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Caliph Howl #1
The Last Page
The city of Isca is set like a dark jewel in the crown of the Duchy of Stonehold. In this sprawling landscape, the monsters one sees are nothing compared to what’s living in the city’s sewers.
Twenty-three-year-old Caliph Howl is Stonehold’s reluctant High King. Thrust onto the throne, Caliph has inherited Stonehold’s dirtiest court secrets. He also faces a brewing civil war that he is unprepared to fight. After months alone amid a swirl of gossip and political machinations, the sudden reappearance of his old lover, Sena, is a welcome bit of relief. But Sena has her own legacy to claim: she has been trained from birth by the Shradnae witchocracy—adept in espionage and the art of magical equations writ in blood—and she has been sent to spy on the High King.
Yet there are magics that demand a higher price than blood. Sena secretly plots to unlock the Cisrym Ta, an arcane text whose pages contain the power to destroy worlds. The key to opening the book lies in Caliph’s veins, forcing Sena to decide if her obsession for power is greater than her love for Caliph.
Meanwhile, a fleet of airships creeps ever closer to Isca. As the final battle in a devastating civil war looms and the last page of the Cisrym Ta waits to be read, Caliph and Sena must face the deadly consequences of their decisions. And the blood of these conflicts will stain this and other worlds forever.
Twenty-three-year-old Caliph Howl is Stonehold’s reluctant High King. Thrust onto the throne, Caliph has inherited Stonehold’s dirtiest court secrets. He also faces a brewing civil war that he is unprepared to fight. After months alone amid a swirl of gossip and political machinations, the sudden reappearance of his old lover, Sena, is a welcome bit of relief. But Sena has her own legacy to claim: she has been trained from birth by the Shradnae witchocracy—adept in espionage and the art of magical equations writ in blood—and she has been sent to spy on the High King.
Yet there are magics that demand a higher price than blood. Sena secretly plots to unlock the Cisrym Ta, an arcane text whose pages contain the power to destroy worlds. The key to opening the book lies in Caliph’s veins, forcing Sena to decide if her obsession for power is greater than her love for Caliph.
Meanwhile, a fleet of airships creeps ever closer to Isca. As the final battle in a devastating civil war looms and the last page of the Cisrym Ta waits to be read, Caliph and Sena must face the deadly consequences of their decisions. And the blood of these conflicts will stain this and other worlds forever.
431 pages, Hardcover
First published August 10, 2010
16 people are currently reading
1526 people want to read
About the author
Anthony Huso
8 books28 followersAnthony Huso lives in Cedar Park, Texas. The Last Page is his first novel.
Anthony in his own words:
Anthony_PhotoKnowing that a B.A. in English wasn’t likely to land him a good-paying job, Anthony did the only thing he could think of: he got the degree as quickly and cheaply as he could.
Having dreamt of being an author since age eight, he reveled in his classes until June of 1996 when, after three years of school, he left the University of Minnesota with proof that he could read.
Interviewers were unimpressed and, true to his expectations, he found himself making $10 an hour as a home health aide, a door-to-door vacuum salesman, and later as a bill collector.
Jobs that paid the bills were just that: jobs. When the workday was over he left them behind, completely. At home he continued doing what he loved, creating, writing and tinkering with computers.
A self-described nerd (and proud of it) Anthony was completely surprised when his experiments with video game design landed him a job at Arkane Studios, a game company based in Lyon, France.
Deciding it was time to begin living rather than continue dreaming he took a chance, sold his house, quit his job and cashed out his 401k. He spent an amazing year living in France, sightseeing in Switzerland and Italy with his wife and three daughters.
After a year in Europe he returned to the states and continued working in games, this time based in Austin, Texas.
Delighted to finally have a job that encouraged his creativity, and inspired by the many people he had met in the game industry, Anthony took eight months to rewrite a story he had been fiddling with since college.
He submitted “The Last Page” to several potential agents and publishers.
After a couple years worth of rejection and good advice, he finally sold the “Last Page” and its sequel to Tor Books in early 2009.
***
Origins
I don’t really want to talk about me directly. I’d rather talk about motivations behind my writing.
I grew up in a wondrous and sinister region of the Midwest, a small town where some folks thought they were vampires. True story. That blue house for instance, across from the cemetery—south of town on the barren hillside…not even a tree dared grow on that lawn. Or so I fabulized. The whole region was a stew of parochial occult and god-fearing sensibilities, where black magic—at times—seemed real and where God was in the moon and tree arms. God was in the molten strawberry gum in the girl’s mouth I was tasting. God was in fireworks and match heads and the smell of sulfur. Good and evil were equally esoteric during all seasons of the year. And I could smell them.
There were secular and Christian rites and witchcraft and even murder there in that little town on the river—even though it took the FBI man a long time to figure out the case. There were drugs and sex and geese in nooses hung from trees in the cul-de-sac where the road just ended without explanation at the edge of fields and forests frosted with autumn and sprinkled with rusting Hamms beer cans.
It wasn’t a welcoming town. You knew if you were an outsider.
But it was magical, in a Dandelion Wine sort of way…only darker, realer, with more of a sense of true danger (spiced with cinnamon).
I’m just telling you how it was.
Now, this isn’t some kind of soapboxing wherein I proclaim that fantasy is just as good as any other kind of fiction.
All I’m offering is the reason that I write it, which you must be interested in—seeing as how you’re here. The answer is simple.
I don’t really know.
What I do know is that fear and uncertainty are powerful emotions. So are the nuances of awe, awkwardness and powerlessness. So is love and hope.
The instances where those emotions have hit me in conjunction—close together and sometimes for the first time—have left impact craters. I find myself wanting to extrude those things into a thin gooey sheet I can hold up to the light and examine.
I remember standing at t
Anthony in his own words:
Anthony_PhotoKnowing that a B.A. in English wasn’t likely to land him a good-paying job, Anthony did the only thing he could think of: he got the degree as quickly and cheaply as he could.
Having dreamt of being an author since age eight, he reveled in his classes until June of 1996 when, after three years of school, he left the University of Minnesota with proof that he could read.
Interviewers were unimpressed and, true to his expectations, he found himself making $10 an hour as a home health aide, a door-to-door vacuum salesman, and later as a bill collector.
Jobs that paid the bills were just that: jobs. When the workday was over he left them behind, completely. At home he continued doing what he loved, creating, writing and tinkering with computers.
A self-described nerd (and proud of it) Anthony was completely surprised when his experiments with video game design landed him a job at Arkane Studios, a game company based in Lyon, France.
Deciding it was time to begin living rather than continue dreaming he took a chance, sold his house, quit his job and cashed out his 401k. He spent an amazing year living in France, sightseeing in Switzerland and Italy with his wife and three daughters.
After a year in Europe he returned to the states and continued working in games, this time based in Austin, Texas.
Delighted to finally have a job that encouraged his creativity, and inspired by the many people he had met in the game industry, Anthony took eight months to rewrite a story he had been fiddling with since college.
He submitted “The Last Page” to several potential agents and publishers.
After a couple years worth of rejection and good advice, he finally sold the “Last Page” and its sequel to Tor Books in early 2009.
***
Origins
I don’t really want to talk about me directly. I’d rather talk about motivations behind my writing.
I grew up in a wondrous and sinister region of the Midwest, a small town where some folks thought they were vampires. True story. That blue house for instance, across from the cemetery—south of town on the barren hillside…not even a tree dared grow on that lawn. Or so I fabulized. The whole region was a stew of parochial occult and god-fearing sensibilities, where black magic—at times—seemed real and where God was in the moon and tree arms. God was in the molten strawberry gum in the girl’s mouth I was tasting. God was in fireworks and match heads and the smell of sulfur. Good and evil were equally esoteric during all seasons of the year. And I could smell them.
There were secular and Christian rites and witchcraft and even murder there in that little town on the river—even though it took the FBI man a long time to figure out the case. There were drugs and sex and geese in nooses hung from trees in the cul-de-sac where the road just ended without explanation at the edge of fields and forests frosted with autumn and sprinkled with rusting Hamms beer cans.
It wasn’t a welcoming town. You knew if you were an outsider.
But it was magical, in a Dandelion Wine sort of way…only darker, realer, with more of a sense of true danger (spiced with cinnamon).
I’m just telling you how it was.
Now, this isn’t some kind of soapboxing wherein I proclaim that fantasy is just as good as any other kind of fiction.
All I’m offering is the reason that I write it, which you must be interested in—seeing as how you’re here. The answer is simple.
I don’t really know.
What I do know is that fear and uncertainty are powerful emotions. So are the nuances of awe, awkwardness and powerlessness. So is love and hope.
The instances where those emotions have hit me in conjunction—close together and sometimes for the first time—have left impact craters. I find myself wanting to extrude those things into a thin gooey sheet I can hold up to the light and examine.
I remember standing at t
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 99 reviews
December 4, 2013
Only good grammar saved this book from being a single star. (This is possibly the longest review I've ever written. It was simply so problematic that I need the catharsis of writing about it. For the high points, skip to the end.)
This novel had such an interesting premise. Spies, a reluctant king, magic through math... the math angle was enough to hook me. Too bad the author has no grasp of higher mathematics (a few buzz words thrown in here and there) and never, ever explained how "holomorphy" works (aside from using blood as fuel). He also has only a loose grasp of military tactics but I'm no expert, so we won't quibble about that.
The book suffers from a number of flaws. First, the secondary characters are introduced as important but are often found hanging around a scene without actually doing or saying anything. There is scant emotional connection with these characters, who have no motivations and inconsistent personality. For instance, we're supposed to believe that Sena hates Megan, her mentor, as shown by . However, at no point in the few scenes with Megan is she ever cruel or hateful towards Sena. She seems to be a hard, powerful woman but it is clearly shown that she favors Sena, .
Second, it's simply not a very clever book. The two main characters are supposed to be a king with a great education and a spy with the same, plus magic. Both of them sort of meander through the plot and don't do anything very smart; Caliph barely knows who the people in his castle are, much less what's actually going on in his kingdom, and Sena often fumbles at the most basic of spying skills (she never gets information out of anyone, botches a basic lock pick, and once even skips on some information gathering because she doesn't feel like it). Caliph, in particular is a problem. He doesn't want to be king and isn't a very good one; the general challenging him is clearly a better leader and more in touch with the kingdom, even though we never "meet" him. This seems to have an obvious solution and I was never quite sure why Caliph fought for his throne at all. Without a sense of purpose in the protagonists, the plot seems listless and there are no "twists" worth commenting on.
Third, the historical inaccuracies. This is billed as steampunk but that's a very general category. I'd have been fine if the technology had been consistent. Alas, the tech in this novel ranges from 15th to 20th century. Early in the book, it's mentioned that certain books are rare because the printing presses are also rare. Later, we have much more 19th century technology (in keeping with the steampunk theme). But there are also cotton balls (1970's), supersonic artillery (1860's but not likely viable as used in lighter-than-air craft), the medical term "stat" (not in common use till the late 1800's), and toast popping up as a metaphor (invented in 1935). Technology develops at a certain pace for a reason and the author has completely ignored this logical evolution with no in-world explanation.
Fourth, the authorial cultural voice is too obvious. The viewpoint of the book occasionally slips out of the characters heads. I would forgive this in a first-time author except for the prominence of cultural references that have no place in this world. Amongst others, Huso references Gulliver's Travels and a British politician, neither of which should exist in this world. This is simply shoddy world-building on the author's part.
You can't review this book without mentioning the language. I like books that challenge me, both in vocabulary and in philosophy. However, this book doesn't so much challenge my vocabulary as it seeks to make me an expert at using a dictionary. Reading it felt like reading an essay by someone learning English as a second language; liberal use of a thesaurus without an understanding of the nuance of the language. The author is guilty of repeatedly using two poor choices: neologisms (particularly, turning nouns into adjectives) and archaic meanings (often of words that have strikingly different modern meanings, such as "slaver" and "depended", or that are spelled differently, such as "exoteric" instead of "esoteric"). This vocabulary, along with the common diacritical marks in the often-used/rarely-explained in-world language, detracts from the flow of the story, since I had to look up a word an average of once per page. I could go on about this for quite awhile but will content myself with including a list of odd words at the end of this review for your perusal.
In summary: not worth it for anyone but those who want something to deconstruct as an example of overdone language and what not to do. The language is too dense, the characters flat and unmotivated, the world-building not internally consistent. Huso might one day turn out a decent book but he needs a stronger editorial hand and some more critical beta readers.
Here's a partial list of words I had to look up. These were not made-up-for-the-story words and this list does not include higher level vocabulary that I already knew:
cromlech, zoetrope, inutile, tor, lacrymose, fictile, etiolated, fulgent, tumefying, gracile, adit, viscid, agglutinated, incunabulum, nigrescent, sprue, thallus, eldritch, vicinal, asomatous, fusty, dramaturgically, exoteric, autarchic, ineluctable, condign, demulcent, coriaceous, aposteme, voluble, sybaritism, bolide, vade, oriel, adumbrations, slaver, orgonomic, orgone, mephitic, sequacious, bathyal, cribriform, rived, delitescent
This novel had such an interesting premise. Spies, a reluctant king, magic through math... the math angle was enough to hook me. Too bad the author has no grasp of higher mathematics (a few buzz words thrown in here and there) and never, ever explained how "holomorphy" works (aside from using blood as fuel). He also has only a loose grasp of military tactics but I'm no expert, so we won't quibble about that.
The book suffers from a number of flaws. First, the secondary characters are introduced as important but are often found hanging around a scene without actually doing or saying anything. There is scant emotional connection with these characters, who have no motivations and inconsistent personality. For instance, we're supposed to believe that Sena hates Megan, her mentor, as shown by . However, at no point in the few scenes with Megan is she ever cruel or hateful towards Sena. She seems to be a hard, powerful woman but it is clearly shown that she favors Sena, .
Second, it's simply not a very clever book. The two main characters are supposed to be a king with a great education and a spy with the same, plus magic. Both of them sort of meander through the plot and don't do anything very smart; Caliph barely knows who the people in his castle are, much less what's actually going on in his kingdom, and Sena often fumbles at the most basic of spying skills (she never gets information out of anyone, botches a basic lock pick, and once even skips on some information gathering because she doesn't feel like it). Caliph, in particular is a problem. He doesn't want to be king and isn't a very good one; the general challenging him is clearly a better leader and more in touch with the kingdom, even though we never "meet" him. This seems to have an obvious solution and I was never quite sure why Caliph fought for his throne at all. Without a sense of purpose in the protagonists, the plot seems listless and there are no "twists" worth commenting on.
Third, the historical inaccuracies. This is billed as steampunk but that's a very general category. I'd have been fine if the technology had been consistent. Alas, the tech in this novel ranges from 15th to 20th century. Early in the book, it's mentioned that certain books are rare because the printing presses are also rare. Later, we have much more 19th century technology (in keeping with the steampunk theme). But there are also cotton balls (1970's), supersonic artillery (1860's but not likely viable as used in lighter-than-air craft), the medical term "stat" (not in common use till the late 1800's), and toast popping up as a metaphor (invented in 1935). Technology develops at a certain pace for a reason and the author has completely ignored this logical evolution with no in-world explanation.
Fourth, the authorial cultural voice is too obvious. The viewpoint of the book occasionally slips out of the characters heads. I would forgive this in a first-time author except for the prominence of cultural references that have no place in this world. Amongst others, Huso references Gulliver's Travels and a British politician, neither of which should exist in this world. This is simply shoddy world-building on the author's part.
