stella killed, terrorizing and then being responsible for killing Antha, not killing Deirdre but driving her insane, trying to wipe her brain and keeping her sedated all her life and then sending Rowan away, making her adoptive mother force her never to return to find out her true origins were strategies doomed from the start. A being of Lasher's power can't be stopped this way, so all she did was reveal the evilness of humans in general.

If you ask me, Carlotta's way worse than Lasher; Lasher's just Machiavellian.
Otherwise, the part about the history of the Mayfair witches is a hard but very good read and the action at the end of the book just reveals what happens when people try to do things alone when they could have help and the harm that can be done by hiding thigs from others "to protect them", because they'd be upset if they knew.
As an end note, Rice's fascination with older men, violent sex, old-fashioned behavior and amazing wealth is still there...

As a person who has nothing against abortion, actually thinking it should be mandatory in case of an accidental pregnancy or if there is any risk of the child being born with any health problems, and is very much for stem-cell research, the strong views against such things by some characters in the book really bothered me.

This really didn't catch my attention. I was reading, but my mind kept drifting to other places, until something happened to draw my attention back to the book. Then I'd have to reread the last few paragraphs to realize exactly why did it draw my attention...
Probably settled on this score because I got a quote out of it: "The world doesn't understand people who are pure of heart, it's made for people who cannot trust each other, and are not trustworthy themselves."
In the end, depressing...

Full disclosure: I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway. This has in no way influenced the opinions expressed in this review.

The Cavalier Club starts well enough, but presenting it as an adventure may well be seen as false advertising since, past the first chapter, actual action scenes are rather few and far between, and the main character may not even play an important role in some of them, at times being a mere observer. In addition, the writing style and quite a number of the words used show that the book doesn't cater to an adventure readership, or that it definitely fails in the attempt if indeed one was made.

In terms of the writing style, it does show that this is the author's first book, and not only because of the often odd and at times clearly incorrect use of commas. For instance, there are a fair number of repetitions, and descriptions in particular give a feeling of striving to reach a certain word count at the cost of going well beyond painting a picture and helping the reader "see" the characters, places and events, and instead merely stating more or less the same things multiple times, in only slightly different ways. Also, the dialogues often don't flow or don't seem reasonable, being information dumps thrown into the reader's face or making characters reveal too much too soon to each other, especially under the circumstances. And then there are the even worse information dumps, appearing to describe actual historical events, which rather shove themselves into the story and suspend it until they exhaust themselves, which may only happen after going well beyond that particular point in time and the events which may reasonably be considered relevant.
I could probably compress much of the above paragraph into one word: verbiage. Yet that'd hardly paint an accurate picture without also stating that the author seems to make a point of frequently using difficult words that add nothing but confusion. I'm not referring to terms describing parts of fortifications, weapons, armor or clothing, which may be unfamiliar to some readers yet definitely belong in a story set in that period, but about words such as agminate, ebulliently, effulgent, fuliginous, hirsute, indurate, insouciant, lambent, mellifluous, operose, saliferous or strepitous, to name but a few. And the reason why I have the list I selected those from is that I actually wrote down these words I was picking up while reading a few of the chapters and happened to send them to an English major, who also passed some on to an English teacher, the reply being that even they didn't know some of them and, where I also quoted the context, agreeing that their use was unnecessary at best, and in a couple of cases even incorrect.
Now I don't know if this is how the author usually expresses himself or it's the result of a misguided belief that writers should show off their extensive vocabulary, but unless he actually intends his works to only be aimed at a rather specialized audience, he should strive to allow a more general one to understand him with less effort. I mean, I am quite bothered, and at times very bothered, by how dumbed down most things are these days, but something that's unnecessarily highbrow without even presenting itself as such isn't a breath of fresh air, but instead almost as bad. Once again, this doesn't enhance the story or presentation in any way, but is at best unnecessary and often detrimental.

