Black Spring by Alison Croggon

So I'm psychic apparently.

Not long ago I said that Picnic at Hanging Rock was the Australian Wuthering Heights. (I still stand by that statement, FYI). Then last week I picked up a book Black Spring by Alison Croggon, a book that I knew nothing about, other than it was by an Aussie author and had a vaguely interesting premise about a girl born with 'witch eyes' and all the tragic shenanigans that ensue. 

Not my usual thing, but the cover was creepy and cool-looking (check it out - it looks like something out of a Japanese horror movie!)

I started reading and was struck by an incredible sense of familiarity, as if I'd read this before. Then about two chapters in, it struck me - this was the beginning of Wuthering Heights! Sure the world itself was different, with fantasy elements like magic and wizards, but it had exactly the same introduction of a high born twit wandering into a dark gothic tale and being both repulsed and intrigued by everything going on. 

What I didn't find out until later was that the book was a homage to Wuthering Heights. The author outright says so in interviews. Which, I guess is not a bad thing in and of itself. It's out of copyright so it's public property and for better or worse there are a lot of sequels to classics out there, some actually very good.

The problem is that Black Spring isn't one of them.  

Don't get me wrong; there are good points. Like better sequels or re-tellings, Black Spring at least attempts to explore a fresh angle on the original material. Lina is a surprisingly sympathetic reinterpretation of Catherine, suggesting that her self-destructiveness is caused by the smothering oppression of her society rather than an inherently infantile nature. It's even daring enough to hint that her love for the Heathcliffe stand-in was more familial than romantic. 

However, the book is dragged down by being chained to the Wuthering Heights plot, wearily re-treading the same events even when they contradict established character traits or at the expense of potentially far more interesting developments. Take for example the idea of the Vendetta. Croggan goes to a lot of trouble to set this up and hints that it's going to be hugely important but in the end it just sort of... peters out. That Chekhov's gun was loaded and left in the open, and no one picked it up. 

I think if the author had allowed herself a little more freedom, paring down on what she used from the original novel and expanding on the new material she introduced, it could have been quite good. As it is, I can't recommend it. 

I'd advise saving your money and reading Wuthering Heights again.

Royal Exile by Fiona McIntosh

In my (utterly unimportant) opinion, what makes good fantasy or science fiction is the willingness to take risks. Across the Nightingale Floor was interesting because it occurred in such a radically different culture than expected from Western high fantasy. The Axis Trilogy was intriguing because it had blood and gore that wasn't normally seen in this genre at the time.

My point is, you can't write high fantasy by coloring inside the lines. Or you can, but it'll be boring.

Like Royal Exile.

In case you think I'm being too hard on it, I went into this book wanting to like it. I figured Fiona McIntosh would be like Glenda Larke or Karen Miller, in that it would take me a little while to warm up to the characters but by the end I'd be salivating for the next installment.

Royal Exile started out with the usual opening about an invading army and an heir hidden away to oneday rise up and lead the people to freedom. The invader's leader, not being an idiot, insists on the kid being found before this can happen. A pretty standard premise; a little derivative but not a major sin. You could argue that the plot of every fantasy book in existence is equally derivative.

The problem became clear a few chapters in and only got worse from there. The fact is, there's nothing to make this book stand out from the crowd. The plot isn't so entertaining that you're dying to see what happens next, and the world building is nothing that hasn't been done a thousand times before; just more medieval European-style fantasy. All this could have been salvaged with compelling, interesting characters, but with exactly two exceptions, everyone is flat and one-dimensional.

To be fair, the two characters I did like - Freath and Genrie - were great. They each had to submit to masters or regimes they found distasteful, and make compromises of dignity or principle for utterly thankless roles. They were insight into an aspect of the 'hidden rightful king' type story that its not normally shown and were actually interesting enough that I was annoyed every time we had to go back to that whiny prince kid. If we could have had an entire novel with Freath and Genrie as the focus, it would have been a pretty decent read.

Unfortunately a good chunk of it is dedicated to the useless Prince Leo and his forgettable bodyguard.  I suspect their ineffectiveness was deliberate, based on a certain plot development at the end, but I didn't need to spend a third of the novel watching them being useless. At least the background characters Clovis and Kirrin managed to be helpful to the main plot.

All up, Royal Exile wasn't particularly good or bad. It's main sin is that it takes no risks that would make it worth reading. It spends too much time on characters it doesn't need to, and not enough on the ones it should. It wasn't terrible enough to put me off the author entirely, but it's not one I'd recommend. I'm going to put this in the re-gifting pile and try another of her series next time.

Royal Exile is available on Amazon.com (but not the Australian Amazon for some reason), Booktopia, Book Depository, or most local book stores.