You can't review this book without mentioning the language. I like books that challenge me, both in vocabulary and in philosophy. However, this book doesn't so much challenge my vocabulary as it seeks to make me an expert at using a dictionary. Reading it felt like reading an essay by someone learning English as a second language; liberal use of a thesaurus without an understanding of the nuance of the language. The author is guilty of repeatedly using two poor choices: neologisms (particularly, turning nouns into adjectives) and archaic meanings (often of words that have strikingly different modern meanings, such as "slaver" and "depended", or that are spelled differently, such as "exoteric" instead of "esoteric"). This vocabulary, along with the common diacritical marks in the often-used/rarely-explained in-world language, detracts from the flow of the story, since I had to look up a word an average of once per page. I could go on about this for quite awhile but will content myself with including a list of odd words at the end of this review for your perusal.
In summary: not worth it for anyone but those who want something to deconstruct as an example of overdone language and what not to do. The language is too dense, the characters flat and unmotivated, the world-building not internally consistent. Huso might one day turn out a decent book but he needs a stronger editorial hand and some more critical beta readers.
Here's a partial list of words I had to look up. These were not made-up-for-the-story words and this list does not include higher level vocabulary that I already knew:
cromlech, zoetrope, inutile, tor, lacrymose, fictile, etiolated, fulgent, tumefying, gracile, adit, viscid, agglutinated, incunabulum, nigrescent, sprue, thallus, eldritch, vicinal, asomatous, fusty, dramaturgically, exoteric, autarchic, ineluctable, condign, demulcent, coriaceous, aposteme, voluble, sybaritism, bolide, vade, oriel, adumbrations, slaver, orgonomic, orgone, mephitic, sequacious, bathyal, cribriform, rived, delitescent
May 2, 2010
The blurb of the novel does not do justice to this awesome novel that is the "pure" genre debut of the year so far for me.
I have not encountered the inventiveness, sense of wonder and generally the "many goodies" of The Last Page in a debut, all packed in a reasonable 400 odd pages, since John C Wright's Golden Age and Gary Gibson's Angel Stations, though this one is fantasy with blood magic, necromancy, mysterious and ultra-powerful beings and airships, guns, newspapers and a "steampunk" like setting with an early industrial flavor. The main characters Caliph and Sena are just superb with a great supporting cast of witches, spies, former college friends, devoted servants and mysterious personages, while the meaning of the title remains somewhat ambiguous to the end (Page as in book, or as in a young servant?); while the main thread of the novel is solved, the stunning ending promises a sequel for the ages too. A++
I have not encountered the inventiveness, sense of wonder and generally the "many goodies" of The Last Page in a debut, all packed in a reasonable 400 odd pages, since John C Wright's Golden Age and Gary Gibson's Angel Stations, though this one is fantasy with blood magic, necromancy, mysterious and ultra-powerful beings and airships, guns, newspapers and a "steampunk" like setting with an early industrial flavor. The main characters Caliph and Sena are just superb with a great supporting cast of witches, spies, former college friends, devoted servants and mysterious personages, while the meaning of the title remains somewhat ambiguous to the end (Page as in book, or as in a young servant?); while the main thread of the novel is solved, the stunning ending promises a sequel for the ages too. A++
December 4, 2013
I got about 200 pages into it, and finally decided screw it. There's too many good books in the world to force myself through one I'm not enjoying.
I really enjoy the idea of vaguely Lovecraftian steampunk political fantasy, and aspects of the story did, undoubtedly, intrigue me. The primary problem I had was that the combination of the author's baroque prose and the unusual worldbuilding complete with made up words made it difficult to really immerse myself in the book when I kept breaking off to try to understand how the world was supposed to be working.
The characters, too, didn't quite work for me. I thought Caliph was surprisingly easy to get into the head of, but I really am not interested in yet another prince who doesn't want to be king. Sena, on the other hand, I had the opposite problem: I found her role as a beginner spy to be extremely interesting, and I thought the author was doing a good job of avoiding the obvious problems of turning her into nothing more than a sexy spy, but I never felt like I could get into her head at all. Which might be a valid choice, characterization-wise, for a spy, but I can't say it's one that makes me want to read.
I really enjoy the idea of vaguely Lovecraftian steampunk political fantasy, and aspects of the story did, undoubtedly, intrigue me. The primary problem I had was that the combination of the author's baroque prose and the unusual worldbuilding complete with made up words made it difficult to really immerse myself in the book when I kept breaking off to try to understand how the world was supposed to be working.
The characters, too, didn't quite work for me. I thought Caliph was surprisingly easy to get into the head of, but I really am not interested in yet another prince who doesn't want to be king. Sena, on the other hand, I had the opposite problem: I found her role as a beginner spy to be extremely interesting, and I thought the author was doing a good job of avoiding the obvious problems of turning her into nothing more than a sexy spy, but I never felt like I could get into her head at all. Which might be a valid choice, characterization-wise, for a spy, but I can't say it's one that makes me want to read.
September 30, 2015
This contains the best and most interesting rendering of a Necronomicon descendant that I've ever seen. Huso opens the veil a bit on his book of dark knowledge, the Cisrym Ta, revealing enigmatic Inti'Drou glyphs, complex fractal looping mind-distorting things--some of which are actually unsettlingly depicted on the page--representing compound syllables in a language thousands of years dead, a multiform construction that incorporates both the ink and the whitespace around it and which is a complex mathematical argument that may or may not have to do with the fundament of this or some other universe.
Previous owners, possibly of some precursor species, have added their own marginalia in equally cryptic markings.
The whole book is like that, importing tropes and concepts that genre readers take for granted and extruding them horribly in new and interesting directions.
We've all seen the Lovecraftian monstrosities from beyond the stars. These crawl between the branes of reality like some worming mobile pustule. These exist with mentalities and realities beyond human ken, but they have a plan, and they manipulate their human tools to that end, and it is very likely that things will not end pleasantly for the buglike humans. And sluglike prehuman overlords in the sewers below the feral borough of the city, and their crossbred progeny.
We've seen steampunkery and science and magic. The magic is science and is long mathematical proofs and arguments drawn in blood. Isca City is yet another Dickensian squalor that goes on the list of really interesting places that I have absolutely no desire to visit. A place that laces modernity and Victoriana and the ancient world: gas lights with phonographs and unfettered journalism and "hate crimes" as a concept and armored knights and of course zeppelins because zeppelins. And body horror manipulation of animals.
We've seen the youthful proteges develop. These two, Sena and Caliph, are weirdly codependent and intertwined and self-loathing. Each is skillful and untested, young and adult, formidable and vulnerable, determined and unsure, obsessed and doubting. Their characterizations are enthralling, especially as events--war, exposure to a particularly dangerous bit of reading, grappling with completely immoral power sources (arcane and political)--drive them up to and partially over the edge. And to The Last Page, into a strange aftermath.
Previous owners, possibly of some precursor species, have added their own marginalia in equally cryptic markings.
The whole book is like that, importing tropes and concepts that genre readers take for granted and extruding them horribly in new and interesting directions.
We've all seen the Lovecraftian monstrosities from beyond the stars. These crawl between the branes of reality like some worming mobile pustule. These exist with mentalities and realities beyond human ken, but they have a plan, and they manipulate their human tools to that end, and it is very likely that things will not end pleasantly for the buglike humans. And sluglike prehuman overlords in the sewers below the feral borough of the city, and their crossbred progeny.
We've seen steampunkery and science and magic. The magic is science and is long mathematical proofs and arguments drawn in blood. Isca City is yet another Dickensian squalor that goes on the list of really interesting places that I have absolutely no desire to visit. A place that laces modernity and Victoriana and the ancient world: gas lights with phonographs and unfettered journalism and "hate crimes" as a concept and armored knights and of course zeppelins because zeppelins. And body horror manipulation of animals.
We've seen the youthful proteges develop. These two, Sena and Caliph, are weirdly codependent and intertwined and self-loathing. Each is skillful and untested, young and adult, formidable and vulnerable, determined and unsure, obsessed and doubting. Their characterizations are enthralling, especially as events--war, exposure to a particularly dangerous bit of reading, grappling with completely immoral power sources (arcane and political)--drive them up to and partially over the edge. And to The Last Page, into a strange aftermath.
April 10, 2011
2.75 to 3 stars
A entertaining steam-punk fantasy novel that (despite the promise of a concluding book) can stand quite well on its own. For the plot summary, I'll refer you to Stefan's review.
It didn't make a great impression on me one way or another but I'll jot down some stray impressions:
1. Huso can write believably complex characters, particularly Sena, who's torn between her loyalty to the Shradnae and her love (if real) for Caliph.
2. I liked the Cthulhu-esque nature of the creatures behind the Cisrym Ta and thought Huso handled their surreality well.
3. The Shradnae Witchocracy read a lot like the Bene Gesserit of Dune.
4. Huso does have a tendency toward baroque prose that reached its apogee (nadir?) with "They sucked floods down an ineluctable network of straws like a fat girl at a soda fountain..." (p. 148). Most of the time, however, the writing worked (for me). (Always on the look out for opportunities to recommend him, for those who want to see baroque done right, check out E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros.)
Recommended for Mieville, steam-punk, and Cthulhu fans primarily. I will be watching for the next volume because Huso does show promise.
____________________________________
Impulse check-out from the library -
1. Got a nod from Glen Cook (favorite author)
2. Interesting dust jacket blurb
3. Positive review from GR Friend Stephan
4. Four stars from Matt, whose reviews I follow
5. Cool maps in front; pronunciation guide in back (trust me, that's a plus in my book)
The eHarmony profile looks promising; we'll see how the first date goes.
Actually, I'm not going to start this until Monday (4-Apr-11) at the earliest. I just finished The Crippled God and Constance Garnett's 13 volumes of Anton Chekhov's short stories so I'm "fictioned-out" for the next few days.
A entertaining steam-punk fantasy novel that (despite the promise of a concluding book) can stand quite well on its own. For the plot summary, I'll refer you to Stefan's review.
It didn't make a great impression on me one way or another but I'll jot down some stray impressions:
1. Huso can write believably complex characters, particularly Sena, who's torn between her loyalty to the Shradnae and her love (if real) for Caliph.
2. I liked the Cthulhu-esque nature of the creatures behind the Cisrym Ta and thought Huso handled their surreality well.
3. The Shradnae Witchocracy read a lot like the Bene Gesserit of Dune.
4. Huso does have a tendency toward baroque prose that reached its apogee (nadir?) with "They sucked floods down an ineluctable network of straws like a fat girl at a soda fountain..." (p. 148). Most of the time, however, the writing worked (for me). (Always on the look out for opportunities to recommend him, for those who want to see baroque done right, check out E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros.)
Recommended for Mieville, steam-punk, and Cthulhu fans primarily. I will be watching for the next volume because Huso does show promise.
____________________________________
Impulse check-out from the library -
1. Got a nod from Glen Cook (favorite author)
2. Interesting dust jacket blurb
3. Positive review from GR Friend Stephan
4. Four stars from Matt, whose reviews I follow
5. Cool maps in front; pronunciation guide in back (trust me, that's a plus in my book)
The eHarmony profile looks promising; we'll see how the first date goes.
Actually, I'm not going to start this until Monday (4-Apr-11) at the earliest. I just finished The Crippled God and Constance Garnett's 13 volumes of Anton Chekhov's short stories so I'm "fictioned-out" for the next few days.
August 17, 2010
The Last Page by Anthony Huso is an exciting debut novel that, despite some rough spots here and there, delivers thrills and originality in spades, and promises great things for the future.
Caliph Howl, the main character, is described on the book’s cover as Stonehold’s “reluctant High King,” but when The Last Page starts off, Caliph is actually still the crown prince and a student of holomorphy (blood-fueled magic) at the High College of Desdae. Despite the college’s celibacy rule, he has a relationship with Sena, another student who has been trained by the Shradnae Witchocracy to use both magic and sex to advance her country’s political interests, and who is trying to unlock the secrets of a mysterious book called the Cisrim Ta. It takes a handful of chapters for Caliph to leave the college and assume the crown, giving the first 50 or so pages of the novel the feeling of an elaborate and slightly confusing prologue.
Fortunately, The Last Page gets considerably better once it moves on from the old “college of magic” storyline. As soon as Caliph moves to Isca and becomes High King, the novel becomes considerably more interesting and exciting. Caliph is dropped into a political firestorm and a brewing civil war, because not every province in his country is ready to support the former crown prince, and various factions have their own agendas to advance. As the rebelling province is an economic powerhouse that supplies most of the city’s metholinate fuel, Caliph is forced to learn the ropes quickly and establish his grasp on power, variously helped and hindered by an array of interesting characters such as a spymaster, a general, and even some former student colleagues... not to mention his old lover Sena, who soon reappears in his new life. An amusing aspect of the novel is the fact that we get to observe Caliph’s struggles not only first-hand but also via several newspaper articles, including tabloid takes on his controversial relationship with Sena.
A large part of the novel takes place in Isca City, the capital of the duchy and a fascinating metropolis with several individualized neighborhoods. Because of the city’s grimness and griminess, fans of China Mieville will probably catch strong echoes of New Crobuzon here. While Anthony Huso doesn’t have the same writing chops as Mieville (yet), the mix of fantasy, horror and steampunk elements and the general feel of The Last Page definitely reminded me of that author’s style. Very occasionally Huso tends towards the predictable, and some scenes feel unnecessarily shocking, but more often than not he finds the right balance and shows true promise for the future.
The Last Page is a very busy novel, filled with everything from zeppelins to blood magic, from steampunk-like technology to Cthulhu-esque beings from beyond. There’s a lot going on, and the amount of plot lines sometimes makes it feel as if the author just decided to throw everything and the kitchen sink into his debut: there’s a love story, a war story, the mystery of the book mentioned in the title, a lot of politics, a complex family history, various rivalries and power struggles, and a lot more. If the book at times seems a bit chaotic and overwhelming, stick with it, because Huso improbably manages to keep most of the balls in the air, and whatever doesn’t get resolved by the (thrilling) end of the novel will supposedly find closure in this two-book miniseries’ closing volume, Black Bottle.
Aside from the slightly chaotic feeling of The Last Page, the only other real issue is Huso’s annoying tendency to toss in some very forced-sounding vocabulary. A character doesn’t just say the city is almost broke, but instead says it’s “vicinal to bankruptcy.” Another character’s dry, raspy voice is described as an “exsiccated whisper.” Instead of a book, we get a “worm-eaten incunabulum.” These thesaurus-happy word choices pop up quite frequently and detract from the quality of Huso’s otherwise interesting and skilled prose. In addition, many names in the novel use non-Roman characters, mainly vowels with added diacritical signs — e.g. the Shradnae Witchocracy mentioned before actually has a dot under the first ‘a’ (and the ‘ae’ should be an ‘æ’), and the Cisrim Ta book has dots under the first ‘i’ as well as the ‘a’. While there’s a pronunciation guide in the back, most readers will probably overcome their initial confusion by just ignoring it and making up pronunciations as they go along. The Last Page would frankly have been more readable without the (pardon the expression) weird letters and obscure words. On the other hand, Huso’s use of magical glyphs is really tricky: at first it seems just a gimmick, but towards the end of the novel those glyphs suddenly become quite meaningful and truly fascinating.
Despite some weaknesses, The Last Page delivers enough originality and excitement to rank as a noteworthy debut. This is a good novel that with some more polish could have been excellent, but nonetheless promises a bright future for a new and original voice in fantasy.
(This review was also published at Fantasy Literature on 8/17/2010.)
Caliph Howl, the main character, is described on the book’s cover as Stonehold’s “reluctant High King,” but when The Last Page starts off, Caliph is actually still the crown prince and a student of holomorphy (blood-fueled magic) at the High College of Desdae. Despite the college’s celibacy rule, he has a relationship with Sena, another student who has been trained by the Shradnae Witchocracy to use both magic and sex to advance her country’s political interests, and who is trying to unlock the secrets of a mysterious book called the Cisrim Ta. It takes a handful of chapters for Caliph to leave the college and assume the crown, giving the first 50 or so pages of the novel the feeling of an elaborate and slightly confusing prologue.
