Book Log 15/2012 - Jon Courtenay Grimwood: The Fallen Blade

[jacey]

The Assassini Trilogy #1

Vampires and werewolves (though not as you might expect) in a 15th century Venice with slimy, dark magic! What's not to like?

Venice is ruled by Duke Marco, Prince of Serenissima, but he's a simpleton and so his uncle, Prince Alonzo the Regent, vies for power with his sister, Marco's mother, Duchess Alexa. Atilo, spy, assassin and head of the Assissini is past his prime, but he's driven to find his own successor in the wake of a battle with krieghunds, the shapechanging warriors of Leopold, the German emperor's bastard son, in which he loses most of his trained assassins.

Into this brutally Machiavellian setting comes a strangely beautiful pale boy, discovered shackled with silver and walled up in the hold of a Mamluk pirate ship. He's strong, fast and agile, can absorb peoples' thoughts and knowledge, has a strange hunger, burns in the daylight and fears to give in to the full moon.

His only memories are of a northern village where he was an orphan and a slave, and then of falling through fire... but it seems that was a hundred years ago. While in hiding the boy discovers and forms an attachment to Giulietta, Duke Marco's cousin and a marriage pawn. When Giulietta is abducted, supposedly by Mamluks Venice begins to slide towards war.

Atilo discovers the pale faced boy at the scene of a kill and the boy's speed and agility make him realise that if only he can find him, tame him and train him, he might have found the successor he's been looking for. He names the boy Tycho. The twists and turns in this story take Tycho from being Atilo's prisoner to his apprentice until he finds Giulietta once again and falls foul of Venetain justice.

This is the first book in the Assassini trilogy, so we do find a little bit about Tycho's history, but there are plenty more mysteries to look forward to in the next installment. The Fallen Blade is edgy and gritty, smelly, bloody and damp, but remains a darkly beautiful book full of twists and turns, plots and sub-plots and well rounded characters both major and minor. You'll need a strong stomach to counter its casual cruelty, but it's still a book wth flashes of real warmth and sensitivity, mainly because of the character of Tycho who has neither soul nor heart, but who still manages some personal integrity despite being used to commit terrible murders on behalf of his masters.

It's compelling but oh, so complex and therefore not a fast light fictional feast, but something that needs to be sipped slowly and savoured. If anything it takes a little while to build up steam because Tycho, doesn't really come to the fore until a third of the way in and a fair amount of the early section of the book is Roderigo, captain of the Dogana, penniless since he refuses to take bribes from smugglers. Since Roderigo drops out of the last part of the book I can only assume that his importance lies in the rest of the trilogy and I wait with interest to see what happens to him along with Tycho, Atilo, Giulietta and Desdaio – Roderigo's love and Atilo's betrothed.

This is my first Jon Courtenay Grimwood. It won't be my last.

Comments

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I adore most of Grimwood, particularly the Arabesk trilogy. I shall be interested to read this one, though it does smack a bit of bandwagon jumping...

[watervole.livejournal.com]

Does he still write jumping backwards and forwards in random chunks of time? That was the bit I didn't like about his writing, even though the rest was good.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Not in this one.(I haven't read any others yet.) There area few flashbacks and a lot of jumps between major characters, but no sense of being temporally adrift.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

In what way jumping on the bandwagon? You mean vampires and werewolves? To be fair his take is very different form most of them and the actual words 'vampire' and 'werewolf' are not used. OK - Krieghunds, yes, but what Tycho is is largely left up to speculation for most of the book, and there's none of the melodramatic 'evil vampire' about him - and certainly no sparkles.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

I mean everyone and their mother is writing urban fantasy nowadays.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes, but not necessarily set in 15th Century Venice-with-magic. And this is nearly five centuries before Bram Stoker and even a few decades before Vlad the Impaler.

Tycho is more like a forerunner to the modern idea of a vampire. He feeds on blood, but not only blood. he draws life essence, too and can absorb thoughts and knowledge on contact. Sunlight burns him, but not in that instant-burst-into-flames way and he had perfect night vision but is almost day-blind. Though his memories of heis early days are fragmented he does remmember the name of the village where he grew up - Bjornvin (or something similar) - so possibly somewhere Nordic. And he thinks of himself as having 'fallen' but from where is not obvious, though 'fallen fron Hell' is one suggestion. He's also not a complete slave to the bloodlust.

[lil-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Still pretty much urban fantasy with vampires. The last book I saw that did anything much interesting with the vampire trope was Peter Watts' Blindsight.

I am not fond of vampires, or werewolves.

[birdsedge.livejournal.com]

Me neither as a general rule unless there's something more than diguised bad-boy romance. I usually avoid contemporary urban vampire fantasy like the plague though I have really enjoyed Particia Briggs Mercy Thompson series (Mercy is a coyote shapechanger reared by werewolves and now makes her living as a VW garage mechanic.) And I've enjoyed the first three Kitty Norville werewolf books. I can't cope with the sexy brooding vampire trope (with or without sparkles) but I did read the Tanya Huff 'Blood [something]' books which I only tried because I generally like Tanya Huff's other work and a friend recommended them.