Reviewer Praise for IRON CHAMBER OF MEMORY
A Pius Geek reviews my humble work and judges it favorably:
http://apiusman.blogspot.com/2016/04/review-john-c-wrights-iron-chamber-of.html
F. Paul Wilson’s novel The Keep had impressed me growing up because it was a novel that had started out as Dracula and ended with Lord of the Rings.
John C Wright has managed and even greater trick with his latest novel, Iron Chamber of Memory. In this case, what started out as a romantic comedy, Nora Roberts style, and then, Deaver-like, ended in an epic battle on the scale of Mary Stewart and her books of King Arthur and Merlin. Let’s call it a fantasy romance, of sorts. Where’s the soundtrack for Excalibur! I need O Fortuna to accompany the knights charging out of the mists!
Trust me, when I say it was epic, I mean EPIC.
And
… the first 25% is a romantic farce. Like Bringing Up Baby, only funny. Then the next 25% is an epic romance. The third quarter …. transitions nicely into the last 25%, in which … we are in for one hell of a ride.
So we have some of your epic fantasy, we have some
Wright is obviously in a level all of his own, wherein he brings together so many myths and legends, there were moments I paused and went “How did I not see this?” His dissertation director at Oxford is a Dr. Vodonoy. If you don’t see it, don’t worry, I didn’t either. You will be amused by a Mister Drake in this novel. He doesn’t actually have any lines of dialogue, but trust me, when Wright reveals the joke, you’ll enjoy it.
And in all of those elements of epicness and mythology clashing, good against evil, we have a bit like this.
“I am the son of The Grail Knight. My father showed me the cup when I was a boy, still with heaven’s innocence in me, so that the shining rays were visible to me: and in the Blood of the Grail he anointed me.”
“And after…”
“We moved to New York, and he opened a used bookstore.”
The unexpectedness of that line was … well, I was glad I didn’t wake the neighbors.
Or:
“Are you suffering from cutlery dysfunction?”It’s times like those where I’m wondering if I’m in Mary Stewart or in a Peter David novel. Either way, it works.
This is what, in my family, is called a “Novel novel.” There is more in common with Victor Hugo than James Patterson. It’s a book where I spent a lot of time admiring the crafting of story, and the crafting of words and phrasing. And I’m usually not the sort of person to note that sort of thing.
So, you want your humor? Check. Want your fantasy, triple checked. Want romance? Double checked in two different meanings of the world. Also, if you want a plot twist that makes Jeffery Deaver look like amateur hour? Quadruple checked (yes, really, four, I counted. Maybe 6.)
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