Fortunately, The Last Page gets considerably better once it moves on from the old “college of magic” storyline. As soon as Caliph moves to Isca and becomes High King, the novel becomes considerably more interesting and exciting. Caliph is dropped into a political firestorm and a brewing civil war, because not every province in his country is ready to support the former crown prince, and various factions have their own agendas to advance. As the rebelling province is an economic powerhouse that supplies most of the city’s metholinate fuel, Caliph is forced to learn the ropes quickly and establish his grasp on power, variously helped and hindered by an array of interesting characters such as a spymaster, a general, and even some former student colleagues... not to mention his old lover Sena, who soon reappears in his new life. An amusing aspect of the novel is the fact that we get to observe Caliph’s struggles not only first-hand but also via several newspaper articles, including tabloid takes on his controversial relationship with Sena.
A large part of the novel takes place in Isca City, the capital of the duchy and a fascinating metropolis with several individualized neighborhoods. Because of the city’s grimness and griminess, fans of China Mieville will probably catch strong echoes of New Crobuzon here. While Anthony Huso doesn’t have the same writing chops as Mieville (yet), the mix of fantasy, horror and steampunk elements and the general feel of The Last Page definitely reminded me of that author’s style. Very occasionally Huso tends towards the predictable, and some scenes feel unnecessarily shocking, but more often than not he finds the right balance and shows true promise for the future.
The Last Page is a very busy novel, filled with everything from zeppelins to blood magic, from steampunk-like technology to Cthulhu-esque beings from beyond. There’s a lot going on, and the amount of plot lines sometimes makes it feel as if the author just decided to throw everything and the kitchen sink into his debut: there’s a love story, a war story, the mystery of the book mentioned in the title, a lot of politics, a complex family history, various rivalries and power struggles, and a lot more. If the book at times seems a bit chaotic and overwhelming, stick with it, because Huso improbably manages to keep most of the balls in the air, and whatever doesn’t get resolved by the (thrilling) end of the novel will supposedly find closure in this two-book miniseries’ closing volume, Black Bottle.
Aside from the slightly chaotic feeling of The Last Page, the only other real issue is Huso’s annoying tendency to toss in some very forced-sounding vocabulary. A character doesn’t just say the city is almost broke, but instead says it’s “vicinal to bankruptcy.” Another character’s dry, raspy voice is described as an “exsiccated whisper.” Instead of a book, we get a “worm-eaten incunabulum.” These thesaurus-happy word choices pop up quite frequently and detract from the quality of Huso’s otherwise interesting and skilled prose. In addition, many names in the novel use non-Roman characters, mainly vowels with added diacritical signs — e.g. the Shradnae Witchocracy mentioned before actually has a dot under the first ‘a’ (and the ‘ae’ should be an ‘æ’), and the Cisrim Ta book has dots under the first ‘i’ as well as the ‘a’. While there’s a pronunciation guide in the back, most readers will probably overcome their initial confusion by just ignoring it and making up pronunciations as they go along. The Last Page would frankly have been more readable without the (pardon the expression) weird letters and obscure words. On the other hand, Huso’s use of magical glyphs is really tricky: at first it seems just a gimmick, but towards the end of the novel those glyphs suddenly become quite meaningful and truly fascinating.
Despite some weaknesses, The Last Page delivers enough originality and excitement to rank as a noteworthy debut. This is a good novel that with some more polish could have been excellent, but nonetheless promises a bright future for a new and original voice in fantasy.
(This review was also published at Fantasy Literature on 8/17/2010.)
December 4, 2013
While the fantastical elements are interesting, the world building my kind of complex, what it didn't have was a character I cared about. I read three chapters, but only because I forced myself to do so. The first two chapters dealt far too much on the relationship of two characters and how much they would sacrifice to "be together" making some of the most ridiculous and often juvenile choices. The other major issue I had was the made up languages. I don't have anything against made up languages in general, but these seemed to have no actual linguistic reasoning behind them; just letters smashed together because they sounded cool.
To be fair, give the reviews that actually read the entire book more credit than this review. I simply had much better reading to get to than spend time on this.
To be fair, give the reviews that actually read the entire book more credit than this review. I simply had much better reading to get to than spend time on this.
December 12, 2010
From language point of view this has been the most challenging read in 2010. It was impossible for me to read The Last Page without using several online dictionaries! You should know that English is not my first language.
The world is compelling.
While working on my full review I decided that this is definitely a five star book compared to my other ratings and therefore I changed my rating from four to five stars.
Read my full review over at Edi's Book Lighthouse
The world is compelling.
While working on my full review I decided that this is definitely a five star book compared to my other ratings and therefore I changed my rating from four to five stars.
Read my full review over at Edi's Book Lighthouse
May 3, 2011
http://www.rantingdragon.com/the-last...
Anthony Huso’s debut novel, The Last Page, is the first book of a duology. With its mixture of fantasy, steampunk, and horror elements, I expected to breeze through it in a matter of days. It took longer than I anticipated, but I felt rewarded for my patience.
The story centers on young Caliph Howl, a student trying his best to avoid graduating and returning to the Duchy of Stonehold where he is to become the High King. Caliph meets Sena, a sensual witch and heir to the Shradnae Witchocracy leadership, and they share an exciting romance. Sena and Caliph eventually graduate and leave to pursue separate agendas. Caliph returns to Isca, capitol city of the Duchy, where he begins his reluctant reign as High King. He learns alarming government secrets, is faced with a pending civil war, and finds himself at the center of political maneuvering. Meanwhile, Sena sets out on her search for the mysterious Cisrym Ta, a book whose pages possess powers unknown.
When the two lovers reunite, they must balance the complexities of their relationship, contend with the scheming of those around them, and face the deadly consequences of their individual pursuits.
The High King and the sexy witch
I would like to officially add Sena to my response in the discussion on The Ranting Forums of “Which Fantasy character would you date?” She is independent, strong, and sexy, but also struggles to understand her feelings for Caliph and questions her loyalties to the Witchocracy. Each of these issues is compounded by her tireless search for the meaning of the Cisrym Ta.
Although reluctant at first, Caliph adjusts surprisingly well to being High King. I had some trouble following Caliph’s storyline. It started off slower and at times he was overshadowed by other more interesting characters (spymaster Zane Vhortghast in particular), though scenes in which Caliph and Sena interacted are enjoyable and well written – and thankfully, occur frequently.
Crepuscular spiral staircase
I enjoy the thrill of discovering a new word. Unfortunately, with The Last Page, that thrill became a distraction. While Huso is an excellent author with unique descriptions and metaphors, I found myself constantly diverted by the sheer number of words I didn’t know. At first I would stop, grab my dictionary, and look them up, but when I did, I realized that much of what he was trying to say just didn’t make sense (“crepuscular spiral staircase” – say what?). Eventually, I decided to just read through. Huso’s fondness for obscure words and mixed metaphors hindered my comprehension of the story.
What the @$%^?
For all the effort and inventiveness Huso put into finding arcane words, the dialogue was overflowing with expletives. The F-bomb was dropped more often than necessary by almost every character, sometimes even when speaking with the High King! This often made the characters seem crass. The use of vulgarity in certain situations is understandable and necessary for realism, but there were times when it felt excessive. Huso even created some of his own expletives, like “Yella bryun” (mother’s sh**).
Dreadnoughts, holomorphy, chemostatic swords … oh my
Huso’s world is a blending of genres. Sprawling cities, blood magic, hideous creatures, chemical weapons, living meat: every page blossomed with the unexpected. His world was dark and fiendishly surprising. There were times when the world wasn’t as fleshed out as is common in most fantasy, though eventually I came to enjoy the lack of hand holding.
Why should you read this book?
The Last Page is a book that is best read knowing what to expect. I appreciated that Huso did not dump heaps of information into my lap; however, there were times when his lack of clear explanation, coupled with his excessive use of obscure words, made The Last Page a slow read at the start. The pace picked up significantly in the second half and new life was breathed into the book. Huso has woven together an interesting new genre-bending fantasy that will reward the patient reader (and those with voluminous vocabularies). I was glad I stuck with it.
Anthony Huso’s debut novel, The Last Page, is the first book of a duology. With its mixture of fantasy, steampunk, and horror elements, I expected to breeze through it in a matter of days. It took longer than I anticipated, but I felt rewarded for my patience.
The story centers on young Caliph Howl, a student trying his best to avoid graduating and returning to the Duchy of Stonehold where he is to become the High King. Caliph meets Sena, a sensual witch and heir to the Shradnae Witchocracy leadership, and they share an exciting romance. Sena and Caliph eventually graduate and leave to pursue separate agendas. Caliph returns to Isca, capitol city of the Duchy, where he begins his reluctant reign as High King. He learns alarming government secrets, is faced with a pending civil war, and finds himself at the center of political maneuvering. Meanwhile, Sena sets out on her search for the mysterious Cisrym Ta, a book whose pages possess powers unknown.
When the two lovers reunite, they must balance the complexities of their relationship, contend with the scheming of those around them, and face the deadly consequences of their individual pursuits.
The High King and the sexy witch
I would like to officially add Sena to my response in the discussion on The Ranting Forums of “Which Fantasy character would you date?” She is independent, strong, and sexy, but also struggles to understand her feelings for Caliph and questions her loyalties to the Witchocracy. Each of these issues is compounded by her tireless search for the meaning of the Cisrym Ta.
Although reluctant at first, Caliph adjusts surprisingly well to being High King. I had some trouble following Caliph’s storyline. It started off slower and at times he was overshadowed by other more interesting characters (spymaster Zane Vhortghast in particular), though scenes in which Caliph and Sena interacted are enjoyable and well written – and thankfully, occur frequently.
Crepuscular spiral staircase
I enjoy the thrill of discovering a new word. Unfortunately, with The Last Page, that thrill became a distraction. While Huso is an excellent author with unique descriptions and metaphors, I found myself constantly diverted by the sheer number of words I didn’t know. At first I would stop, grab my dictionary, and look them up, but when I did, I realized that much of what he was trying to say just didn’t make sense (“crepuscular spiral staircase” – say what?). Eventually, I decided to just read through. Huso’s fondness for obscure words and mixed metaphors hindered my comprehension of the story.
What the @$%^?
For all the effort and inventiveness Huso put into finding arcane words, the dialogue was overflowing with expletives. The F-bomb was dropped more often than necessary by almost every character, sometimes even when speaking with the High King! This often made the characters seem crass. The use of vulgarity in certain situations is understandable and necessary for realism, but there were times when it felt excessive. Huso even created some of his own expletives, like “Yella bryun” (mother’s sh**).
Dreadnoughts, holomorphy, chemostatic swords … oh my
Huso’s world is a blending of genres. Sprawling cities, blood magic, hideous creatures, chemical weapons, living meat: every page blossomed with the unexpected. His world was dark and fiendishly surprising. There were times when the world wasn’t as fleshed out as is common in most fantasy, though eventually I came to enjoy the lack of hand holding.
Why should you read this book?
The Last Page is a book that is best read knowing what to expect. I appreciated that Huso did not dump heaps of information into my lap; however, there were times when his lack of clear explanation, coupled with his excessive use of obscure words, made The Last Page a slow read at the start. The pace picked up significantly in the second half and new life was breathed into the book. Huso has woven together an interesting new genre-bending fantasy that will reward the patient reader (and those with voluminous vocabularies). I was glad I stuck with it.
September 21, 2011
An inventive modern fantasy from a promising first time author. Nerdisms like invented languages…especially the invented slang (I tell you authors be wary of its use…hard to ever take seriously). Beautiful elevated language which occasionally clunks but usually is a thick stew that pulls back for intimate characters moments. Intimacy and excess, too much and not enough of something and it stumbled in the initial school sequences. Like the high language as it provides a beautiful feeling of otherness that fantasy requires. Frustrating and uneven with some segments unsettlingly beautiful then crude character dialogue which works maybe better than trying to elevate the dialogue but is tonal shift nonetheless, I guess if it was more artfully handled and the character less distant to me it would work better. Also for an author who creates such superb terms for things why call airships zeppelins? Is there a Count Zeppelin living in this alternate world? These flaws are present but this a work of full-bore imagination and I can’t wait for the next segment (it’s a duology). A mix of new weird, high fantasy, steampunk that is full of wonder and has me impatient for what is next.
December 29, 2010
I won this book through First Reads. I started out really liking this book, as it seemed different than how I usually think of fantasy books, but as I got further into it my feelings became mixed. On one hand I thought some parts were interesting and creative. On the other I thought it was a terribly boring read. I found myself spacing out during long descriptions and half the time I couldn't remember the names of characters or what part they played in the story. Then again, I don't really read fantasy books and I can't see myself reading many more in the future.
June 2, 2011
Anthony Huso’s debut novel The Last Page is certainly a tough one. Highly original and rife with elements of the weird it is a fantasy novel quite unlike any I have ever read. The blurb on the book from Glen Cook mentions a link to “science fantasy” and that comparison is not too far off base. The Last Page is a novel unlike anything on the market today; an important distinction since its unique style and willingness to borrow conventions from outside the typical fantasy genre called to mind the old school fantasists featured in the pages of Weird Tales (authors like C. L. Moore and Fritz Leiber). In a genre that has become somewhat insular and self-referential The Last Page is a rare exercise in invention and originality.
The Last Page initially centers on Caliph Howl a young man finishing his studies at school while reluctantly awaiting the summons home to assume the unwanted kingship of Isca. Caliph, in the last year or so of his studies meets Sena a fellow student and the two students quickly form a bond. Sena is not quite what she seems; Sena is a Shradnae witch who seeks the mysterious Cisrym Ta; an ancient grimoire of unknown power. The book is locked by magic and in order to open it she needs to betray someone who loves her. Of course, Caliph’s kingdom is threatened by civil war while other unknown things move against both Sena and Caliph.
One thing I should note is that the invented language and unique characters used throughout The Last Page look completely terrible on my nook. Looking at the Nook for PC software I can see they don’t look bad there so the difficulty must be on the device itself rather than the file. It’s a minor quibble but The Last Page is liberally sprinkled with this bit of invention. Secondly, and another pitfall of reading The Last Page on an e-reader is that the glossary and pronunciation guide for these letters and words is located at the end of the novel. It is a chore and a distraction to flip to that information while reading. To be fair my first choice for reading The Last Page was print, but as happens here in the library, it has seemingly disappeared off the shelves.
Like I mentioned at the start of this review The Last Page is a difficult novel. The original elements like the invented language, and a complex cosmology require a bit of a stretch for readers more familiar with traditional fantasy. Those flexible readers who feel confident in their ability to stretch their expectation will be rewarded by an engrossing story in a strange world. While, the civil war in Isca and Caliph’s struggle to rule might be expected to take center stage I thought the novel was really something closer to a character study and was at its strongest when dealing with the witch Sena. Certainly the civil war offers an external threat and the novel spends some time dealing with Caliph’s struggles there but by and large the conflicts of the novel are relegated to the internal realms of our character’s thoughts and the dark shadows barely glimpse amidst the chaos of war.
By far my favorite parts of The Last Page were those that dragged in elements of horror. I was particularly and pleasantly horrified by Caliph’s discovery of how his nation is kept fed. Take for example Huso’s description of the “farm” and the meat it houses:
Like a cattle yard, where butchered animals were hung on hooks to drain. Only these great carcasses were alive and three times size of a butchered cow. Three heavy chains hooked onto iron rings that pierced their upper portion and suspended each living meat several feet above the floor. They were vaguely the shape of a human heart and the iron rings that suspended them pulled the tissue into painful-looking triangles…The meat had no arms or legs. It had no skin but a translucent bluish white membrane that covered the dark maroon muscle tissue and bulging blue veins underneath. Lumpy patches of yellow adipose clustered in grooves and seams where the muscles joined in useless perfection.
