Spellbound by the Faerie Queen, the woman known as Seeker has abducted human children for her mistress's pleasure for nearly an eternity, unable to free herself from her servitude and reclaim her own humanity.

Seeker's latest prey is a Merlin. Named after the legendary wizard of Camelot, Merlins are not simply those who wield magic, they are magic. Now, with rival mages also vying for the favor of this being of limitless magic to tip the balance of power, Seeker must persuade the Merlin to join her cause-or else risk losing something even more precious to her than the fate of humankind.

Customer Rating:
Summary: A meta-fairy tale
Comment: "Blood and Iron," the prolifically brilliant Elizabeth Bear's shimmery, impressionist novel is equal part fairy tale, critique of fairy tales, and the history of fairy tales; and it's grim but dryly witty. ("Nothing but glamourie, and gone on the stroke of midnight. Fortunately there were no clocks in Faerie.") It examines, among much else, Celtic mythology, werewolvery, and the Arthurian legends; it's inhabited by female merlins, water horses, a unicorn or two, a talking willow tree, and some spellbound sleeping royalty. Characters here appear because they've been written about in other tales, and thus become part of this book's reality.

Its as close to a heroine as you'll find in it is Elaine Andraste (I love the traditional Arthurian first name and the Romanian surname), called Seeker. She's bound by the faeries to kidnap halfbreed children and deliver them unto the Queen, Mebd. The mortal group known as the Prometheans, led by Elaine's mother Jane, want to stop the faerie folk once and for all. Essentially, it's a battle between the forces of ancient magic (the blood), who are trying to hold on against the forces of modernity (the iron).

It's setting is contemporary, and so is the language. An occasional four-letter word helps mock the traditional high-flown speech you usually find in fantasies. It's by no means an easy read. It's a novel of images, glimmerings, indirections. The points of view constantly shift, and the narrative switches off beween first- and third-person. And not everything's explained. Maybe you'll stop and read a passage a second time, or a third. It lacks a badly needed list of characters. But it's very much worth the effort.

NOTES AND ASIDES: Google Tam Lin before reading . . . the author salutes the late Peter Jennings by giving him a very brief cameo . . . first of (so far) four, but complete in itself.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Blood and Iron
Comment: This book can be a little confusing at first, but stick with it and you won't be disapointed!

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Intelligent Otherworld/This World Fantasy
Comment: This is a deliciously confusing and evocative book about how the world of Faery _might_ interact with a modern world of human magic, where gods are real but not always kind. There are a few places where it has resonances with my sense of the Pagan Otherworld, though it's not as rich or accurate as Evangeline Walton's Mabinogion novels, which are my personal gold standard in the genre. Still, it's puzzling and interesting, and the alternative morality Bear examines reminds me a little of the pleasure I got from reading the _His Dark Materials_ series from Phillip Pullman. It's always nice to read books written by writers who both know how to write and know how to think.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: You'll love it or hate it.
Comment: Elizabeth Bear, Blood and Iron (Roc, 2006)

Oh, Bear, you've done it again. And once again, I came along helpless for the ride.

I talk a lot about how, at times, a whole lot of wrong things come together and make something wonderfully right. My classic example of this is the band Better than Ezra, whose stuff contains everything one can possibly do wrong in crafting a pop song, and yet "One More Murder" and "In the Blood" and "A Lifetime" and a host of others are perfect little pieces of popcraft. I get that same feeling a lot when I read Elizabeth Bear's stuff. There are rules to this writing gig, you know. (If I'm letting out trade secrets, stuff it; I was never a novelist anyway.) There are about as many books of little silly things as there are volumes in the... erm, wherever they keep lawbooks about this stuff... about the importation of lettuce. (For those of you outside the U.S. who want a good laugh, the last time I stumbled across that statistic, there were 13,500 pages of laws relating to the importation of lettuce. That was a few years ago, so the number has likely doubled by now.) But then there's that holy, scroll-like document that all novelists must bow and pray to five times a day that has a title like STUFF YOU ARE NEVER, NEVER, EVER SUPPOSED TO DO IN A NOVEL, FOR EDITORS, PUBLISHERS, AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC WILL LAUGH AT YOU UNTIL THEIR SIDES BLEED. And, you know, I think in every single piece of Bear's writing I've read, she takes a rugbeater and whacks that document hard enough that one of those strictures falls to the ground, stunned just long enough for her to crush it with a (very fashionable, mind you) boot.

