Edward’s last novels (The Relic Guild trilogy and The Song of the Sycamore, reviewed HERE) have tended to be on the dark and grim side, so this latest novel in some ways seems like a bit of light relief by comparison.
The story begins in what seems like Neil Gaiman territory. Strange Ground by the Skea seems like a quiet urban backwater of England. Ebbie Wren lives and works there as a librarian, although the library is about to close. Ebbie comes across as the stereotypical loser, unlucky in his job, in love and life generally. His only real enthusiasm is his love of local folklore in “The Realm”. His only friend and confident is Mai, the old homeless woman who Ebbie brings a hot chocolate to every morning.
On the last day of the library’s opening, Ebbie is disheartened to find that Mai has disappeared, presumably died overnight. In actual fact, Mia has a secret past as a person from the Realm of Strange Ground Beneath the Skea, and her disappearance is connected to that.
At the same time, in Strange Ground Beneath the Skea, young thief Bek Rana is making a living stealing things for others – with varying degrees of success. She is hired to steal a sword, which she does, only to find that it has magical properties, something which can do her no good.
As readers we discover that there has been an attempt to seize power from the Queen of House Wood Bee by the imprisoned Yandira, the Queen’s sister. To secure her power in the Realm and complete the deal she has made with Persephone, Mistress of the Underworld, Yandira needs that sword and the two magical stones of Foresight and Hindsight.
Bek finds herself contracted to Ebbie, who himself has been given the responsibility of carrying out Mai’s final wishes. This is not as good as it sounds – for reasons revealed through the book, neither Ebbie or Bek are keen on becoming heroes, even if their actions could restore order to the Realm.
And whilst on their journey Ebbie and Bek’s journey is made more difficult by the actions of ancient gods known as the Oldungods who are themselves involved in an ongoing battle of which Ebbie, Bek Yandira and the Realm are only part of. For every action has a price, and the players should follow the rules…
This is a story that manages to use the tropes of the past – a need for a succession of power, treachery, loyalty, friendship and familial ties – but turn them into something new. There’s a lot here that reminds me of Neil Gaiman’s Stardust or Neverwhere (for Croup and Vandemar we have Lunk and Venatus, for example), with even a touch of Hope Mirlees’s Lud in the Mist, all of which is good.
Our lead characters of mild-mannered Ebbie and spirited Bek are engaging and often likeable. The story moves between the fairly small, focussed narrative of Ebbie and Bek to the bigger picture, that the events happening around Strange Ground by the Skea and its counterpart Strange Ground Beneath the Skea are being manipulated by the Oldungods, clearly a nod to the Greek myths of old.
However, in the attempt to make the story that little bit different, and maintain a fast pace, some of the actions of the characters and their motivations seemed a little forced at times. Even the title pun, in its attempt to be witty, annoyed me and felt like one of those “good ideas at the time” concepts that should have been lost early on in the writing process. Some may see it as clever, whereas it irritated me – different strokes for different folks, I guess.
I can accept that that is a personal issue – I have mentioned such things before in my reviews. Perhaps most worrying was that even at the end some of the main characters that I knew about and felt that I was supposed to care about, I actually felt remote and indifferent towards.
The lack of character development of some of those around the key characters may have been the issue, but at the end I felt that I was being asked to appreciate the importance of their being put in peril without really being invested in their personality. This led to the book sagging a little in the middle for me – lots of action and things going on, but I began to lose interest in some of the characters and their actions. I found that I had to keep checking the characters who they were and what they did.
The good news is that it did pick up towards the end where the disparate threads began to tie themselves together. The ending highlights the point the actions of individuals can have huge consequences, and that sometimes the choices made are difficult and may not be an easy decision.
I guess what I’m saying here is that whilst I did enjoy a lot about this book, and I certainly don’t regret reading it, at the same time there were elements that were issues for me. I appreciate that Edward is trying to do something different here, even if it didn’t always quite work for me. It is very different to his other works and even with my reservations showed me that Edward can write an entertaining tale in a variety of styles and forms. There is a better balance between ‘light’ and ‘dark’ here, and the story is better for it.
I am sure that there are readers out there less curmudgeonly than me and for whom this will be an ideal read. There is a lot to like here, though it wasn’t perfect for me. Nevertheless, if you like Neil Gaiman and want something similar yet different, this may be the book for you.
The Wood Bee Queen by Edward Cox
Published by Gollancz, July 2021
ISBN: 978 1 473 22686 9
418 pages
Review by Mark Yon
