UF/Horror Challenge - Sparks
Feb. 12th, 2011 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
naomi_jay
I should make two confessions before I go any further. One, I am completely fascinated by spontaneous human combustion, and two, I really love reptiles and would quite like a salamander of my own. Therefore it probably should be a surprise that I adored Sparks, the second of Laura Bickle's Lantern series (I think it's called the Lantern series anyway?).
All things I loved about Embers are still here - Anya and Sparky, the beautifully described city of Detroit, which is almost a character itself, the ragtag group of ghost hunters that Anya reluctantly helps, and the ever-present themes of fire, destruction, loss, and ghosts. But this is far from a retread of Embers; Bickle expands her world with the second installment, introducing new elements such as the Afterworld, new characters like the enigmatic but charming Charon, and new dangers - like the aforementioned spontaneous human combustion. Anya, a fire investigator for the Detroit fire department, is called in to investigate a house fire that appears to have been caused by a case of SHC, although of course nobody really buys into that. I loved that Bickle explored this myth without being heavy-handed and info-dumping - references to the wick effect made me squee because I know about that stuff, but for someone who's never heard of it, there was enough information there to be enlightening without overwhelming the actual plot.
And the plot is fascinating! Bickle gives us believable evils, and proves that UF doesn't always have to be inhuman monsters - Hope Solomon is very human (although like Anya she has some supernatural abilities), but still very sinister and skin-creeping. Her confrontations with Anya, and the insidious sense of danger around her are so well-written I could be jealous... And it's not just Hope Solomon giving me shivers in this book; Brian, Anya's boyfriend, shows a few new facets to his personality that made both me and Anya look at him a little differently (I should admit at this point that I'm now secretly hoping for an Anya/Charon hook-up, so some of my mistrust of Brian may be unwarranted).
But the real start of Sparks is Sparky himself. And this time he has babies! I'm not always a fan of animal sidekicks in books, especially if authors are prone to either making them talk or making them so intelligent they're practically human. But Sparky is just adorable (and he doesn't talk!). He's clever and charming and it's a credit to Bickle's writing that she can convey this purely through his actions and noises, rather than trying to anthropomorphism him for laughs. His relationship with Anya is sweet and touching. Anya herself is a great heroine - brave and self-sufficient, but never straying into the unpleasant "angry chick" territory that occurs in this genre. She's a loner, but she still has friends. She has tragedy in her past but she's never a martyr. She's the kind of character I can imagine going for drinks with.
I could go on about this book for ever... It's gritty, atmospheric, it's different from other UF in the best possible way, and the writing is beautiful. I don't know if there are any more books scheduled for this series, but the potential is definitely there, and I really hope there'll be a lot more adventures with Anya and Sparky in the future.
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on 2011-02-12 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-12 07:51 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-02-17 04:10 am (UTC)*hugs*
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on 2011-02-17 10:13 am (UTC)