The Man With The Golden Torc

I wasn't sure I'd like this. I usually dig my heels in and resist "humorous" fantasy novels. They're not my cup of cocoa. Smart and funny is great; I have a weakness for really clever puns. But I'm not usually willing to offer the same suspension of disbelief to a book written with the primary intent of being comical as I am a more grounded book with a sense of humor. And I'd heard of Simon R. Green's books primarily as humor.

Well, The Man with the Golden Torc was funny – from the title on through. The wonderful thing about it was that it never sacrificed storytelling to make a joke, never stretched for the humor, never beat me over the head with a pun. Puns did abound – Archie Leech? Ow, and I resent that on behalf of Archibald show more Alexander Leach – and so did jokes and running gags ("the infamous Molly Metcalf"), and I chuckled several times and smiled more. It was good, and it was funny, and the humor was integral – partly down to a narrator with an honestly witty voice, and partly to a feeling that the world was run by people who saw no reason not to be amusing in the setting up and naming of things, including super-villains. Well done.

And, funnily enough (no pun intended), I learned a couple of things. Eddie Drood (whose name, along with Shaman Bond and Archie Leech, makes me wonder how many references I missed) mentions that the Drood home base boasts Rembrandts, Goyas, and Schalckens … I don't remember ever hearing of Schalcken before, which is surprising considering he seems fairly major and considering I thought I'd had a fairly decent art history education. I also picked up a few music recommendations (Hawkwind, Mary Hopkins, and Within Temptation), so this was a multi-media presentation.

It also prompted me to look up Jaffa cakes.

This wasn't perfect. There were a few instances of "But I thought you just said …?" In discussing the merits of the torc and the armour, Eddie explains several times in the first chapter that "no one sees me unless I want them to", which was (intentionally, I'm wondering belatedly?) funny because it seemed like every time he stated it was just before or after someone saw him who shouldn't have. The whole book was filled with instances of the much-vaunted perfect, impenetrable-in-all-ways protection of the torc being penetrated or overcome in one way or another. Another "huh?" moment for me followed Eddie and Molly's hike through the sewers of London. Although a visit to another … establishment … left its scent mark on him to the point that no one wanted to sit next to him on public transport, the schlep through what were described as overwhelmingly pungent tunnels seemed not to leave a trace of odor on them, given that there was no reaction from anyone they met before bathing and changing clothes. Small things, these, but they caught at my attention like slivers in a finger.

So: not perfect, but: overall, I loved it. It was fast-paced and didn't let go, and I genuinely like Eddie Drood and the earnest goodness of (most of) his family. I loved the story, unique and well thought out as it was. The humor was not unleavened – there are a couple of very serious elements to the plot, and there are sacrifices along the way. But the protagonists are good people doing what they can and what they must, and, occasionally, having a lot of fun doing it. Highly recommended.

My favorite line: "You know, sometimes I swear the whole universe runs on irony." show less

Urban fantasy but James Bond instead of the usual sort of mystery. Probably the best of Green's series I've sampled so far, definitely better than the Nightside stories, though I'm told the Deathstalker stuff is really good. Also the novelization of the Costner Robinhood which I unabashedly love, so I'll have to get my hands on that.
It suffers a little from the same sort of thing as some of Green's other stories, where he seems to want to do urban fantasy, maybe touching on the sort of subtle universe building that Barker does, but also to include aliens, other scifi elements, and everything under the sun into a sort of pseudo-slipstream setting. He does better resisting that urge here than in a lot of stuff...those elements appear only show more briefly near the beginning before being seemingly entirely discarded. The Bond-esque spy-thriller meets urban fantasy is an interesting take too, even if its a little *too* Bond, best of the best, for my taste. Taking that into account, a burn notice style kick off was probably the right way to go. This would definitely have been right up my aunt's alley.
Probably give the next book a go if the library has it. show less

I was at C2E2, sitting in on a panel that had Simon Green, Mary Robinette Kowal, and some other authors I didn't know. At the time Mary was the only author I had heard of, and Green was just as unknown to me as the rest.