Cable-thick tubing ran from above, bundled together and coupled into various implanted sockets for reasons obviously associated with sustaining dubious life.
Occasionally, muscles twitched or a sudden shudder wen through the enormous cohesion of mindless flesh and sent the body swinging in the slow tight spiral allowed by the chains.
At the bottom of the meat, near the pointed but snubbed posterior, something like an anus spewed filth with peristaltic violence into a square depression in the floor. Urine dribbled or sprayed from hidden hole proximal to the defecating sphincter, help to wash soupy piles of shit and blood toward runnels in the floor.
That is disgusting and brilliant in a very twisted kind of way. It’s combination of horrific abomination with the cold calculation of necessity wavering between tempering and magnifying the horror. Huso, simultaneously throws at us a scene of gory horror and a complex social and moral issue. It’s a trick he will continue to use to great effect over the course of the novel. Of course he will also throw other horrors at readers, ones that reminded me somewhat of the Deep Ones and worshipers of Dagon from Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, while simultaneously hinting at cosmic horrors lurking unseen in the places between the world.
The Last Page is rife with these touches of horror and on Huso’s website he speaks briefly on horror:
For me, fantasy must play chameleon in exactly this way, offer beauty hidden in horror; promise loveliness then suddenly throw its head back and scream. This is something I think horror on its own struggles to do because I always suspect it. But fantasy can go both ways. The horror can dissolve suddenly and unexpectedly into bliss, which I think enhances the sense of unpredictability. It is surprise and uncertainty, especially the uncertainty of how to react, that I prize.
That “uncertainty of how to react” is emblematic of much of The Last Page and it is a curious sensation that few, if any, other fantasy novels manage to evoke. While I was a bit off-put by what I felt was a lack of focus with regards to the novel’s external conflicts Huso’s constant invention, hints of things in the shadows, and masterful portrayal of his character’s and their relationship kept me entranced for every page. It is the kind of novel that after reading it once I want to explore again just to examine the details that my initial read is sure to have missed. I excited to see what Huso comes up with next and I am excited (an excitement tinged with a sort of manic dread) to explore more of The Last Page’s
The Last Page initially centers on Caliph Howl a young man finishing his studies at school while reluctantly awaiting the summons home to assume the unwanted kingship of Isca. Caliph, in the last year or so of his studies meets Sena a fellow student and the two students quickly form a bond. Sena is not quite what she seems; Sena is a Shradnae witch who seeks the mysterious Cisrym Ta; an ancient grimoire of unknown power. The book is locked by magic and in order to open it she needs to betray someone who loves her. Of course, Caliph’s kingdom is threatened by civil war while other unknown things move against both Sena and Caliph.
One thing I should note is that the invented language and unique characters used throughout The Last Page look completely terrible on my nook. Looking at the Nook for PC software I can see they don’t look bad there so the difficulty must be on the device itself rather than the file. It’s a minor quibble but The Last Page is liberally sprinkled with this bit of invention. Secondly, and another pitfall of reading The Last Page on an e-reader is that the glossary and pronunciation guide for these letters and words is located at the end of the novel. It is a chore and a distraction to flip to that information while reading. To be fair my first choice for reading The Last Page was print, but as happens here in the library, it has seemingly disappeared off the shelves.
Like I mentioned at the start of this review The Last Page is a difficult novel. The original elements like the invented language, and a complex cosmology require a bit of a stretch for readers more familiar with traditional fantasy. Those flexible readers who feel confident in their ability to stretch their expectation will be rewarded by an engrossing story in a strange world. While, the civil war in Isca and Caliph’s struggle to rule might be expected to take center stage I thought the novel was really something closer to a character study and was at its strongest when dealing with the witch Sena. Certainly the civil war offers an external threat and the novel spends some time dealing with Caliph’s struggles there but by and large the conflicts of the novel are relegated to the internal realms of our character’s thoughts and the dark shadows barely glimpse amidst the chaos of war.
By far my favorite parts of The Last Page were those that dragged in elements of horror. I was particularly and pleasantly horrified by Caliph’s discovery of how his nation is kept fed. Take for example Huso’s description of the “farm” and the meat it houses:
Like a cattle yard, where butchered animals were hung on hooks to drain. Only these great carcasses were alive and three times size of a butchered cow. Three heavy chains hooked onto iron rings that pierced their upper portion and suspended each living meat several feet above the floor. They were vaguely the shape of a human heart and the iron rings that suspended them pulled the tissue into painful-looking triangles…The meat had no arms or legs. It had no skin but a translucent bluish white membrane that covered the dark maroon muscle tissue and bulging blue veins underneath. Lumpy patches of yellow adipose clustered in grooves and seams where the muscles joined in useless perfection.
Cable-thick tubing ran from above, bundled together and coupled into various implanted sockets for reasons obviously associated with sustaining dubious life.
Occasionally, muscles twitched or a sudden shudder wen through the enormous cohesion of mindless flesh and sent the body swinging in the slow tight spiral allowed by the chains.
At the bottom of the meat, near the pointed but snubbed posterior, something like an anus spewed filth with peristaltic violence into a square depression in the floor. Urine dribbled or sprayed from hidden hole proximal to the defecating sphincter, help to wash soupy piles of shit and blood toward runnels in the floor.
That is disgusting and brilliant in a very twisted kind of way. It’s combination of horrific abomination with the cold calculation of necessity wavering between tempering and magnifying the horror. Huso, simultaneously throws at us a scene of gory horror and a complex social and moral issue. It’s a trick he will continue to use to great effect over the course of the novel. Of course he will also throw other horrors at readers, ones that reminded me somewhat of the Deep Ones and worshipers of Dagon from Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, while simultaneously hinting at cosmic horrors lurking unseen in the places between the world.
The Last Page is rife with these touches of horror and on Huso’s website he speaks briefly on horror:
For me, fantasy must play chameleon in exactly this way, offer beauty hidden in horror; promise loveliness then suddenly throw its head back and scream. This is something I think horror on its own struggles to do because I always suspect it. But fantasy can go both ways. The horror can dissolve suddenly and unexpectedly into bliss, which I think enhances the sense of unpredictability. It is surprise and uncertainty, especially the uncertainty of how to react, that I prize.
That “uncertainty of how to react” is emblematic of much of The Last Page and it is a curious sensation that few, if any, other fantasy novels manage to evoke. While I was a bit off-put by what I felt was a lack of focus with regards to the novel’s external conflicts Huso’s constant invention, hints of things in the shadows, and masterful portrayal of his character’s and their relationship kept me entranced for every page. It is the kind of novel that after reading it once I want to explore again just to examine the details that my initial read is sure to have missed. I excited to see what Huso comes up with next and I am excited (an excitement tinged with a sort of manic dread) to explore more of The Last Page’s
June 7, 2011
Anthony Huso’s debut novel The Last Page is certainly a tough one. Highly original and rife with elements of the weird it is a fantasy novel quite unlike any I have ever read. The blurb on the book from Glen Cook mentions a link to “science fantasy” and that comparison is not too far off base. The Last Page is a novel unlike anything on the market today; an important distinction since its unique style and willingness to borrow conventions from outside the typical fantasy genre called to mind the old school fantasists featured in the pages of Weird Tales (authors like C. L. Moore and Fritz Leiber). In a genre that has become somewhat insular and self-referential The Last Page is a rare exercise in invention and originality.
The Last Page initially centers on Caliph Howl a young man finishing his studies at school while reluctantly awaiting the summons home to assume the unwanted kingship of Isca. Caliph, in the last year or so of his studies meets Sena a fellow student and the two students quickly form a bond. Sena is not quite what she seems; Sena is a Shradnae witch who seeks the mysterious Cisrym Ta; an ancient grimoire of unknown power. The book is locked by magic and in order to open it she needs to betray someone who loves her. Of course, Caliph’s kingdom is threatened by civil war while other unknown things move against both Sena and Caliph.
One thing I should note is that the invented language and unique characters used throughout The Last Page look completely terrible on my nook. Looking at the Nook for PC software I can see they don’t look bad there so the difficulty must be on the device itself rather than the file. It’s a minor quibble but The Last Page is liberally sprinkled with this bit of invention. Secondly, and another pitfall of reading The Last Page on an e-reader is that the glossary and pronunciation guide for these letters and words is located at the end of the novel. It is a chore and a distraction to flip to that information while reading. To be fair my first choice for reading The Last Page was print, but as happens here in the library, it has seemingly disappeared off the shelves.
Like I mentioned at the start of this review The Last Page is a difficult novel. The original elements like the invented language, and a complex cosmology require a bit of a stretch for readers more familiar with traditional fantasy. Those flexible readers who feel confident in their ability to stretch their expectation will be rewarded by an engrossing story in a strange world. While, the civil war in Isca and Caliph’s struggle to rule might be expected to take center stage I thought the novel was really something closer to a character study and was at its strongest when dealing with the witch Sena. Certainly the civil war offers an external threat and the novel spends some time dealing with Caliph’s struggles there but by and large the conflicts of the novel are relegated to the internal realms of our character’s thoughts and the dark shadows barely glimpse amidst the chaos of war.
By far my favorite parts of The Last Page were those that dragged in elements of horror. I was particularly and pleasantly horrified by Caliph’s discovery of how his nation is kept fed. Take for example Huso’s description of the “farm” and the meat it houses:
Like a cattle yard, where butchered animals were hung on hooks to drain. Only these great carcasses were alive and three times size of a butchered cow. Three heavy chains hooked onto iron rings that pierced their upper portion and suspended each living meat several feet above the floor. They were vaguely the shape of a human heart and the iron rings that suspended them pulled the tissue into painful-looking triangles…The meat had no arms or legs. It had no skin but a translucent bluish white membrane that covered the dark maroon muscle tissue and bulging blue veins underneath. Lumpy patches of yellow adipose clustered in grooves and seams where the muscles joined in useless perfection.
Cable-thick tubing ran from above, bundled together and coupled into various implanted sockets for reasons obviously associated with sustaining dubious life.
Occasionally, muscles twitched or a sudden shudder wen through the enormous cohesion of mindless flesh and sent the body swinging in the slow tight spiral allowed by the chains.
At the bottom of the meat, near the pointed but snubbed posterior, something like an anus spewed filth with peristaltic violence into a square depression in the floor. Urine dribbled or sprayed from hidden hole proximal to the defecating sphincter, help to wash soupy piles of shit and blood toward runnels in the floor.
That is disgusting and brilliant in a very twisted kind of way. It’s combination of horrific abomination with the cold calculation of necessity wavering between tempering and magnifying the horror. Huso, simultaneously throws at us a scene of gory horror and a complex social and moral issue. It’s a trick he will continue to use to great effect over the course of the novel. Of course he will also throw other horrors at readers, ones that reminded me somewhat of the Deep Ones and worshipers of Dagon from Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, while simultaneously hinting at cosmic horrors lurking unseen in the places between the world.
The Last Page is rife with these touches of horror and on Huso’s website he speaks briefly on horror:
For me, fantasy must play chameleon in exactly this way, offer beauty hidden in horror; promise loveliness then suddenly throw its head back and scream. This is something I think horror on its own struggles to do because I always suspect it. But fantasy can go both ways. The horror can dissolve suddenly and unexpectedly into bliss, which I think enhances the sense of unpredictability. It is surprise and uncertainty, especially the uncertainty of how to react, that I prize.
That “uncertainty of how to react” is emblematic of much of The Last Page and it is a curious sensation that few, if any, other fantasy novels manage to evoke. While I was a bit off-put by what I felt was a lack of focus with regards to the novel’s external conflicts Huso’s constant invention, hints of things in the shadows, and masterful portrayal of his character’s and their relationship kept me entranced for every page. It is the kind of novel that after reading it once I want to explore again just to examine the details that my initial read is sure to have missed. I excited to see what Huso comes up with next and I am excited (an excitement tinged with a sort of manic dread) to explore more of The Last Page’s strange, wondrous, world.
The Last Page initially centers on Caliph Howl a young man finishing his studies at school while reluctantly awaiting the summons home to assume the unwanted kingship of Isca. Caliph, in the last year or so of his studies meets Sena a fellow student and the two students quickly form a bond. Sena is not quite what she seems; Sena is a Shradnae witch who seeks the mysterious Cisrym Ta; an ancient grimoire of unknown power. The book is locked by magic and in order to open it she needs to betray someone who loves her. Of course, Caliph’s kingdom is threatened by civil war while other unknown things move against both Sena and Caliph.
One thing I should note is that the invented language and unique characters used throughout The Last Page look completely terrible on my nook. Looking at the Nook for PC software I can see they don’t look bad there so the difficulty must be on the device itself rather than the file. It’s a minor quibble but The Last Page is liberally sprinkled with this bit of invention. Secondly, and another pitfall of reading The Last Page on an e-reader is that the glossary and pronunciation guide for these letters and words is located at the end of the novel. It is a chore and a distraction to flip to that information while reading. To be fair my first choice for reading The Last Page was print, but as happens here in the library, it has seemingly disappeared off the shelves.
Like I mentioned at the start of this review The Last Page is a difficult novel. The original elements like the invented language, and a complex cosmology require a bit of a stretch for readers more familiar with traditional fantasy. Those flexible readers who feel confident in their ability to stretch their expectation will be rewarded by an engrossing story in a strange world. While, the civil war in Isca and Caliph’s struggle to rule might be expected to take center stage I thought the novel was really something closer to a character study and was at its strongest when dealing with the witch Sena. Certainly the civil war offers an external threat and the novel spends some time dealing with Caliph’s struggles there but by and large the conflicts of the novel are relegated to the internal realms of our character’s thoughts and the dark shadows barely glimpse amidst the chaos of war.
By far my favorite parts of The Last Page were those that dragged in elements of horror. I was particularly and pleasantly horrified by Caliph’s discovery of how his nation is kept fed. Take for example Huso’s description of the “farm” and the meat it houses:
Like a cattle yard, where butchered animals were hung on hooks to drain. Only these great carcasses were alive and three times size of a butchered cow. Three heavy chains hooked onto iron rings that pierced their upper portion and suspended each living meat several feet above the floor. They were vaguely the shape of a human heart and the iron rings that suspended them pulled the tissue into painful-looking triangles…The meat had no arms or legs. It had no skin but a translucent bluish white membrane that covered the dark maroon muscle tissue and bulging blue veins underneath. Lumpy patches of yellow adipose clustered in grooves and seams where the muscles joined in useless perfection.
Cable-thick tubing ran from above, bundled together and coupled into various implanted sockets for reasons obviously associated with sustaining dubious life.
Occasionally, muscles twitched or a sudden shudder wen through the enormous cohesion of mindless flesh and sent the body swinging in the slow tight spiral allowed by the chains.
At the bottom of the meat, near the pointed but snubbed posterior, something like an anus spewed filth with peristaltic violence into a square depression in the floor. Urine dribbled or sprayed from hidden hole proximal to the defecating sphincter, help to wash soupy piles of shit and blood toward runnels in the floor.
That is disgusting and brilliant in a very twisted kind of way. It’s combination of horrific abomination with the cold calculation of necessity wavering between tempering and magnifying the horror. Huso, simultaneously throws at us a scene of gory horror and a complex social and moral issue. It’s a trick he will continue to use to great effect over the course of the novel. Of course he will also throw other horrors at readers, ones that reminded me somewhat of the Deep Ones and worshipers of Dagon from Lovecraft’s The Shadow Over Innsmouth, while simultaneously hinting at cosmic horrors lurking unseen in the places between the world.
