Battle of the Books, Spring 2012, Second Round :: The Man from Primrose Lane by James Renner vs. Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed

For our final second round match of the Spring 2012 Battle of the Books, James Renner's The Man from Primrose Lane squares off against Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed. The book I most want to continue reading after 50 pages will be the last entrant in the Final Four of this bracket.

The Man from Primrose Lane: Farrar Straus & Giroux hardcover, March 2012, 365 pages, cover photo by Michael Lewis. The Man from Primrose Lane is the first novel by true-crime writer James Renner. It reached the second round by defeating Weston Ochse's Blood Ocean in the first round.

Billed as a cross-genre book, the first 50 pages of The Man from Primrose Lane start with a murder mystery, about crime writer David Neff investigating the murder of the strange and reclusive "Man from Primrose Lane." In the first 25 pages, we learned that David's wife Elizabeth recently committed suicide, and he is barely managing to hold himself together for the benefit of their son Tanner. The next 25 pages begin with a flashback to David and Elizabeth falling in love in college. In the present day, David takes Tanner to a peculiar museum, then meets Katy Keenan, a key figure in his investigation—the Man from Primrose Lane kept a diary of her activities, even though they were strangers. It's hinted that Katy may be Elizabeth's lost twin sister, who was abducted as a child (but Renner will have to work hard to justify the coincidence if she is).

Throne of the Crescent Moon: DAW hardcover, February 2012, 274 pages, cover art by Jason Chan. Throne of the Crescent Moon is also a first novel, but Saladin Ahmed is already well known to many genre readers for his short fiction, which has garnered him a Nebula nomination for best short story and two Campbell Award nominations for best new writer. Throne of the Crescent Moon got here with a rather lop-sided first-round win over Revealing Eden by Victoria Foyt.

Throne of the Crescent Moon is a fantasy novel set in a medieval Arabic society. In the first 25 pages, we met Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, the last ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat. He's received the call to battle, even though he's getting too old for this sort of thing. In the next 25 pages, Adoulla fights off a group of ghuls with the help of his small but dangerous assistant Raseed and Zamia, a young woman who can change into a lion, whose tribe was slaughtered by the ghuls. Along the way, Adoulla and Raseed encounter the Falcon Prince, who urges overthrow of the ruling Khalif in oddly 21st Century terms—his followers actually use the rallying cry "Share the wealth!"

The Battle: This is a rare instance where the book that would have won after 25 pages is not my winner after 50 pages.

Throne of the Crescent Moon had an outstanding opening sequence, showing us a strong fantasy setting with an Arabic feel, a very interesting pair of villains who do horrible things not because they enjoy doing evil but because their blood magic uses fear as fuel, and an aging hero who would much rather spend the afternoon drinking tea than continuing to fight the denizens of hell.

The opening of The Man from Primrose Lane was also solid, but less distinctive than Throne of the Crescent Moon. The beginning sequence is straight mystery (through 50 pages there still are no fantastic elements, although the scene with Elektro the Robot will have nostaligic appeal to SF readers), and struck me as less memorable than Ahmed's, although I liked the offbeat feel to his story and characters.

So Renner had an uphill battle to try to overcome Throne of the Crescent Moon. He did it with a crafty old authorial trick: he got me to care about his characters.

The flashbacks to David and Elizabeth falling in love despite, or perhaps because of, her obsessive-compulsive tendencies are believable and charming. The Elektro the Robot scene introduces some themes of the story while showing us David's imperfect but loving relationship with his son. And the glimpse of Katy at the end of the first 50 pages suggests a wonderfully quirky character I'd like to see more of. The characters all have real depth, and even though Renner is easing us slowly into the mystery story, he's dropped enough hints for us to feel that what he's showing us will prove meaningful.

Meanwhile, in pages 26-50, Saladin Ahmed didn't draw me into the different levels of his story as successfully as Renner did. The introduction to the Falcon Prince left me cold—to my tastes it takes more subtlety than this to bring modern political concepts into a medieval fantasy story—and the initial battle with ghuls was pretty standard swords-and-sorcery fare. More importantly, the characters didn't develop much through this section. The intriguing villains have been offstage since Chapter 1. I like the concept of an elderly fantasy hero, but in this passage Adoulla's age was a non-issue; the battle should have left him exhausted, but didn't seem to affect him at all. We get a chapter from the point of view of his devout assistant Raseed, which portrayed him as so uptight I can't find him believable or interesting.

This is sounding too harsh. Saladin Ahmed is a talented new writer, whose Campbell nominations were well-deserved. I look forward to finishing both Throne of the Crescent Moon and The Man from Primrose Lane. But forced to choose only one of the two to keep reading, I'd have to continue down Primrose Lane.

THE WINNER: THE MAN FROM PRIMROSE LANE by James Renner

The Man from Primrose Lane moves into the semefinals to face The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus.

To see the whole bracket, click here.

Battle of the Books, Spring 2012, First Round :: Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed vs. Revealing Eden by Victoria Foyt

We complete the first round of the Spring 2012 Battle of the Books with Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed vs. Revealing Eden by Victoria Foyt. The winner will be the book I most want to continue reading after 25 pages.

