The Iron Khan is here!

Well, electronically, that is. 

Editor Marty Halpern points out that the fifth volume of Liz Williams' Detective Inspector Chen series, The Iron Khan, has been published as an ebook by Morrigan Books.

Halpern mentions that a print edition is still planned and will be announced, but this is a great first step and it is wonderful to see that Detective Inspector Chen is still alive and kicking after the mess of this summer. 

I've had a Night Shade ARC of The Iron Khan for the last year, but held off on reading it - not knowing when, exactly, the manuscript would be published and if there were any substantial changes to it.  I still don't know this, but the real news is that the rest of the world will get the chance to read more Chen. 

Precious Dragon, by Liz Williams

Precious Dragon
Liz Williams
Night Shade Books: 2007


It is difficult to write about Precious Dragon. Or, more accurately, it is difficult to give a brief overview as to what the basic story of the novel is because there several things all going on and the same time. A young actor / prostitute hires out to a private party and finds himself snatched to Hello. Detective Inspector Chen and his demon partner Zhu Irzh investigate, but are then sidetracked when they are ordered to travel to Hell with a Celestial Warrior from Heaven. Some sort of diplomatic thing / invitation, though it is not entirely clear. A human woman is asked to look after her dead daughter’s son (though the daughter has been living in Hell for years). The son is not quite normal, though early on the reader does not know in what way. Also, there is a dragon swimming the rivers and canals of Singapore Three.

That’s what is going on at the start of Precious Dragon, the third Detective Inspector Chen novel.

The rest? Well, that's how Liz Williams weaves it all together. Early on in Precious Dragon there is a sense that Williams is just throwing stuff out there, but we have to trust that there is a reason for the random dragon swimming its way through Singapore Three, and that Chen and Zhu Irzh will somehow get back to the case of the missing actor boy. I'd be willing to suggest that the opening of Precious Dragon is perhaps a bit too scattered and that the lack of focus can be a turn off.

Yes, by the end of the novel it's clear that Liz Williams has her story well in hand and pulls together all the threads, but that might be part of the problem. This is only clear as the reader comes nears the conclusion of this relatively short novel. For the first two thirds (or so) of Precious Dragon the reader is left wondering how in the world all of this stuff, most of which is quite interesting, pulls together. Chen and Zhu Irzh in Hell with the Celestial? Golden. The quiet moments of the missing boy in Hell? Very nice. The sections with the precocious Precious Dragon (the character) and the old lady? Less so. The dragon swimming? Interesting, mostly. The trouble, which I'm not explaining well, is that there is little sense of a coherent narrative or storytline running through Precious Dragon.

That's the only real negative here. Both Snake Agent and The Demon and the City were more focused novels and thus stronger. Precious Dragon still provides the Chen / Zhu Irzh fix, and there is plenty of conspiracy between Hell and Heaven, with the fate of humanity in the balance. There's some outstanding stuff here. The lack of narrative focus, in this case, does hurt Precious Dragon. It could have been better. It could've been a contendah. Er. Strike that last sentence. Precious Dragon is good, but the first two are better.

Even with the lack of narrative focus, one thing that should be acknowledged is that Liz Williams refuses to rest on a formula for this series. She could do Demon-of-the-Week novels and run it out 18 volumes and I suspect many readers (including myself some days) would be perfectly happy. She doesn't. Liz Williams stretches and experiments and tries to tell a bigger story in a different way and not narrow the method of storytelling. Even when it doesn't completely work, the effort and attempt need to be acknowledged and appreciated. It's still enough to make me go read Shadow Pavilion.

Previous Reviews
Snake Agent
The Demon and the City

The Demon and the City, by Liz Williams

The Demon and the City
Liz Williams
2005

Liz Williams returns to Singapore Three with the second Detective Inspector Chen novel The Demon and the City. Singapore Three is a future city where the boundaries between Earth, Heaven, and Hell are blurred and demons and angels are very much real. Williams introduced her readers to Detective Inspector Chen, an investigator of crimes which touch upon Heaven or Hell in some way. During Snake Agent Chen ventures deep into Hell and finds an unlikely accomplice in the demon Zhu Irzh. Zhu Irzh liaises with the Singapore Three police to assist Detective Inspector Chen and when Snake Agent left off, Zhu Irzh were partners, with Zhu Irzh on loan to Singapore Three.