The Last Page is rife with these touches of horror and on Huso’s website he speaks briefly on horror:
For me, fantasy must play chameleon in exactly this way, offer beauty hidden in horror; promise loveliness then suddenly throw its head back and scream. This is something I think horror on its own struggles to do because I always suspect it. But fantasy can go both ways. The horror can dissolve suddenly and unexpectedly into bliss, which I think enhances the sense of unpredictability. It is surprise and uncertainty, especially the uncertainty of how to react, that I prize.
That “uncertainty of how to react” is emblematic of much of The Last Page and it is a curious sensation that few, if any, other fantasy novels manage to evoke. While I was a bit off-put by what I felt was a lack of focus with regards to the novel’s external conflicts Huso’s constant invention, hints of things in the shadows, and masterful portrayal of his character’s and their relationship kept me entranced for every page. It is the kind of novel that after reading it once I want to explore again just to examine the details that my initial read is sure to have missed. I excited to see what Huso comes up with next and I am excited (an excitement tinged with a sort of manic dread) to explore more of The Last Page’s strange, wondrous, world.
August 8, 2020
I picked this up at a Dollar Tree for $1. I had pretty low expectations - it looked like some kind of mashup of grimdark fantasy and steampunk (a genre I do not much enjoy), and it sat on my shelf a while before I got around to reading it. But it really is quite excellent - a dark and gritty fantasy with some really Lovecraftian horror elements, a world of chemical power and blood magic, of strange Outsiders and a forbidden tome that may unlock their secrets . . . all really cool stuff. But more traditional elements are there too, artfully deployed - a young prince comes to the throne before he's really ready, finds his tiny country beset on all sides by enemies and on the brink of war, but his girlfriend from school turns out to be a witch . . . Well, I'll just say I really enjoyed this one, and I have already ordered the sequel from Amazon so I can find out how this ends . . .
July 20, 2014
It's rare to see someone get the New Weird tone right. It's not about transgressive body squick and creepy monsters (although those never hurt); it's the modernist tone taken to fantasy. Technologies of magic, bureaucracy of necromancy, financial transactions of the soul. Mixed metaphors that turn unexpectedly literal. Set it in this world and you get Matthew Swift; invent a new world and you have Mieville. (We will discuss Max Gladstone at another time.)
This book gets the tone right, but the story isn't strong enough to support it, I'm afraid. It starts out great: a university of magic (always a win), a library at the university (you've got my attention), petty students tangling with corrupt faculty and sneaking out to get laid. (Not my university experience but I'll accept it as a fantasy motif.)
Post this introduction, however, it gets thin. The protagonists are the heir to the High Throne and a witch. The witch wants to locate a magic book of magicness. The prince wants -- well, it doesn't matter what he wants, because a civil war just started and he's got to play realpolitik.
Nothing wrong with that stuff as a setup; I just don't think the author carries it through very well. The conflicts are all blunt and uninteresting. The witch needs to betray the prince to open the magic book, but she secretly likes him; the prince needs to use technology to save his city, but the technology is evil; the spymaster has a plan... it's characters built to support history, not vice versa.
Then, later, the plot outruns the author's ability to clue me in on what's going on. People scheme, go insane, run around, and betray each other. I didn't understand why. There's a royal ghost. Two royal ghosts? Not sure.
The language is fruitily over-the top. I wound up feeling drowned in synonyms. Well-chosen synonyms, but way overused. Ironically, at one point the witch explains that magic is most powerful when it uses as few words as possible. I think the author failed to re-read that bit. The use of diacritical marks is also over-the-top, although, to be fair, I enjoyed seeing fake language that went beyond apostrophes and Tolkienesque ä/ï/ë. (I'll spare you examples. I think they were in the style of romanized Vietnamese script?)
I think I want to revisit this author in a few years, when he's gotten some more experience. Will skip the rest of this series, try again on his next one.
This book gets the tone right, but the story isn't strong enough to support it, I'm afraid. It starts out great: a university of magic (always a win), a library at the university (you've got my attention), petty students tangling with corrupt faculty and sneaking out to get laid. (Not my university experience but I'll accept it as a fantasy motif.)
Post this introduction, however, it gets thin. The protagonists are the heir to the High Throne and a witch. The witch wants to locate a magic book of magicness. The prince wants -- well, it doesn't matter what he wants, because a civil war just started and he's got to play realpolitik.
Nothing wrong with that stuff as a setup; I just don't think the author carries it through very well. The conflicts are all blunt and uninteresting. The witch needs to betray the prince to open the magic book, but she secretly likes him; the prince needs to use technology to save his city, but the technology is evil; the spymaster has a plan... it's characters built to support history, not vice versa.
Then, later, the plot outruns the author's ability to clue me in on what's going on. People scheme, go insane, run around, and betray each other. I didn't understand why. There's a royal ghost. Two royal ghosts? Not sure.
The language is fruitily over-the top. I wound up feeling drowned in synonyms. Well-chosen synonyms, but way overused. Ironically, at one point the witch explains that magic is most powerful when it uses as few words as possible. I think the author failed to re-read that bit. The use of diacritical marks is also over-the-top, although, to be fair, I enjoyed seeing fake language that went beyond apostrophes and Tolkienesque ä/ï/ë. (I'll spare you examples. I think they were in the style of romanized Vietnamese script?)
I think I want to revisit this author in a few years, when he's gotten some more experience. Will skip the rest of this series, try again on his next one.
September 12, 2010
I have mixed feelings about this rather long, dark, and imaginative fantasy by first time author Huso. There is a lot to like here. This is a very dark fantasy, the characters are flawed and real, the plot is simple and time tested, and the magic is extremely cool. This is a sort of steam punk novel,where zeppelins, bizarre machinery, and state of the art science rules the world. Blood magic is the supernatural element that permeates the landscape of this story. The story is overly ambitious and as a result there are far too many loose threads that fray at the main plot. Too many questions left unanswered and a questionable ending bring the overall feel of this novel down a few notches. I am giving this book 3 stars because of it's highly imaginative magic and wonderful stempunk-esque setting. Huso is an author to watch but this one suffers a little from first time mistakes.
December 19, 2013
After about 100 pages, nothing in this novel kept me interested.
Oh, the writing style is good. The descriptions spot on and the world-building well done. However, the characters aren’t compelling enough to raise my curiosity and the plot plods along at its own slow pace.
Nothing really new to be found here, but no horrible missteps either.
But then here’s the true reason I stopped reading: I put the book aside and totally forgot about it for a week. That’s a good enough sign for me to move on.
Oh, the writing style is good. The descriptions spot on and the world-building well done. However, the characters aren’t compelling enough to raise my curiosity and the plot plods along at its own slow pace.
Nothing really new to be found here, but no horrible missteps either.
But then here’s the true reason I stopped reading: I put the book aside and totally forgot about it for a week. That’s a good enough sign for me to move on.
December 1, 2016
I did not finish this book as I found it not to my taste. The plot wasn't even revealed until halfway through the book. It was slow, wordy, and the worldbuilding was really sloppy.
June 16, 2012
Before I say anything about The Last Page, I'll say that it looks like the best debut fantasy books of 2010 come mostly from Tor Books: Blake Charlton's Spellwright is a fantastic traditional fantasy book, Ian Tregillis' Bitter Seeds is a fascinating alternate history book and now fantasy readers have a chance to read another fine and exciting book, Anthony Huso's The Last Page.
I'm glad that I had a chance to read the advance uncorrected proof of Anthony Huso's The Last Page, because this book is fantastic! When I finished reading this book, I said to myself: "Wow! What a book!".
I enjoyed reading Anthony Huso's The Last Page very much. It made a huge impression on me and I can recommend it to everybody who likes good adult fantasy. It's a delightfully steampunkish and sophisticated fantasy book, which grabs hold of you and won't let go until you've reached the final page.
Anthony Huso's prose is good and the story is amazingly addictive – once you start reading it, you won't stop until you've reached the last page. I read the whole book as soon as possible, because it was so good that I couldn't stop reading it (I had to find out how the story ends).
The Last Page feels surprisingly fresh and interesting when compared to many other debut books. Although this book contains several traditional fantasy and steampunk elements, it's an original and well written book, because Huso avoids all the typical clichés. Huso's tight and descriptive writing style is charming.
Glen Cook has said that The Last Page is "a first novel of unusual scope, power, and imagination" and David Drake has said that it's "an excellent story told in High Style". I totally agree with them, because Anthony Huso's debut fantasy book rises clearly above many other debut books.
Categorizing The Last Page is a bit difficult, because it contains several different kind of elements and it's quite dark. It isn't exactly high fantasy and it isn't steampunk either, so it's difficult to say what it is, but perhaps it's enough to say that it's perfect fantasy for adult readers.
Here's some information about the characters:
The main characters, Caliph and Sena, are interesting and believable characters. The other characters are also interesting.
The story begins when the main Caliph and Sena are students and become lovers. Later they're a bit older and they meet again under different circumstances. In the beginning Caliph is a student, but later he's a king, and Sena is a witch who is ordered to do certain things. Caliph is desribed as a reluctant king and that makes him an interesting character. Anthony Huso writes carefully about his life, duty and feelings. Some people may probably think that Caliph is a clichéd character, because he's a reluctant king, but he's not – he's a realistic and genuinely interesting character.
Anthony Huso also writes carefully about Sena and makes her a complex character, who has an obsession to find out more about Cisrym Ta, which is an ancient arcane text. Sena is a witch and she's the pupil of Megan, who's an older witch and a Coven Mother. Sena's life can be called difficult and the choices she makes are interesting.
The motives and feelings of Caliph and Sena are handled in a sophisticated manner. Both characters are almost like normal people and that's why they're both likeable characters. I think that several readers will feel sympathy for both of them.
The witches are fascinating characters, because the Shradnae witches are described as women who are willing to do almost anything to get what they want. Their sex life is interesting, because they use sex for their own purposes – sex is almost like a tool for them. Being a witch is dangerous and a witch has to work in secrecy and follow the orders of the Sisterhood.
The servants and other characters are also interesting characters and they make a good supporting cast. For example, spymaster Zane Vhortghast (Mr. Vhortghast) is a good and mysterious character and Caliph's friends from the college are also good characters.
The official synopsis of The Last Page reveals a lot about the story, but it leaves many important things unsaid. It only scratches the surface on certain things, so here more information the world and other things:
The world of The Last Page is a steampunkish and fascinating fantasy world. In my opinion this world is in the early stages of industrialism/industrial revolution. The world is full of different kind of things – trains, power sources, newspapers, airships, guns etc. These things make the world interesting, because it differs from normal medieval fantasy worlds. I think I can say that the world Anthony Huso has created is a strangely familiar place, but it's also a profoundly different place.
The worldbuilding is done with care. Anthony Huso writes fantastically about the world, the people, the cities and the wilderness. He describes things with care, but he also leaves room for the reader's imagination.
The Last Page combines different kind of elements – fantasy, steampunk, witches, sex, magic, political situations etc – in a splendid way. It's almost amazing how entertaining and well written this book is. Although Anthony Huso uses several basic fantasy elements and writes about typical fantasy situations, he manages to create something new and wonderful. His fantasy is inventive and engrossing. Sexual situations are handled well in this book, because Huso writes fluently about sex and desire. Magical things are also handled flawlessly.
In my opinion political situtations and other similar things are surprisingly interesting in this book. Some scenes are simple while others are more complex. This is good, because it creates diversity. In one fine scene Caliph has to prove to the Council that he's capable of being a king. This scene shows that Huso writes fluently about political situations – the character interaction works well in this scene and the reactions of the characters seem realistic.
There are several other good scenes, but I'm not going to analyze all of them. I'll only write about one more scene and then I'll write about other things, because I don't want to reveal too much about the story and I don't want to spoil anybody's fun of reading the book.
In the beginning of the book Caliph is reluctant to become a king and he runs away from the college to find Sena. In my opinion this scene is powerful, because it demonstrates how unwilling Caliph is to become a king, but it also shows that he's capable of making difficult choices when necessary. The Last Page contains lots of similar deftly written scenes, which will easily charm the reader.
Now I'll write about other things...
The sense of wonder is always present in The Last Page and the magical things are fascinating. As the story begins to unfold Anthony Huso shows the reader almost an amazing mount of wonders and inventions from the shocking meat industry to strange power sources (and much more). As the story develops, the plot becomes more interesting and nuanced, and the ending is good. I think that the author has done his best to create an absorbing, imaginative and vivid fantasy book for adults and he's succeeded in it beyond expectations. I'm sure that he'll become a successful and respected fantasy author.
I was positively surprised when I found out that this book contains darker magic (blood magic) than other new books. This kind of magic has always fascinated me in fantasy books, so I was thrilled to read about it. Holomorphy is a good invention, because the reader wants to know more about it.
The meat industry of Isca is a brilliant invention (it's one of the best inventions in this book). This meat industry is probably a shocking surprise for most readers, because they will never suspect what will be revealed to them. I'm not going to write more about this subject, but I can mention that the author has used quite a lot of imagination when he's written about this meat industry. I think that horror readers will love Isca's meat industry, because horror literature is the only place where you'll be able to find similar shocking and disturbing visions. I loved this invention.
The fauna of the world is also quite interesting, because Anthony Huso mentions strange animals. For example, there are sarchal hounds and horrible otter-things which lie in wait below the lakes.
The pronunciation guide at the end of the book was useful. It helped to clarify certain things.
I could write much more about The Last Page, but I won't do that, because I think I've already praised this book too much. There's only only thing, which I haven't written about and that's the map of the world. The uncorrected proof doesn't contain a map of the world, but the final book will contain maps. The map isn't necessary to understand what's going on in this book, but it'll be interesting to see the map of the world.
According to Anthony Huso's official website, he has sold The Last Page and its sequel to Tor Books, so there'll probably be at least one sequel. I have to confess that I can hardly wait to get my hands of the sequel, because The Last Page is an amazingly good book.
Some readers may probably wonder if The Last Page is worth reading. I can say that it's definitely worth buying and reading. If you like good and inventive fantasy, you'll love this book. I think that The Last Page will be like a breath of fresh air to several readers who are fed up with mediocre and unimaginative fantasy books. This book is pure quality from the first page to the last page.
If you're looking for a new and a bit different kind of fantasy book, you must read The Last Page. I can recommend The Last Page to all fantasy readers, because it's an exceptionally powerful debut book, which deserves all the praise it gets. I can honestly say that The Last Page is one of the best and finest fantasy books I've read this year. You won't regret reading this book, because it's a damn good fantasy book! Buy it, read it and love it!
I'm glad that I had a chance to read the advance uncorrected proof of Anthony Huso's The Last Page, because this book is fantastic! When I finished reading this book, I said to myself: "Wow! What a book!".
I enjoyed reading Anthony Huso's The Last Page very much. It made a huge impression on me and I can recommend it to everybody who likes good adult fantasy. It's a delightfully steampunkish and sophisticated fantasy book, which grabs hold of you and won't let go until you've reached the final page.
Anthony Huso's prose is good and the story is amazingly addictive – once you start reading it, you won't stop until you've reached the last page. I read the whole book as soon as possible, because it was so good that I couldn't stop reading it (I had to find out how the story ends).
The Last Page feels surprisingly fresh and interesting when compared to many other debut books. Although this book contains several traditional fantasy and steampunk elements, it's an original and well written book, because Huso avoids all the typical clichés. Huso's tight and descriptive writing style is charming.
Glen Cook has said that The Last Page is "a first novel of unusual scope, power, and imagination" and David Drake has said that it's "an excellent story told in High Style". I totally agree with them, because Anthony Huso's debut fantasy book rises clearly above many other debut books.
Categorizing The Last Page is a bit difficult, because it contains several different kind of elements and it's quite dark. It isn't exactly high fantasy and it isn't steampunk either, so it's difficult to say what it is, but perhaps it's enough to say that it's perfect fantasy for adult readers.