With that out of the way, let me get back to the lengthy information dumps and detailed descriptions and state that, while I'm not exactly in a position to say whether they actually are as well researched and accurate as they appear, they certainly seem to be and they make sense. There are a few times when the characters' actions may not, but the whole is internally consistent and, for a fantasy reader like myself, neither used nor exactly wishing to check against our world's reality, that's the main requirement from this point of view. If the accuracy is as high as it appears, those who care more about real events and have a keen interest in the period in question will likely appreciate this book more than I do.
Unfortunately, all of that leaves too little room for the advertised "story of adventure, bravery and love". In fact, that last element is barely worth mentioning, seeming to have been added largely to tick another box and perhaps as another method to generate the series of fortunate events that at times all too conveniently take the story forward. Likely worse, there are a few moments when such events are used to skip or completely ignore scenes of action and adventure which should have normally followed. Add what I already said at the start of this review, namely that the main character isn't a particularly active participant in some of the action scenes that do exist, and you're left with what, at least for my tastes, is far too little adventure and character development, too few reasons to feel involved and care... Which may not necessarily be such a bad thing for me at the moment, considering the impact the last book I read had on me, but definitely is a bad thing for the book.

Overall, The Cavalier Club is slow and fragmented, focusing on lengthy and at times repetitive descriptions of events and places, and on little and at times rather irrelevant details, but it may well be a better book than reading the above review would lead one to believe. It's probably also a case of not quite knowing what it wants to be, or of trying to be too many things, especially for an author's first effort, but regardless of intent, the result seems mainly aimed at those with an interest in the period in particular and in actual historical novels in general, and who at least tolerate, and preferably even enjoy, verbosity and a lofty vocabulary.
If it does indeed accurately depict the events of the period and the life of the higher parts of the society of the time, it may be better to present it as a rather soothing tale meant to transport the reader into that atmosphere instead of a potentially thrilling story where one would expect to be excited about the events and worry and cheer for the characters. In case of those stories, I tend to feel a need to pace back and forth while reading, but I read much of The Cavalier Club in bed, at times under the blanket, and the image it invoked more than once in my mind was that it wants to be read in a large room of an old house, behind a massive, antique desk, surrounded by old books in antique bookshelves, and under the glow of a soft light. Possibly even candlelight.

I once read a review stating that A Dance with Dragons is a 1200-page book containing perhaps 200 pages of action, which with a bit of effort may have even been squeezed into 100. Which is true, and I'll also add that some of that action is not presented directly, as it happens, but summarized as the memory of one character or another, after the fact. If what you seek is excitement, a thrilling read that makes you forget to breathe as your heart races and you feverishly turn the pages, you won't find it here.
A book like this couldn't be the first or the last in a series, and in a less epic one it wouldn't belong at all. Yet here it does, and that's because it's a formidable, mind-bogglingly detailed, example of worldbuilding. Yes, it does contain the next part of the story, as well as occasional humor, wisdom and further evidence, if any more was needed, that the author doesn't shy away from, well, anything, but its main purpose is to present this world, or at least certain parts of it, in incredible detail and allow you, the reader, to live and lose yourself in it for a while. You'll probably gloss over much and more, I know I did, but if there's anything you do want to know about this world, you'll likely find it here.
It can get confusing though, and not because of all those details but because it at first covers the same time span as A Feast for Crows yet still includes a few parts that would have belonged there instead, and then continues past that point yet still doesn't present everything, leaving the reader with glimpses of stories, important elements still shrouded in mystery. Of course, that is in part done on purpose, yet that makes it no less frustrating, plus that, for all its size, the ending seems rather rushed and then cut short... Which I understand the author actually admitted it was.

It's true; you may not want to buy this book. It's too short but the price doesn't reflect it, the illustrations and at times even the writing style make it look like a children's story despite being anything but, and it most definitely doesn't do the things a story should. It doesn't depict a series of extraordinary events, it features no real action to speak of and doesn't even have an actual cast of characters. Instead, it depicts a few days of the mundane, daily life of a single character, all alone. An unusual character, spending most of her time alone with her own demons and her own mind. Which is, most definitely, well, different.
It may be said that this is a book about Auri and the Underthing, but that'd hardly be right. More accurately, it may be said that this is not a book for those who are or like to consider themselves "normal" in any way. Most of all, however, it must be said that this book is about, and for, those of us who are different. It is for those of us who are strange and broken, shattered and alone, but aware of it and still caring, still involved, seeking to understand and to be understood, and desperately hoping for someone whose demons play well with our own.
You are not alone.