AFTER ALICE
By Gregory Maguire. Harper. $29.99.
After Alice, by bestselling Wicked author Gregory Maguire, was written for the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alice has disappeared once more down the rabbit hole, but, this time, is followed by her best friend Ada Boyce, who spends the book seeking Alice. Maguire juxtaposes Ada's adventures underground with the real Victorian world of the 1860s, but this narrative division doesn't succeed. Most Alice fans will prefer Maguire's new accounts of the "curiouser and curiouser" characters from the original novel than the above ground angst of the Oxford families and the musings of real characters such as Charles Darwin and Walter Pater.
THE AERONAUT'S WINDLASS
By Jim Butcher. Orbit. $29.99.
American author, Jim Butcher, best known for his bestselling series, The Dresden Files and The Codex Alera, now begins the 'Cinder Spires' series. The Aeronaut's Windlass mixes steampunk technologies, magical wars and even intelligent cats. The populations of rival noble houses live in huge, above ground, spires protected by crystal powered airships. "Etherealists" use crystals, both to keep the peace and to foresee the future, a future now threatened by an ancient evil. Butcher's aerial world building is, however, itself somewhat ethereal, lacking basic underpinning detail. Nonetheless, the rapid pace of Butcher's narrative, with its simple language, will ensure its wide appeal.
THE LAST QUARREL
By Duncan Lay. Momentum, $29.99.
The Last Quarrel, the first book in a trilogy by Australian author Duncan Lay, was originally published in e-book episodes. Lay's Gaelland, with distinctive Irish historical roots, is a troubled country. People, especially children, are disappearing all along the coast, The King seeks to resolve matters by burning selkies, but to no avail. When the duke's ship enters harbour, in Marie Celeste deserted fashion, Fallon, a local middle-aged sergeant, decides to investigate. He wants to finally prove his worth, but his depressed wife just wants a quiet family life. Fallon and his wife are well portrayed, but the rest of Lay's characterisation is fantasy predictable.