Here's some information about the characters:
The main characters, Caliph and Sena, are interesting and believable characters. The other characters are also interesting.
The story begins when the main Caliph and Sena are students and become lovers. Later they're a bit older and they meet again under different circumstances. In the beginning Caliph is a student, but later he's a king, and Sena is a witch who is ordered to do certain things. Caliph is desribed as a reluctant king and that makes him an interesting character. Anthony Huso writes carefully about his life, duty and feelings. Some people may probably think that Caliph is a clichéd character, because he's a reluctant king, but he's not – he's a realistic and genuinely interesting character.
Anthony Huso also writes carefully about Sena and makes her a complex character, who has an obsession to find out more about Cisrym Ta, which is an ancient arcane text. Sena is a witch and she's the pupil of Megan, who's an older witch and a Coven Mother. Sena's life can be called difficult and the choices she makes are interesting.
The motives and feelings of Caliph and Sena are handled in a sophisticated manner. Both characters are almost like normal people and that's why they're both likeable characters. I think that several readers will feel sympathy for both of them.
The witches are fascinating characters, because the Shradnae witches are described as women who are willing to do almost anything to get what they want. Their sex life is interesting, because they use sex for their own purposes – sex is almost like a tool for them. Being a witch is dangerous and a witch has to work in secrecy and follow the orders of the Sisterhood.
The servants and other characters are also interesting characters and they make a good supporting cast. For example, spymaster Zane Vhortghast (Mr. Vhortghast) is a good and mysterious character and Caliph's friends from the college are also good characters.
The official synopsis of The Last Page reveals a lot about the story, but it leaves many important things unsaid. It only scratches the surface on certain things, so here more information the world and other things:
The world of The Last Page is a steampunkish and fascinating fantasy world. In my opinion this world is in the early stages of industrialism/industrial revolution. The world is full of different kind of things – trains, power sources, newspapers, airships, guns etc. These things make the world interesting, because it differs from normal medieval fantasy worlds. I think I can say that the world Anthony Huso has created is a strangely familiar place, but it's also a profoundly different place.
The worldbuilding is done with care. Anthony Huso writes fantastically about the world, the people, the cities and the wilderness. He describes things with care, but he also leaves room for the reader's imagination.
The Last Page combines different kind of elements – fantasy, steampunk, witches, sex, magic, political situations etc – in a splendid way. It's almost amazing how entertaining and well written this book is. Although Anthony Huso uses several basic fantasy elements and writes about typical fantasy situations, he manages to create something new and wonderful. His fantasy is inventive and engrossing. Sexual situations are handled well in this book, because Huso writes fluently about sex and desire. Magical things are also handled flawlessly.
In my opinion political situtations and other similar things are surprisingly interesting in this book. Some scenes are simple while others are more complex. This is good, because it creates diversity. In one fine scene Caliph has to prove to the Council that he's capable of being a king. This scene shows that Huso writes fluently about political situations – the character interaction works well in this scene and the reactions of the characters seem realistic.
There are several other good scenes, but I'm not going to analyze all of them. I'll only write about one more scene and then I'll write about other things, because I don't want to reveal too much about the story and I don't want to spoil anybody's fun of reading the book.
In the beginning of the book Caliph is reluctant to become a king and he runs away from the college to find Sena. In my opinion this scene is powerful, because it demonstrates how unwilling Caliph is to become a king, but it also shows that he's capable of making difficult choices when necessary. The Last Page contains lots of similar deftly written scenes, which will easily charm the reader.
Now I'll write about other things...
The sense of wonder is always present in The Last Page and the magical things are fascinating. As the story begins to unfold Anthony Huso shows the reader almost an amazing mount of wonders and inventions from the shocking meat industry to strange power sources (and much more). As the story develops, the plot becomes more interesting and nuanced, and the ending is good. I think that the author has done his best to create an absorbing, imaginative and vivid fantasy book for adults and he's succeeded in it beyond expectations. I'm sure that he'll become a successful and respected fantasy author.
I was positively surprised when I found out that this book contains darker magic (blood magic) than other new books. This kind of magic has always fascinated me in fantasy books, so I was thrilled to read about it. Holomorphy is a good invention, because the reader wants to know more about it.
The meat industry of Isca is a brilliant invention (it's one of the best inventions in this book). This meat industry is probably a shocking surprise for most readers, because they will never suspect what will be revealed to them. I'm not going to write more about this subject, but I can mention that the author has used quite a lot of imagination when he's written about this meat industry. I think that horror readers will love Isca's meat industry, because horror literature is the only place where you'll be able to find similar shocking and disturbing visions. I loved this invention.
The fauna of the world is also quite interesting, because Anthony Huso mentions strange animals. For example, there are sarchal hounds and horrible otter-things which lie in wait below the lakes.
The pronunciation guide at the end of the book was useful. It helped to clarify certain things.
I could write much more about The Last Page, but I won't do that, because I think I've already praised this book too much. There's only only thing, which I haven't written about and that's the map of the world. The uncorrected proof doesn't contain a map of the world, but the final book will contain maps. The map isn't necessary to understand what's going on in this book, but it'll be interesting to see the map of the world.
According to Anthony Huso's official website, he has sold The Last Page and its sequel to Tor Books, so there'll probably be at least one sequel. I have to confess that I can hardly wait to get my hands of the sequel, because The Last Page is an amazingly good book.
Some readers may probably wonder if The Last Page is worth reading. I can say that it's definitely worth buying and reading. If you like good and inventive fantasy, you'll love this book. I think that The Last Page will be like a breath of fresh air to several readers who are fed up with mediocre and unimaginative fantasy books. This book is pure quality from the first page to the last page.
If you're looking for a new and a bit different kind of fantasy book, you must read The Last Page. I can recommend The Last Page to all fantasy readers, because it's an exceptionally powerful debut book, which deserves all the praise it gets. I can honestly say that The Last Page is one of the best and finest fantasy books I've read this year. You won't regret reading this book, because it's a damn good fantasy book! Buy it, read it and love it!
November 20, 2016
The Last Page is a COLD novel. That's the sense I got from practically The First Page of The Last Page (couldn't resist). Everything about it is cold. Even the red-hot lovers that are the central characters are just cold people.
Anthony Huso does his best to not let the reader in. It's like he thinks that by making his world inaccessible to the reader that he's more likely to be seen as a genius. And he might be, by some. I'm reminded of Neil Gaiman and Stephen Brust's metaphor for writing. If you don't know it, I'll repeat it here because it's really a great metaphor:
"Books can be broken down into four classes: popcorn, steak, caviar, and celery.
Popcorn is pretty obvious. Anyone here enjoy The Destroyer novels by Sapir and Murphy as much as me? Gobble, gobble, gobble. Steak is the stuff you can bite into, chew, swallow, and gain sustenance from. Some of us use spices on our steak, or do interesting things with it by stir-frying it, adding ginger and various vegetables, and so on. In my case, paprika. But at the end of the day, it is steak. Niel writes particularly good steak--range fed, the spicing is different every time, always delectable, and some of it obviously comes from places where cattle are not indigenous, making you go, "Wow. How did they ever think of doing that?" as you go for the next bite.
Gene Wolfe and John M. "Mike" Ford write caviar. It is a lot of work to get to. You have to open the can, you have to make sure the refrigeration is exactly perfect. You have to have the right atmosphere, and you have to approach it with the proper reverence if you're going to get anything out of the experience. But if you do, my god, is it worth it!
Celery is that stuff you have to chew and chew and chew and, by the time you're done, you've gotten even less nutritional value from than the popcorn. I won't name any names.
Some turn up their noses at popcorn. Well, that's okay. Just don't bring 'em to a ball game. Most of us like steak, in one form or another. Some object to caviar because they have just never got into the glories of eating--into food that is worth the work. For them, the payoff just isn't there.
The interesting thing, to me, is that there really are people out there who like the celery because it is so hard to chew, and the fact that there's nothing of substance there doesn't bother them."
--S. Brust
Huso definitely, unequivocally, falls into the celery category. I'm sure he thinks he's writing caviar, but sorry, there's nothing of substance to this story. It's so much celery I felt like slicing the book up and using it in a stew.
And that's a shame, because there are some incredible ideas presented very briefly by Huso, who them forgets them and moves straight on. Incredible ideas that [i]nothing[/i] is done with. Instead, we are presented with three main "plots" (I use that word loosely, because there's not much story here), all competing with each other to see which one can be more insipid; which one can be the one that keeps readers at arm's length more successfully.
Plot One: Caliph Howl, or "Muslim Leader Bellow", as I like to call him, is a young royal who's just been made High King, and finds himself falling in love with a young witch, Sena Iilool, after the two meet at school. I kept telling myself I'd get used to his ridiculous name. I never did. Her name isn't much better.
Plot Two: Caliph's placement on the throne begins a civil war, which starts apparently for no other reason than one his Lords Bannerman thinks he'd be a better king.
Plot Three: Sena is on the hunt for a mysterious Tome of Eldritch Lore (TM) that does...something.
That's it. That's the plot in a nutshell. Oh, there's lots of material that keeps the pages filled up, but it's just there so that Huso can present his confusing jumble of half-formed ideas, many of which look like they'd be amazing if only he'd just develop them a little further. And he gives it all to us in perhaps the most inaccessible method, a method that makes me think Huso takes great pride in being able to utilize an onomasticon. I'll give you a few seconds for that one.
William Faulkner, another writer who infuriates me with his "I'm soooo much smarter than you" writing style, once said of Ernest Hemingway “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” Hemingway came up with a pretty epic burn of his own: “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” History remembers Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of all time. It remembers Faulkner as one of those guys college students read and talk about in order to feel smarter than their peers.
Huso is of the Faulkner school of writing. He fills his pages with paragraph upon paragraph of rich-sounding drivel, using the biggest word his onomasticon can give him, and the more he does it, the more convinced I am that he desperately wants you to think he's a genius.
I've read other speculative fiction authors like Gene Wolfe, Frank Herbert, JRR Tolkien (natch) and Steven Erikson, who can make you believe there's a great deal going on in the worlds they've created, far more than is on the page. They can drop you into a story, tell you "sink or swim", and yet you feel very much like you're actually in the water, the deep end, even. Maybe it's hard to swim through. Maybe you have to read the book or books several times in order to understand it all, but you feel there's something there to understand. It feels real to you. That's what a good writer can do.
Huso drops you in head-first and says "sink or swim" but after a few splashes you realize you're in a wading pool. Huso has thrown some pool toys in, some of which are odd-looking and don't seem to do much, but all the toys in the world don't really distract from the fact that you're in about a couple of inches of water, and nothing real or important is happening, or going to happen.
Also, I've got to mention his dialogue. Rarely have I seen dialogue so at odds with the bloviated prose. When writing prose, he's a poor facsimile of Faulkner but practically as soon as the characters open their mouths, what comes out is so distressingly modern that it takes me right out of whatever spirit I was in to read these books. Characters use phrases like "How's it going?" or "I've got to go pee." It amazes me that when he's describing things he goes to such great length to sound educated, but when writing dialogue we're suddenly in an episode of How I Met Your Mother.
He also commits several sins that all bad writers commit: introducing characters that do nothing and disappear shortly after their appearance, characters who appear only once before a big epic twist, is revealed about them, telling instead of showing, using language so poetic that you're not sure if something's actually happening or if he's merely describing how the character feels, having a plot thread disappear for chapters upon chapters until, when it finally does appear, you've forgotten about it.
Those last two are particularly egregious. In one scene, for example, Sena goes down into a series of catacombs and, from what I could gather, begins to feel creeped out, and imagines that monstrous, Lovecraftian beings have followed her down here, and are staring at her right now. At least, I thought she just FELT that way, because nothing actually happens to her. Later, she thinks about her "close encounter" in the catacombs and I realized that she actually was followed by these creatures.
As for those plot lines that come and go, that's one of the downfalls of writing inaccessibly. A concept is introduced, and then we get seven chapters that have nothing to do with it, and are written in an infuriating way, and then finally it gets re-introduced, making you have to go back and look for when it was initially introduced in order for it to make sense. For example, there's a novella that is set between this book and its sequel, that supposedly reveals the mystery of, "What did Sena bury in the bogs?" I finished the book and thought "Sena buried something in the bogs?" I still am not sure when that supposedly happened.
And I haven't even mentioned Hụsọ's pểnchặnt for ὕsịng ậccẹnted chἀrẫctẻrs jụst bềcẵừsể hẻ cẵn. We get it, Huso, we all know how to use character map, too. It wouldn't be so bad if the pronunciation were intuitive, or he left it up to us, but there's a pronunciation guide in the back, and we learn there that words like Blẹkton are pronounced "Blookton", for example. I wasn't all that irritated by its use for the name of that mysterious tome, the Cịsrym Tạ, because that does help in making it sound old and mysterious. But all its other uses? Pretentious claptrap. Even worse are some of the ancient beings, whose names are given like this: בּﬠשׁמּאָשּׂףּאָ.
What part of that entices you as a reader?
So, ultimately, while I spent about three fourths of this book trying desperately to find something to like about it, I'm afraid I can't recommend this one. It's not that I'm just not smart enough to get it; you can feel when a book is truly brilliant as opposed to continually trying to convince you that it is. It's that despite all the obscurantism that Huso engages in, it all feels like the window-dressing that it is. It's celery. And I never liked celery.
EDIT: I forgot to mention one other little thing that drove me nuts. He keeps referring to dirigibles as "zeppelins". This would be fine, assuming that this world ALSO has a Count Zeppelin, who ALSO happened to be an aviation pioneer. As this is a completely alternate world (a different planet, as far as I can tell, as it has two moons), that is extremely unlikely.
Also, at one point he wants to describe a cannon as being extremely huge. So what word does he use? Brobdingnagian. It's at this point that I became sure that he was just flipping through an onomasticon (by the way, that's a thesaurus, for those of you who didn't get my earlier joke) for the biggest and most obscure words he could find. "Brobdingnagian" has become a legitimate literary term that means "unspeakably huge" but it's not a word that evolved naturally from anyone's native tongue. No, it's from Gulliver's Travels. Now, unless this planet ALSO has a Jonathan Swift, and he ALSO happened to write a fantastical story about a man who traveled to various islands, including one called Brobdingnag, inhabited by giants, there is no way that "Brobdingnagian" is a legitimate word there.
Anthony Huso does his best to not let the reader in. It's like he thinks that by making his world inaccessible to the reader that he's more likely to be seen as a genius. And he might be, by some. I'm reminded of Neil Gaiman and Stephen Brust's metaphor for writing. If you don't know it, I'll repeat it here because it's really a great metaphor:
"Books can be broken down into four classes: popcorn, steak, caviar, and celery.
Popcorn is pretty obvious. Anyone here enjoy The Destroyer novels by Sapir and Murphy as much as me? Gobble, gobble, gobble. Steak is the stuff you can bite into, chew, swallow, and gain sustenance from. Some of us use spices on our steak, or do interesting things with it by stir-frying it, adding ginger and various vegetables, and so on. In my case, paprika. But at the end of the day, it is steak. Niel writes particularly good steak--range fed, the spicing is different every time, always delectable, and some of it obviously comes from places where cattle are not indigenous, making you go, "Wow. How did they ever think of doing that?" as you go for the next bite.
Gene Wolfe and John M. "Mike" Ford write caviar. It is a lot of work to get to. You have to open the can, you have to make sure the refrigeration is exactly perfect. You have to have the right atmosphere, and you have to approach it with the proper reverence if you're going to get anything out of the experience. But if you do, my god, is it worth it!
Celery is that stuff you have to chew and chew and chew and, by the time you're done, you've gotten even less nutritional value from than the popcorn. I won't name any names.
