Jane Lindskold

Breaking the Wall — (2008-2010) Publisher: As evocative and moving as Charles de Lint's Newford books, with the youthful protagonists and exciting action of Mercedes Lackey's fantasies, Thirteen Orphans makes our world today as excitingly strange and unfamiliar as any fantasy realm ... and grants readers a glimpse of a fantasy world founded by ancient Chinese lore and magic. As far as college freshman Brenda Morris knows, there is only one Earth and magic exists only in fairy tales. Brenda is wrong. A father-daughter weekend turns into a nightmare when Brenda's father is magically attacked before her eyes. Brenda soon learns that her ancestors once lived in world of smoke and shadows, of magic and secrets. When that world's Emperor was overthrown, the Thirteen Orphans fled to our earth and hid their magic system in the game of mah-jong. Each Orphan represents an animal from the Chinese Zodiac. Brenda's father is the Rat. And her polished, former child-star aunt, Pearl — that eminent lady is the Tiger. Only a handful of Orphans remain to stand against their enemies. The Tiger, the Rooster, the Dog, the Rabbit... and Brenda Morris. Not quite the Rat, but not quite human either.

Thirteen Orphans

The folklore of the British Isles, and of Western Europe in general, is well-trodden ground in fantasy fiction. So, when I heard that Jane Lindskold had begun a series based on Chinese mythology, I was eager to read it. It would be something fresh and unusual, and I’ve greatly enjoyed Lindskold’s writing in the past.

Thirteen Orphans is the first novel in the Breaking the Wall series, which I would classify as “old-school urban fantasy.” The phrase “breaking the wall” comes from the game of mah-jong, upon which much of the series’ magic system is based. Lindskold also incorporates the Chinese zodiac (each major character represents one of the animals) and several other aspects of Chinese lore. She has clearly done a great deal of research, and there are places where it shines. I really enjoyed the scene in which Brenda is playing mah-jong and draws the “Moon from the Bottom of the Sea” hand. This creates a metaphysical glow, and soon, the three-legged toad from the moon sees the new shiny object and drops by to threaten the characters. Lindskold puts all of the elements of her universe together seamlessly in this scene.

The story is told from two points of view. One point-of-view character is Pearl Bright, a septuagenarian and former child star who brings the various zodiac avatars together to combat a mysterious antagonist. Pearl is a really interesting character and I enjoyed spending time with her. Brenda Morris, the other point-of-view character, didn’t sit as well with me. A nineteen-year-old college student, she sometimes seems much younger due to her naïveté. Brenda somehow managed to grow up in South Carolina without ever conversing with a black person and is really weirded out when her teammate Riprap turns out to be African-American. In another scene, she labels another teammate, Nissa, as “easy,” for no reason I can discern other than that Nissa is a single mom. Then, Brenda decides she’s in love with a man she barely knows, and who may be a danger to her. Attraction, sure, but love?

The biggest problem with Thirteen Orphans, though, is too-much-exposition syndrome. It’s a “talky” book, and the dialogue is filled with infodumps about mah-jong, magical theory, the zodiac, Chinese history, and other subjects, and the result is that much of the dialogue is rather wooden. The characters don’t talk to each other naturally; they talk in lectures. Late in the book, one character even reprimands himself for infodumping:

• "You already know that although ability in the arcane arts is not limited to the Twelve Advisors of the Earthly Branches, special abilities accrue to those who take up the mantle of the Rat, the Ox, the Tiger, the Hare..."
• "The Dragon, the Snake, the Horse, the Ram, the Monkey, the Rooster, the Dog, and the Pig," Lani recited in a singsong voice. "I know those. Mama is a Hare, which is a Rabbit, too, and I will be one someday."
• Righteous Drum blinked in mild astonishment at the interruption, then inclined his head toward the child. "So it is, and I find myself rebuked for repeating a lesson even a child knows."
  

True, most children in the West wouldn’t know that, but certainly the reader does by now. This is on page 346 of the hardcover. It’s been explained in the narration, and each chapter heading is ornamented with a drawing of the zodiac. And every character in the room knows this information, too.

Thirteen Orphans has a self-contained plot, but it also contains a lot of set-up for the next book, Nine Gates, which I will be reading soon. I hope Nine Gates is less talky and more plotty, now that the rules of the universe have been established. I must confess, though, that I’m tempted to reread Jane Lindskold's beautiful Child of a Rainless Year (see my review below) instead of continuing with Breaking the Wall. —Kelly Lasiter

Nine Gates

The Orphans — at least in their current incarnation — had proven to be a chatty group. Hardly anything, from something as minor as what to have for dinner, to the planning of major expeditions did not get talked over — sometimes, she suspected, to the frustration of their allies from the Lands.

Sometimes to the frustration of the reader, too. The "talkiness" of this cast of characters was an issue in Thirteen Orphans, and it hasn't gone away in Nine Gates. The characters still expound to each other at every opportunity. Sometimes they're imparting useful information, albeit more pedantically than necessary. It's less justified when the subject is, say, the definition of "homonym."

However, I found Nine Gates to be more enjoyable than its predecessor. The book starts with a bang: a combat scene that drops the reader right into the action. This excitement doesn't last, but Jane Lindskold intersperses talky scenes with more suspenseful sequences throughout the novel, so Nine Gates has a lot more forward momentum than Thirteen Orphans did.

Another aspect that fascinated me: the journey through several of the Chinese supernatural realms. I especially liked the hell dimension. Lindskold's research and imagination are used to great effect in these scenes, and the realms test the characters in interesting ways.

Speaking of characters, I'm pleased to report that Brenda is much less annoying in Nine Gates. The bad news is that the catty Honey Dream, who was introduced in Thirteen Orphans and becomes a point-of-view character in this installment, is twice as annoying as Brenda ever was. There's a point to it — she actually has a really interesting character arc — but she got on my last nerve along the way.

So, the downsides are Honey Dream's obnoxious 'tude, the ongoing problem of the didactic conversations, and an odd dialogue tic that just bugged me. Lindskold sometimes puts dialogue tags in places where they disrupt the flow of the sentence, as in:

• "I'm not wasting," Pearl said, "time to run upstairs."
• "I have recruited," Loyal Wind said, "horses to carry us swiftly to our destination."

This may seem like a silly gripe, but it happened enough that I started noticing and being thrown out of the story by it. The problem isn't that they're placed midsentence; it's where in the sentence they're placed.

But, Nine Gates is worth it for the sake of the hell scenes. I now have the urge to do some reading about Chinese mythology and learn more about the folklore behind Lindskold's creation. —Kelly Lasiter