Short Book Reviews: Return of the Sigil Scribe, With Chimeras

Paper & Blood (Book Two of the Ink & Sigil series, by Kevin Hearne (Del Rey)

I’m a huge fan of Kevin Hearne to begin with, and his “Ink and Sigil” series is a delight. As a former student of calligraphy, I love the idea that the written word is magical. In this series, set in the world of the Iron Druid, scribes create magical spells using not only words, but painstakingly prepared pens, inks, and paper. The spells include the Sigils of Unchained Destruction, Restorative Care, Agile Grace, Muscular Brawn, and Quick Compliance and are used to protect the world against malevolent gods and monsters.

Our everyman-hero, Al MacBharrais, is under a couple of nasty spells himself. If he speaks to someone more than a few times, they loathe him (this happened to his own son), and his apprentices die violently after a year of service. This isn’t good news for his hobgoblin apprentice, Buck Foi. While Al is searching for a way to lift his misfortunes, his fellow sigil agents go missing in the wilds of Australia. Al and Buck are off to the rescue, joined by one of the missing agent’s apprentices, his receptionist Gladys Who Has Seen Some Shite, a few sundry allies, and the Iron Druid himself. The search leads them to a forested preserve, where chimeric monsters lie in wait. These critters are sometimes more effective and lethal than others, but always inventive: a turtle-dragon-spider, an eagle bull, a scorpion with a rat’s head (ugh), pygmy goats with fanged snake heads, a gorilla elephant, a yak badger, and my favorite, a zebra possum.

All in all, this is a quick, fun read filled with plot twists and delightful characters but also depth, the best combination.

“Abandoned cheese is a sure sign that something’s gone wrong.”

Short Book Reviews: A Reincarnated Chimera

Race the Sands, by Sarah Beth Durst (Harper Voyager)

I loved this world, in which Becar, a precarious desert kingdom, politics are based on karmic “readings” by Muses of a person’s past lives. The stressed, disenfranchised populace is distracted by races involving vicious, mindlessly destructive chimeric monsters called kehoks, the reincarnated souls of those so evil and depraved as to be beyond hope. When the King dies at a youthful age and quite unexpectedly, his brother cannot take the throne until the King’s spirit is identified, presumably in a traditionally noble beast. The search intensifies as neighboring kingdoms scent weakness and prepare for an invasion. Unstable conditions like this form the perfect settings for taut, dynamic stories, don’t they?

Enter a failed Muse student who finds a new life as an apprentice jockey, a woman who trains racing monsters to pay her daughter’s tuition at Muse academy, her patroness, a socialite with a flair for politics, a Muse agent charged with locating the King’s spirit, and assorted other characters. What links them together with the Prince is the black-iron lion, a kehok even more volatile and dangerous – and intelligent -- than others of his kind. With him, the trainer and her new apprentice jockey have a chance to win the grand championship, and with it, financial security and independence. With war brewing and the search for the King’s spirit intensifying, with their rivals resorting to ever more desperate sabotage, it’s a race against time as well.

An added delight was the effortless skill with which Durst moved from inner to outer action, her subtle handling of tension, her compassionate portrayal of her characters and their situations, and her imaginative magic. Recommended for adult as well as YA readers.