Some turn up their noses at popcorn. Well, that's okay. Just don't bring 'em to a ball game. Most of us like steak, in one form or another. Some object to caviar because they have just never got into the glories of eating--into food that is worth the work. For them, the payoff just isn't there.
The interesting thing, to me, is that there really are people out there who like the celery because it is so hard to chew, and the fact that there's nothing of substance there doesn't bother them."
--S. Brust
Huso definitely, unequivocally, falls into the celery category. I'm sure he thinks he's writing caviar, but sorry, there's nothing of substance to this story. It's so much celery I felt like slicing the book up and using it in a stew.
And that's a shame, because there are some incredible ideas presented very briefly by Huso, who them forgets them and moves straight on. Incredible ideas that [i]nothing[/i] is done with. Instead, we are presented with three main "plots" (I use that word loosely, because there's not much story here), all competing with each other to see which one can be more insipid; which one can be the one that keeps readers at arm's length more successfully.
Plot One: Caliph Howl, or "Muslim Leader Bellow", as I like to call him, is a young royal who's just been made High King, and finds himself falling in love with a young witch, Sena Iilool, after the two meet at school. I kept telling myself I'd get used to his ridiculous name. I never did. Her name isn't much better.
Plot Two: Caliph's placement on the throne begins a civil war, which starts apparently for no other reason than one his Lords Bannerman thinks he'd be a better king.
Plot Three: Sena is on the hunt for a mysterious Tome of Eldritch Lore (TM) that does...something.
That's it. That's the plot in a nutshell. Oh, there's lots of material that keeps the pages filled up, but it's just there so that Huso can present his confusing jumble of half-formed ideas, many of which look like they'd be amazing if only he'd just develop them a little further. And he gives it all to us in perhaps the most inaccessible method, a method that makes me think Huso takes great pride in being able to utilize an onomasticon. I'll give you a few seconds for that one.
William Faulkner, another writer who infuriates me with his "I'm soooo much smarter than you" writing style, once said of Ernest Hemingway “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” Hemingway came up with a pretty epic burn of his own: “Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?” History remembers Hemingway as one of the greatest writers of all time. It remembers Faulkner as one of those guys college students read and talk about in order to feel smarter than their peers.
Huso is of the Faulkner school of writing. He fills his pages with paragraph upon paragraph of rich-sounding drivel, using the biggest word his onomasticon can give him, and the more he does it, the more convinced I am that he desperately wants you to think he's a genius.
I've read other speculative fiction authors like Gene Wolfe, Frank Herbert, JRR Tolkien (natch) and Steven Erikson, who can make you believe there's a great deal going on in the worlds they've created, far more than is on the page. They can drop you into a story, tell you "sink or swim", and yet you feel very much like you're actually in the water, the deep end, even. Maybe it's hard to swim through. Maybe you have to read the book or books several times in order to understand it all, but you feel there's something there to understand. It feels real to you. That's what a good writer can do.
Huso drops you in head-first and says "sink or swim" but after a few splashes you realize you're in a wading pool. Huso has thrown some pool toys in, some of which are odd-looking and don't seem to do much, but all the toys in the world don't really distract from the fact that you're in about a couple of inches of water, and nothing real or important is happening, or going to happen.
Also, I've got to mention his dialogue. Rarely have I seen dialogue so at odds with the bloviated prose. When writing prose, he's a poor facsimile of Faulkner but practically as soon as the characters open their mouths, what comes out is so distressingly modern that it takes me right out of whatever spirit I was in to read these books. Characters use phrases like "How's it going?" or "I've got to go pee." It amazes me that when he's describing things he goes to such great length to sound educated, but when writing dialogue we're suddenly in an episode of How I Met Your Mother.
He also commits several sins that all bad writers commit: introducing characters that do nothing and disappear shortly after their appearance, characters who appear only once before a big epic twist, is revealed about them, telling instead of showing, using language so poetic that you're not sure if something's actually happening or if he's merely describing how the character feels, having a plot thread disappear for chapters upon chapters until, when it finally does appear, you've forgotten about it.
Those last two are particularly egregious. In one scene, for example, Sena goes down into a series of catacombs and, from what I could gather, begins to feel creeped out, and imagines that monstrous, Lovecraftian beings have followed her down here, and are staring at her right now. At least, I thought she just FELT that way, because nothing actually happens to her. Later, she thinks about her "close encounter" in the catacombs and I realized that she actually was followed by these creatures.
As for those plot lines that come and go, that's one of the downfalls of writing inaccessibly. A concept is introduced, and then we get seven chapters that have nothing to do with it, and are written in an infuriating way, and then finally it gets re-introduced, making you have to go back and look for when it was initially introduced in order for it to make sense. For example, there's a novella that is set between this book and its sequel, that supposedly reveals the mystery of, "What did Sena bury in the bogs?" I finished the book and thought "Sena buried something in the bogs?" I still am not sure when that supposedly happened.
And I haven't even mentioned Hụsọ's pểnchặnt for ὕsịng ậccẹnted chἀrẫctẻrs jụst bềcẵừsể hẻ cẵn. We get it, Huso, we all know how to use character map, too. It wouldn't be so bad if the pronunciation were intuitive, or he left it up to us, but there's a pronunciation guide in the back, and we learn there that words like Blẹkton are pronounced "Blookton", for example. I wasn't all that irritated by its use for the name of that mysterious tome, the Cịsrym Tạ, because that does help in making it sound old and mysterious. But all its other uses? Pretentious claptrap. Even worse are some of the ancient beings, whose names are given like this: בּﬠשׁמּאָשּׂףּאָ.
What part of that entices you as a reader?
So, ultimately, while I spent about three fourths of this book trying desperately to find something to like about it, I'm afraid I can't recommend this one. It's not that I'm just not smart enough to get it; you can feel when a book is truly brilliant as opposed to continually trying to convince you that it is. It's that despite all the obscurantism that Huso engages in, it all feels like the window-dressing that it is. It's celery. And I never liked celery.
EDIT: I forgot to mention one other little thing that drove me nuts. He keeps referring to dirigibles as "zeppelins". This would be fine, assuming that this world ALSO has a Count Zeppelin, who ALSO happened to be an aviation pioneer. As this is a completely alternate world (a different planet, as far as I can tell, as it has two moons), that is extremely unlikely.
Also, at one point he wants to describe a cannon as being extremely huge. So what word does he use? Brobdingnagian. It's at this point that I became sure that he was just flipping through an onomasticon (by the way, that's a thesaurus, for those of you who didn't get my earlier joke) for the biggest and most obscure words he could find. "Brobdingnagian" has become a legitimate literary term that means "unspeakably huge" but it's not a word that evolved naturally from anyone's native tongue. No, it's from Gulliver's Travels. Now, unless this planet ALSO has a Jonathan Swift, and he ALSO happened to write a fantastical story about a man who traveled to various islands, including one called Brobdingnag, inhabited by giants, there is no way that "Brobdingnagian" is a legitimate word there.
July 7, 2018
Rating: 1.5
I won a copy of this book for an honest review. This will never effect how I like or rate a book.
You know what, I'm proud of myself for finishing this book. Most will say they wont waste their time finishing a bad book but for me I hate not to. Especially if I plan to do a review for it then I need to make sure I actually finish the book. It wasn't easy but I did it. And oh boy will there be spoilers concerning the ending.
I took notes. I actually finally took notes for a book so that I could bring up all the different things I wanted to say for the review. Now granted I should of been doing this before with the other books I've reviewed. Finding I've often times forgotten to write about one more thing that I forgot to say. Still none of them needed it as much as this book did.
Let me bring up one of the good things first though before I get into ranting about the bad.
This cover. Or the one that shows the landscape and the zeppelins. It is absolutely beautiful. Whoever designed that is a artist. It's so detailed and really helps visualize the world of the book. The other cover I've seen with the eye is nice but this one seems just perfect for the story. So great choice on that.
You want to know what else is detailed? Everything is this book. There were so many details that you literally couldn't go one paragraph without hitting a whole bunch. Now this did help you to visualize every little thing but at the same time it did become overwhelming and well some things I just really didn't care about knowing. Example: Do I really need to know how exactly Sena managed to take her urgent piss or Caliph relieving his bowels? Don't worry, he wiped afterwards.
As if that didn't already feel unneeded something else was even more not wanted. That would be the constant comparisons of things. It seemed everything had to be compared to something so that the reader might better understand what was happening. Sometimes it helped and other times it just felt pointless or sometimes even crass or just disgusting.
"The capacity of the vaults was sufficient that Isca's sewers had never needed extensive redesign. They sucked floods down an ineluctable network of straws like a fat girl at a soda fountain and pushed them through turbines toward the bay where powerful geysers of odious water gushed into the sea." pg.148-149
"The ragmen drift north toward the crest of the cemetery, wading through patchy ugly weeds that flourish like pubic hair." pg.230
Overall it started to feel like the book was just lots of descriptions and very little story. Or really that the story was getting bogged down by them. Which is something I never thought I'd find myself saying since I had always considered descriptions a good thing.
Now before I forget the book also writes symbols from time to time. In the beginning they give you definitions at the bottom of the page so that you might better understand. Some of these help, others not so much. The real fun part comes though when they get used again later on and you're suppose to remember what they were before after reading off the other ones and having it be many pages later. Yeah, I wasn't about to wade my way back through the pages in an attempt to find that exact one again. It got to the point where I got myself to understand the main story and let everything else just go over my head. Which wasn't too hard what with some of the words this book was using.
Now onto the characters. Or really what caused the most unevenness in the book for me. Caliph Howl was the better main character. I can't say I overly liked him but I felt I understood him better and in the end I did want to see him succeed even though the odds were stacked so badly against. The amount of betrayals he suffered through started to become laughable. Having me believe he might as well get used to trusting no one at this point. The plot with him and the coming war with Saergaeth was the most interesting thing in here. Focusing on that seemed to keep Caliph's mind clear and he seemed pretty sensible. That is of course if you don't include the times when he's around Sena and becomes pretty well senseless. By the end of the book she could of killed him and his ghost would still be longing after her.
Sena was the real problem with this book. Over time her plot just became uninteresting. So I didn't care about her or her story. I tried but just like with everyone else she pushed me away. To the point where I wished her plot would just end and we could stay focused on Caliph. When she betrayed Caliph and left to do what she had been planning to do the whole book I was glad. When pg, 336 came all I could do was laugh. Something so obvious and now the character was finally realizing it. Laughing at the stupidity of it. For me that was where I wanted her story to end. It would of been perfect and then we could of focused back on the war and Caliph.
Since everything after that with Sena just felt like a distraction. I could practically hear myself groan whenever she came up. That's never a good sign. In fact the only times she was interesting were the times she was being attacked/running from a monster.
Other than that there were some side characters I liked. Namely Alani. I thought he was a good addition. He was really interesting and I would of liked more of him in the book. The same goes for Cameron. He apparently had the good sense to leave the book not long after his appearance. Still he was memorable to me and it was sad seeing him go so soon. He seemed really interesting as well and I would of really liked getting to know him more.
As the story went along though I noticed that even when things were happening I didn't feel too invested in the outcome. It was more just me trying to get through the book. Everything just felt so long winded and tedious. Maybe too many things did go over my head or something because for me it just seems this book could of been shorter. But make it to the end I did and here's what I have to say.
I'm not sure if it was meant to be taken seriously but even now I'm still laughing. All that time being bored by Sena's plot finally paid off as it finally did something and saved the day, killing thousands, but saving the day. When they killed Caliph and started saying she'd be Queen it was just another stupid thing I forced myself to except. Sure lets make the girl who's certainly crazy and doesn't care about the lives she takes Queen. Sure, whatever. Yet it decided to show me that they could one up that and make things even more crazy. All of it coming to the huge climax where Sena kills, or should I say explodes, many animals in a room full of people to bring Caliph's now embalmed body back to life. To top it all off now Sena wants to have a child. Yep, now that it would seem her body is dead and his body should be incapable of doing much since he was definitely dead she wants to start a family. Well isn't that sweet? I'm sorry but the ending to this supposed first book felt ludicrous to me. It felt forced after everything else and all I could do was laugh.
So why give it a 1.5 and let it have two stars? Well its a bit tricky to explain. I may not have liked the characters but I didn't outright hate them. It might of been because the book was being told in third person and not first but I didn't find myself wanting to throw the book against the wall or getting angry at the stupid things characters were doing. In the case of Sena, none of it seemed stupid for her to be doing, in fact she was doing just what I'd expect her character to do. So I couldn't get frustrated with her. Besides that there were some chapters where things did get interesting. Sena being attacked in her home, Caliph and Sena being chased into the old crumbling manor, and when they actually did have the battle at the end. That battle topped everything else as the most interesting thing hands down. It was long awaited and felt like a pretty good payoff. Along with the few side characters I would of liked to learn more about I felt this book deserved more then one star. It did have good things. It just felt bogged down by a bunch of other stuff that seemed not needed.
At the end of the day this book really just wasn't for me. It's not something I'd normally read. It sounded really interesting and had an enticing cover but it was just a bit much for me. If you're not a light reader and like adult steampunk this one might just be for you though. Definitely for adults who like to challenge their minds with a lot of details. I know there are many out there and this book might be just what they're looking for. In any case there may be people that like this kind of book but it just wasn't for me.
I won a copy of this book for an honest review. This will never effect how I like or rate a book.
You know what, I'm proud of myself for finishing this book. Most will say they wont waste their time finishing a bad book but for me I hate not to. Especially if I plan to do a review for it then I need to make sure I actually finish the book. It wasn't easy but I did it. And oh boy will there be spoilers concerning the ending.
I took notes. I actually finally took notes for a book so that I could bring up all the different things I wanted to say for the review. Now granted I should of been doing this before with the other books I've reviewed. Finding I've often times forgotten to write about one more thing that I forgot to say. Still none of them needed it as much as this book did.
Let me bring up one of the good things first though before I get into ranting about the bad.
This cover. Or the one that shows the landscape and the zeppelins. It is absolutely beautiful. Whoever designed that is a artist. It's so detailed and really helps visualize the world of the book. The other cover I've seen with the eye is nice but this one seems just perfect for the story. So great choice on that.
You want to know what else is detailed? Everything is this book. There were so many details that you literally couldn't go one paragraph without hitting a whole bunch. Now this did help you to visualize every little thing but at the same time it did become overwhelming and well some things I just really didn't care about knowing. Example: Do I really need to know how exactly Sena managed to take her urgent piss or Caliph relieving his bowels? Don't worry, he wiped afterwards.
As if that didn't already feel unneeded something else was even more not wanted. That would be the constant comparisons of things. It seemed everything had to be compared to something so that the reader might better understand what was happening. Sometimes it helped and other times it just felt pointless or sometimes even crass or just disgusting.
"The capacity of the vaults was sufficient that Isca's sewers had never needed extensive redesign. They sucked floods down an ineluctable network of straws like a fat girl at a soda fountain and pushed them through turbines toward the bay where powerful geysers of odious water gushed into the sea." pg.148-149
"The ragmen drift north toward the crest of the cemetery, wading through patchy ugly weeds that flourish like pubic hair." pg.230
Overall it started to feel like the book was just lots of descriptions and very little story. Or really that the story was getting bogged down by them. Which is something I never thought I'd find myself saying since I had always considered descriptions a good thing.
Now before I forget the book also writes symbols from time to time. In the beginning they give you definitions at the bottom of the page so that you might better understand. Some of these help, others not so much. The real fun part comes though when they get used again later on and you're suppose to remember what they were before after reading off the other ones and having it be many pages later. Yeah, I wasn't about to wade my way back through the pages in an attempt to find that exact one again. It got to the point where I got myself to understand the main story and let everything else just go over my head. Which wasn't too hard what with some of the words this book was using.