Now, after all that buildup, I'm not going to tell you which one she beats the tar out of in this book, because you will encounter it yourself if you read this book (on page 275 in the Roc trade paper edition), and you will either love it or you will hate it. I talked to Bear about this briefly, and I got the feeling that most people hate it. Well, bub, I am not most people. I am all for rule-breaking, as long as you provide ample evidence elsewhere in your body of work that you know the rule exists, so we readers have evidence that you are breaking the rule because you're conscious of it and you're saying "stuff it" to the rules. (Because, unlike me, you ARE a novelist.) Suffice to say I have never seen this rule broken in this particular way, in this particular place, in a professionally-published novel before. So there's a bit of culture shock involved. But if you ken what the Bear is cookin', you may end up getting as much of a kick out of it as I did.

Not that there's anything really conventional about Blood and Iron, which posits a world in which modern-day human society and Faerie live side by side in alternate planes of existence. There are paths between the two, but most humans have long forgotten that Faerie exists. Those who haven't, in general, want to make sure that Faerie and Earth never come into constant contact again. They're called the Prometheus Club, and while we don't get too much information on the higher-ups, we get the feeling that they are not terribly nice individuals. We do get to know one very well, though. His name is Matthew Szczgielniak (and forgive me, Bear, for mangling the spelling). He and his brethren (and sistren) aren't fond or Faerie because, in this world, all the stuff you've heard is true, including that whole baby-changeling thing.

Which brings us to our main character, Seeker, formerly known as Elaine Andraste, formerly human, now a hunter in the court of Faerie. Her quarry, in this book, is a Merlin-- a human, for all intents and purposes, made of magic (for you Forgotten Realms geeks, think "capable of altering the weave"). Both the Seelie and Unseelie courts of Faerie, as well as the Prometheans, are very interested in swaying the Merlin to their side of the uneasy truce that exists between all three, for the presence of a Merlin can disrupt the balance that has existed between the sides for centuries.

All of this is just scratching the surface of this deep, rich novel, which abounds in subplots, trickery, strategizing, bloodshed, mayhem, historical and mythical figures, and all the other things that make a fantasy novel with a military flavor such a good read. Oh, and there's a dragon, for there must always be a dragon. But there's not usually a battle in Times Square.

Wonderful book, this. If you like your fantasy novels with a twist, Blood and Iron is definitely one to check out. ****

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Stolen by Faeries!!!
Comment: Drawing on centuries of folklore and ballads about the cruel and inhuman Sidhe, Elizabeth Bear puts it all on the table: The Ballad of Tam Lin, about a woman rescuing her true love from the clutches of the Faerie Queen; Arthurian Legend, where Arthur is taken off to Avalon and his sister, Morgan Le Fay is the Queen of Air and Darkness, Ancient Dragons that lie at the root of the world (so to speak), Water sprites that exist to lure the unwitting into death by drowning-- Plus Urban Fantasy, with Man against Nature, the dangers of the dark alleys--as hazardous as the intrigues of the Sidhe and the Unseelie Court, Madness, Revenge... and back to Arthur with a mortal Merlin. And even a dash of the Eternal Hero and the sacrifice of Kings. Oh, and werewolves.

Somehow Bear manages to juggle it all and add suspense and action, with a huge cast of characters, well-drawn and never quite two-dimensional, despite the limited attention paid to each. The tale is wound around Elaine Adraste, who has been stolen away by the diminishing race of Faeries due to her heritage of Faerie blood, and is bound to the Queen as her Seeker--the one who steals away human children. Not only spells and geas bind her, but also her own child, also kept by the Queen. And the theme extends to Elaine's mother, powerful leader of the ancient Prometheus Club, who will do anything to destroy Faerie, including sacrifice her own child.

Few people can adequately capture the cruel and alien beauty of the Faery Court in a manner that compels as well as repels, but Elizabeth Bear is one. This is a complex, epic tale that is sure to appeal to anyone remotely interested in any of the many elements involved.

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