Given that The Demon and the City is listed as a "Detective Inspector Chen" novel, one might expect Chen to take a starring role in the novel. It is his series, after all, and this is only the second novel. Instead, Liz Williams twists the formula before it can become a formula. Detective Inspector Chen is off on vacation with his wife. Readers follow Zhu Irzh as he investigates mystical crime in Singapore Three. Zhu Irzh's various unorthodox investigations (he is a demon, after all) lead him to the beautiful and powerful Jhai Teserai, a scientist and CEO of Paugeng Corporation experimenting on non-humans. This is vitally important, though the reader does not know exactly what Mhara is, but Mhara (the primary test subject) will play heavily in later in the novel. There are various murders and intrigues, plus the politics of Singapore Three and the bureaucracy of Heaven and Hell.

Where I expected Liz Williams would start to play a formula with an "Investigation of the Week" styled series, Williams seriously shakes things up. Yeah, the ultimate play in The Demon and the City will touch the fabric of reality and stretch from Heaven to Hell, but in not sticking with Chen as the lead and by giving the reader different looks at Singapore Three, Williams is demonstrating that she is not going to give what might be expected and that readers can expect something fresh from this series. At least for now.

Chen does play a role midway through the novel, but even so, this is very much the novel of Zhu Irzh and also of side characters like Robin (the researcher working under Jhai Teserai on Mhara) and Mhara itself.

Williams has built herself a rich and deep city to play in (and destroy) and while there are many more stories that can be told in this setting, I hope Williams explores the world at large because while Singapore Three has its own Heaven and Hell, other ideologies and nations also have their own distinct Heaven and Hells which reflect what their citizens believe. There is just so much here to see.

The Demon and the City is a stronger novel than Snake Agent. Snake Agent, itself a good novel, can get away with living partly on the freshness of discovering Singapore Three for the first time. The Demon and the City, on the other hand, must not only build off of what Snake Agent started, but stand on its own feet after the sense of new has worn off. Flipping the novel over to Zhu Irzh may have been the best thing Williams could have done in the supernatural urban fantasy detective series.

Bring on Precious Dragon! After two Detective Inspector Chen novels, I'm left wanting more.

Reading copy provided courtesy of Night Shade Books.

Previous Review:
Snake Agent

Snake Agent, by Liz Williams

Snake Agent
Liz Williams

With Snake Agent author Liz Williams introduces her readers to Detective Inspector Chen and the city of Singapore Three. Snake Agent opens with Chen in Hell, in captivity, hanging from his heels, and attempting to escape before something worse than being held captive in Hell occurs. The first chapter then jumps back a week earlier and after the tease of a prologue, the story begins. Detective Inspector Chen takes a job to rescue the soul of a young girl which has been waylaid on its way to Heaven. Meanwhile, Zhu Irzh, a Seneschal from Hell is tasked with taking that very soul to Hell. Not exactly the beginning of a beautiful friendship, but it will have to do.

Liz Williams imagines a world and a future where Heaven and Hell not only exist, but actively interact with humanity...quite naturally through layers and layers of bureaucracy. Souls really will go to either Heaven or Hell, and it is also quite possible that the method of transit depends on where you live and what, exactly, you believe. Technology will no longer be mechanical, but rather biological.

Snake Agent encompasses these ideas and much, much more, but what works about Snake Agent is not so much the details of the story, but rather how Williams tells it. The details, great as they are, are the window dressing to entice readers to open the book. Once readers do, and they should, the readers will find a mystery spanning both Earth and Hell, humans and demons, goddesses, lost and found souls, cover ups, Hellish conspiracies, an expansion on what exactly the mystery reveals, and nice detective action. But this is still the window dressing.

The deal is that with each revelation Liz Williams has things set up so that not only does the reader want to know more, the reader needs to know more. Snake Agent may begin with a "simple" mystery of locating a lost soul, but it quickly becomes so much more.

The simple answer to the question of "yes, but is it good?" is a resounding yes. It is.

Good enough that I will be looking for the next three volumes in the Detective Inspector Chen series in the very near future.


Reading copy provided courtesy of Night Shade Books.