Throne of the Crescent Moon: DAW hardcover, February 2012, 274 pages, cover art by Jason Chan. Saladin Ahmed is a new writer who has already made a big splash, with a Nebula nomination for his short story "Hooves and the Hovel of Abdel Jameela" and two Campbell Award nominations for best new writer. Throne of the Crescent Moon is his first novel, and it has been getting a lot of buzz, prompting us to name it one of our four "seeded" books in this bracket.

Throne of the Crescent Moon is medieval fantasy set in an Arabic society, described believably by Saladin Ahmed, a Muslim Arab-American. Our protagonist, Doctor Adoulla Makhslood, is the last ghul hunter in the great city of Dhamsawaat. He knows he's getting too old, tired, and fat to continue to tangle with supernatural creatures, but no successor has stepped up to relieve him of the duty, although at least he has the help of his small but lethally quick assistant Raseed. The first 25 pages mention a conflict between the ruling Khalif and a rebel called the Falcon Prince, and we also learn of murders committed by ghuls summoned by an unknown sorcerer.

Revealing Eden: Sand Dollar hardcover, January 2012, 307 pages, cover art by Matthew Desotell. Victoria Hoyt is an actress and screenwriter, who has starred in such films as Last Summer in the Hamptons and Déjà Vu, usually working with her husband, director Henry Jaglom. Her first novel was the young adult fantasy/mystery The Virtual Life of Lexie Diamoond, published by HarperCollins.

Revealing Eden joins the trendy sub-genre of young adult post-apocalyptic science fiction. Severe global warming has driven everyone underground. Due to the effects of radiation, caucasians ("Pearls") die young, while dark-skinned "Coals" dominate society. Our heroine Eden is six months away from turning 18, and if she hasn't found a husband by then, she will be killed. She is set on attracting a black mate, but "Pearls" are regarded as ugly, and only one "Coal" has shown the slightest interest in her, Jamal, the security guard in the research facility where she works.

The Battle: I can't hold the suspense going for this one. Throne of the Crescent Moon has a very impressive opening, while Revealing Eden has a lot of problems.

Starting with the good news, after 25 pages it is already clear that Throne of the Crescent Moon combines a distinctive setting with nicely developed characters and a strong narrative voice. Our aging protagonist is clearly flawed yet instantly likeable.

I've mentioned in previous Battle of the Books posts how traditional high fantasy novels typically had a straightforward good-against-evil conflict, while current fantasies usually have more shades of gray. In Throne of the Crescent Moon, Saladin Ahmed bucks the trend——his good guys are very good and his bad guys extremely bad. Here's how he gets away with it: the characters aren't good or evil just because they've been assigned that role. There are reasons for their behaviors; something is at stake for them. The bad guys are cruel because they need to be. In this universe, dark magic works through causing others to suffer. And our hero is brave and valiant in his defense of his kingdom, despite his low opinion of their Khalif, because he knows if the kingdom falls he'll no longer be able to find a decent cup of tea.

For long-time science fiction readers, the premise of Revealing Eden——people survive catastrophe underground, and blacks come to dominate society while whites are subjugated——will immediately call to mind Robert Heinlein's Farnham's Freehold. Revealing Eden suffers greatly in comparison. For one thing, Heinlein gave a believable reason for the societal shift: the superpowers nearly annihilated each other in nuclear war, leaving a power vacuum for Africans to fill. Foyt is offering a similar cautionary tale about climate change, but it makes no sense. People of color are in control and live much longer because of global warming? How could melanin conceivably make such a huge difference, especially if everybody lives underground? Even if there were a scientific basis for that, it is counterintuitive enough to demand explanation, or at least some hand-waving, in a science fiction novel.

And while we're trying to figure that out, why on earth does this society demand, on penalty of death, that you marry by 18? At one point, we are told it's because everyone must "contribute to the continuation of our species," but I should think an underground society would be more worried about holding the birthrate down; indeed, in another passage we learn that no one is allowed to have more than one child. Plenty of small details similarly don't ring true. For example, Eden bemoans the fact that her hair is brittle from the black coating she puts on it every couple of days to try to fit in. So this is a society in which everyone has a personal holoprojector, but they've forgotten the concept of hair dye?

All these strained details are there to set up Foyt's examination of race relations. But when Robert Heinlein showed a society dominated by people of African ancestry in 1964, he was challenging his readers to consider the bigotry of their own society. Foyt's purpose is similar here: depicting a cruel ruling black class to show her white readers how awful it is to be subjected to discrimination——I assume that's her purpose, because I can't think of any other purpose that wouldn't be highly distasteful——but today, that story concept feels outdated and much too simplistic. In 2012, even addressing young readers, surely there are better ways of conveying the importance of diversity and tolerance than by showing people of color all being mean and nasty to the white characters.

How about, for example, presenting an interesting society with a different culture and ethnic mix from ours? Saladin Ahmed has done that in Throne of the Crescent Moon, in the context of what promises to be a compelling story.

THE WINNER: THRONE OF THE CRESCENT MOON by Saladin Ahmed

Throne of the Crescent Moon advances to the second round, to meet The Man from Primrose Lane by James Renner. Ahmed and Renner are already talking smack on Twitter, so you don't want to miss that one.

To see the whole bracket, click here.