Now onto the characters. Or really what caused the most unevenness in the book for me. Caliph Howl was the better main character. I can't say I overly liked him but I felt I understood him better and in the end I did want to see him succeed even though the odds were stacked so badly against. The amount of betrayals he suffered through started to become laughable. Having me believe he might as well get used to trusting no one at this point. The plot with him and the coming war with Saergaeth was the most interesting thing in here. Focusing on that seemed to keep Caliph's mind clear and he seemed pretty sensible. That is of course if you don't include the times when he's around Sena and becomes pretty well senseless. By the end of the book she could of killed him and his ghost would still be longing after her.
Sena was the real problem with this book. Over time her plot just became uninteresting. So I didn't care about her or her story. I tried but just like with everyone else she pushed me away. To the point where I wished her plot would just end and we could stay focused on Caliph. When she betrayed Caliph and left to do what she had been planning to do the whole book I was glad. When pg, 336 came all I could do was laugh. Something so obvious and now the character was finally realizing it. Laughing at the stupidity of it. For me that was where I wanted her story to end. It would of been perfect and then we could of focused back on the war and Caliph.
Since everything after that with Sena just felt like a distraction. I could practically hear myself groan whenever she came up. That's never a good sign. In fact the only times she was interesting were the times she was being attacked/running from a monster.
Other than that there were some side characters I liked. Namely Alani. I thought he was a good addition. He was really interesting and I would of liked more of him in the book. The same goes for Cameron. He apparently had the good sense to leave the book not long after his appearance. Still he was memorable to me and it was sad seeing him go so soon. He seemed really interesting as well and I would of really liked getting to know him more.
As the story went along though I noticed that even when things were happening I didn't feel too invested in the outcome. It was more just me trying to get through the book. Everything just felt so long winded and tedious. Maybe too many things did go over my head or something because for me it just seems this book could of been shorter. But make it to the end I did and here's what I have to say.
I'm not sure if it was meant to be taken seriously but even now I'm still laughing. All that time being bored by Sena's plot finally paid off as it finally did something and saved the day, killing thousands, but saving the day. When they killed Caliph and started saying she'd be Queen it was just another stupid thing I forced myself to except. Sure lets make the girl who's certainly crazy and doesn't care about the lives she takes Queen. Sure, whatever. Yet it decided to show me that they could one up that and make things even more crazy. All of it coming to the huge climax where Sena kills, or should I say explodes, many animals in a room full of people to bring Caliph's now embalmed body back to life. To top it all off now Sena wants to have a child. Yep, now that it would seem her body is dead and his body should be incapable of doing much since he was definitely dead she wants to start a family. Well isn't that sweet? I'm sorry but the ending to this supposed first book felt ludicrous to me. It felt forced after everything else and all I could do was laugh.
So why give it a 1.5 and let it have two stars? Well its a bit tricky to explain. I may not have liked the characters but I didn't outright hate them. It might of been because the book was being told in third person and not first but I didn't find myself wanting to throw the book against the wall or getting angry at the stupid things characters were doing. In the case of Sena, none of it seemed stupid for her to be doing, in fact she was doing just what I'd expect her character to do. So I couldn't get frustrated with her. Besides that there were some chapters where things did get interesting. Sena being attacked in her home, Caliph and Sena being chased into the old crumbling manor, and when they actually did have the battle at the end. That battle topped everything else as the most interesting thing hands down. It was long awaited and felt like a pretty good payoff. Along with the few side characters I would of liked to learn more about I felt this book deserved more then one star. It did have good things. It just felt bogged down by a bunch of other stuff that seemed not needed.
At the end of the day this book really just wasn't for me. It's not something I'd normally read. It sounded really interesting and had an enticing cover but it was just a bit much for me. If you're not a light reader and like adult steampunk this one might just be for you though. Definitely for adults who like to challenge their minds with a lot of details. I know there are many out there and this book might be just what they're looking for. In any case there may be people that like this kind of book but it just wasn't for me.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 5, 2019
i found this book so compelling that i tried to stop reading it at least 15 times, and was unable to. for the life of me, i can't identify WHY i found it compelling. the language is more awkward than lovecraft (and far more clever and precious), the characters are paper-thin, and there is little to no emotional content, whatsoever.
somehow, i became more engaged after the halfway mark. something about the plot/action finally caught my interest enough to make me give up on giving up.
to be...fair? there are some interesting ideas at play here, and a handful of images/scenes that are satisfying.
in particular, there's a...maybe 5-7 page sequence, relatively close to the end, that i view as my reward for slogging through this entire thing. this scene is absolutely exquisite. it's almost as if it was written while the author wasn't paying attention. or maybe it was hidden there by a particularly passionate editor.
that scene, alone, is why i'm giving this book two stars instead of one. come over, or call me, sometime, and i will read it to you. we can marvel at this gem, buried in a bed of ashes.
somehow, i became more engaged after the halfway mark. something about the plot/action finally caught my interest enough to make me give up on giving up.
to be...fair? there are some interesting ideas at play here, and a handful of images/scenes that are satisfying.
in particular, there's a...maybe 5-7 page sequence, relatively close to the end, that i view as my reward for slogging through this entire thing. this scene is absolutely exquisite. it's almost as if it was written while the author wasn't paying attention. or maybe it was hidden there by a particularly passionate editor.
that scene, alone, is why i'm giving this book two stars instead of one. come over, or call me, sometime, and i will read it to you. we can marvel at this gem, buried in a bed of ashes.
did-not-finish
February 6, 2020(I only read to page 30, so it's probably not really much of a spoiler.)
February 20, 2017
This book deserves public admonition and warning. There are two cardinal sins: First, the prose is so dreadfully purple that it stains everything it touches. The editor, in particular, should be ashamed of the condition of the book, as the overly exhuberent tendencies of a novice novelist were left utterly unchecked. Second, the synthetic language in the novel is so dreadful as to impair comprehension of the plot. This should have stayed in the bottom desk drawer of the author's desk.
June 28, 2020
I read the second book first (accident), so this was a bitter sweet read for me. I liked it, but the story was a little rushed. There could have been so much more! Good, interesting read, though. It is a bit dark, if you like that sort of thing too.
March 8, 2021
The story line seemed interesting, but there was so much overly convoluted wording in every. single. sentence that it made it hard to read. It broke up the whole flow of the story. I got through maybe 80 pages before putting it away.
Want to read
July 19, 2020elibrary
August 2, 2022
DNF. I tried to start this book multiple times, but by page 50 I was disinterested. Just not my cup of tea, but nothing I can point to that specifically made me dislike the book.
June 16, 2012
(cross posted from theturnedbrain.blogspot.com.au/)
Because I am nothing if not timely I have finally got around to reading The Last Page, just as its sequel is being released. Better late than never right? I bought it when it was first came out because I'm sure I liked the sound of it, but that was so long ago that when I finally picked it up I couldn't remember a thing about it.
Actually, no, I remembered one thing. That while it was marketed as steampunk most people who read it felt the label certainty did not apply. Which sucks, because if steampunk was more like The Last Page, I feel like the genre and I would get along a lot better. This is what I've always wanted steampunk to be! Not a thinly veiled England full of eccentric geniuses and feisty ladies, but a dark and gritty fantasy world that just so happens to be powered by steam. (And zeppelins, natch). Well, steam and gas really. Steam, gas, and a dash of mathematics/magic. (A cool and original magic system, but then even real world maths seems like magic to me half the time). So I guess it can't be called steampunk after all. More like steampunk's moody older brother.
So, yes, the setting worked for me very well, but did the rest of the book? Mostly, yes. Huso has a distinctive narrative voice, and while I feel he stumbled with some of his metaphors I would rather an author push themselves a touch too far than not at all. I also like that the book had an almost modern air to it, much like Steph Swainstons 'Castle' books. Not many fantasy novels really embrace ideas like freedom of press, or really consider the logistics of keeping a kingdom fed, unless it pertains directly to the plot.
Ah yes, the plot. It's straightforward enough. Caliph Howl is a reluctant heir to the throne, and while at University he meets and falls in love (not sappy love though, more like too cool for love love) with Senna. Senna has a locked book, and she really wants to unlock it. That's the basic gist of it. Caliph has to fight to hold onto a kingdom he doesn't particularly want, and Senna has to unlock her book.
(Ok, brief asid, how cool is the name Caliph Howl? So cool.)
I really liked Caliph's character. Competent without being showey, compassionate without being boring. He's all poker face on the outside but storm of emotions on the inside, you know? Senna I did not like as much, although she was no less well done. I would have liked some more motivation as to why she wants to open the book so much, (aside from the power it would give her. Power is all well and good, but what does she want to do with it?) There are hints about it, and maybe it will be elaborated on in further books. Huso is good at hinting as opposed to spelling out, which is always good.
Unfortunately though I felt things fell apart towards the end of the book. Focus was lost, things just starting to happen in a haphazard way and I also started to get confused about what was happening with some plot points. Events occurred which seemed to be of great importance to the characters, but didn't seem that important to me. That kind of disconnect between book and reader is not a good thing.
This aside I do see myself picked up the next book somewhere down the line. There were still a lot of things to like about the Last Page and I will be interested to see where Huso takes it.
Because I am nothing if not timely I have finally got around to reading The Last Page, just as its sequel is being released. Better late than never right? I bought it when it was first came out because I'm sure I liked the sound of it, but that was so long ago that when I finally picked it up I couldn't remember a thing about it.
Actually, no, I remembered one thing. That while it was marketed as steampunk most people who read it felt the label certainty did not apply. Which sucks, because if steampunk was more like The Last Page, I feel like the genre and I would get along a lot better. This is what I've always wanted steampunk to be! Not a thinly veiled England full of eccentric geniuses and feisty ladies, but a dark and gritty fantasy world that just so happens to be powered by steam. (And zeppelins, natch). Well, steam and gas really. Steam, gas, and a dash of mathematics/magic. (A cool and original magic system, but then even real world maths seems like magic to me half the time). So I guess it can't be called steampunk after all. More like steampunk's moody older brother.
So, yes, the setting worked for me very well, but did the rest of the book? Mostly, yes. Huso has a distinctive narrative voice, and while I feel he stumbled with some of his metaphors I would rather an author push themselves a touch too far than not at all. I also like that the book had an almost modern air to it, much like Steph Swainstons 'Castle' books. Not many fantasy novels really embrace ideas like freedom of press, or really consider the logistics of keeping a kingdom fed, unless it pertains directly to the plot.
Ah yes, the plot. It's straightforward enough. Caliph Howl is a reluctant heir to the throne, and while at University he meets and falls in love (not sappy love though, more like too cool for love love) with Senna. Senna has a locked book, and she really wants to unlock it. That's the basic gist of it. Caliph has to fight to hold onto a kingdom he doesn't particularly want, and Senna has to unlock her book.
(Ok, brief asid, how cool is the name Caliph Howl? So cool.)
I really liked Caliph's character. Competent without being showey, compassionate without being boring. He's all poker face on the outside but storm of emotions on the inside, you know? Senna I did not like as much, although she was no less well done. I would have liked some more motivation as to why she wants to open the book so much, (aside from the power it would give her. Power is all well and good, but what does she want to do with it?) There are hints about it, and maybe it will be elaborated on in further books. Huso is good at hinting as opposed to spelling out, which is always good.
Unfortunately though I felt things fell apart towards the end of the book. Focus was lost, things just starting to happen in a haphazard way and I also started to get confused about what was happening with some plot points. Events occurred which seemed to be of great importance to the characters, but didn't seem that important to me. That kind of disconnect between book and reader is not a good thing.
This aside I do see myself picked up the next book somewhere down the line. There were still a lot of things to like about the Last Page and I will be interested to see where Huso takes it.
September 24, 2016
If it were possible to give a book zero stars, I would. The Last Page is quite possibly the worst book I read this year, or maybe for the past several years. (And considering this is the same year I read The Detroit Electric Scheme and The Ridge, that's saying something.)
It's incoherent mush. It's trying to be both steampunk and Lovecraftian, and it fails on both fronts. Both angles are sketchy and ill-defined; the Lovecraftian elements only occasionally succeed at being creepy and worthwhile, and not just in the "oooh, tentacles! Unknowable horror! Every cliche you've seen before if you've read any Lovecraft at all!" sort of way. And the steampunk-blended-with-magic stuff just feels like it got awkwardly ripped out of the much more able and coherent Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura . (Seriously, if you want to find out what happens when you stick high fantasy and steampunk in a blender, go play that. Don't waste your time on this dreck.)
The novel's main trouble is, it doesn't world-build. At all. Or rather, it thinks it does, but really what it's doing is throwing fancy made-up words and names with special accented characters in them at the reader with no context or definition whatsoever. (In fact, on multiple occasions you'll get a word rendered in special script, with a footnote giving a definition / pronunciation. But the footnote is also in one of the book's "foreign languages," with no English translation given, so...why bother? What do we learn from this?) The reader ends up lost in a maze of nonsense words with no motivation to find their way out. The book doesn't reward delving into its lore (assuming you could), it just throws more at you because look! Look at the shiny! Look at how clever the author is for coming up with all these words! Just pay no attention to the fact that the world itself, under all those special characters and scripts, makes no sense and lacks the depth of even a puddle.
I'm actually kind of glad I wasted my time hanging on until the end, because the last 30 pages or so let me bring the following example of the terrible lack of world-building to you all. In the final battle, there's mention of an airship named the Mademoiselle. Which is jarring, because there are no French words anywhere else in the entire book. There are no cultures--such as they are; half of them are just names like "Pplarians" with very little else known about them--based on the French. So why on earth is there an airship named Mademoiselle again? Who named it that, and why, and how did they come to know precisely one French word in a world without French?
That example is, in microcosm, a lot of what makes this book an utter trainwreck. It's nonsense. Worse than that, it's nonsense that somehow got the idea that it's clever. So it's got that going for it. Which is not nice.
It's incoherent mush. It's trying to be both steampunk and Lovecraftian, and it fails on both fronts. Both angles are sketchy and ill-defined; the Lovecraftian elements only occasionally succeed at being creepy and worthwhile, and not just in the "oooh, tentacles! Unknowable horror! Every cliche you've seen before if you've read any Lovecraft at all!" sort of way. And the steampunk-blended-with-magic stuff just feels like it got awkwardly ripped out of the much more able and coherent Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura . (Seriously, if you want to find out what happens when you stick high fantasy and steampunk in a blender, go play that. Don't waste your time on this dreck.)
The novel's main trouble is, it doesn't world-build. At all. Or rather, it thinks it does, but really what it's doing is throwing fancy made-up words and names with special accented characters in them at the reader with no context or definition whatsoever. (In fact, on multiple occasions you'll get a word rendered in special script, with a footnote giving a definition / pronunciation. But the footnote is also in one of the book's "foreign languages," with no English translation given, so...why bother? What do we learn from this?) The reader ends up lost in a maze of nonsense words with no motivation to find their way out. The book doesn't reward delving into its lore (assuming you could), it just throws more at you because look! Look at the shiny! Look at how clever the author is for coming up with all these words! Just pay no attention to the fact that the world itself, under all those special characters and scripts, makes no sense and lacks the depth of even a puddle.
I'm actually kind of glad I wasted my time hanging on until the end, because the last 30 pages or so let me bring the following example of the terrible lack of world-building to you all. In the final battle, there's mention of an airship named the Mademoiselle. Which is jarring, because there are no French words anywhere else in the entire book. There are no cultures--such as they are; half of them are just names like "Pplarians" with very little else known about them--based on the French. So why on earth is there an airship named Mademoiselle again? Who named it that, and why, and how did they come to know precisely one French word in a world without French?
That example is, in microcosm, a lot of what makes this book an utter trainwreck. It's nonsense. Worse than that, it's nonsense that somehow got the idea that it's clever. So it's got that going for it. Which is not nice.
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