After the panel was over some penguin PR person made an announcement that there would be free books at some booth out on the show floor, and this was one of the books. I, being the thrifty bibliophile that I am, of course wanted all of the free books I could get my hands on, whether I had heard of the authors or not. When I got to the free-books booth Simon Green and the aforementioned PR person were the only people there, and Green was signing things. He offered to sign this book for me and, not knowing or caring who show more he was and being an impolite jerk, I said, “that's okay.” He just smiled and insisted, bless him, and I let him sign it. It is by far the sloppiest signature I've ever gotten, but that only makes him more endearing. He looked and sounded every bit the raconteur. Old and British; wearing a leather jacket over a waistcoat. Even if I hadn't know him to be an author I'd probably take one look at him and think, “I bet that guy has some stories to tell.”

Anyway, I read some reviews of this book before writing my own, and the general impression I got was that it's not as good as a lot of his other work. I consider that a good thing, because I did genuinely enjoy the hell out of this book, flawed as it is. I'll definitely look into his other work at some point. It was unabashed fun, and genuinely one of the funnier books I've read. It was exactly what I needed at the time. Something light with dry humor that didn't take itself even a smidge seriously. It threw in as many pop-culture and mythological references as possible without stopping to worry whether they had any justification for being there. I really liked that. Sorry for dismissing you, Mr. Green. Turns out your books are pretty damn fun. show less

Read: March 2016

Rating: 3.5/5 stars (rounded down to 3/5)

The Plot: Eddie Drood is a member of a large supernatural family who work undercover for the good of the country, protecting it from all paranormal and other dimensional threats. Suddenly Eddie finds himself declared an enemy of the family who begin to hunt him down. Now he must figure out how to stay ahead of the other Droods and why his family now want him dead.

I am a huge fan of Simon R. Green’s work; I love the Nightside series and the Ghost Finders series, and I was really hoping to love the Secret Histories series too. Unfortunately, whatever magic spark I found in his other books was missing here. That’s not to say it wasn’t a good book and a solid UF story but if The show more Man with the Golden Torc had been the first Simon R. Green book I ever picked up, I probably wouldn’t have ever gone on to read the Nightside or Ghost Finders series which would have been a shame.

Things I liked:
- The idea of the Drood family and their reason for existing. They remind me slightly of the Healy/Price dynasty in Seanan McGuire’s excellent Incryptid series, only even more paranoid, insane, and members of the British upper class to boot.
- I liked the character of Molly, the witch with a grudge against the Droods and how she slowly becomes a partner to Eddie.
- The discovery of how and why the Droods get their golden armour was horrifying and very well written though I disliked how easily the golden armour was replaced at the end of the book.

Things I disliked:
- Eddie Drood himself was a bit of a ‘nothing’ narrator. To me he was very much the voice of the author rather than an individual character.
- All Green’s usual writing quirks – his use of exposition, deus ex machina’s, casual violence and imaginative horror – are used here but here they were more irritating that amusing.
- The golden armour. Knowing that all the Droods are wearing armour that nothing can penetrate makes him pretty much invincible. There is a sub plot where Eddie’s armour is pierced and he is being slowly poisoned but even then there was never any real sense of danger to me; it was obvious he wasn’t going to die.

Overall this was a decent story but I’m not sure if I will continue to read this series. show less

A good base for a new series. A never-ending romp--the characters go from one crises to another but the action is well done and the pacing is pretty good. Then it's all a bit conveniently resolved (really? nobody else is able to defeat this one member of the family?) but I don't think it could have ended any other way. A big conspiracy is set up for future books; I hope it doesn't linger for too long. The paranoia can get old.

I read Green's Blue Moon Rising years ago, and it was an instant favorite. I'm not sure why I never read anything else by him, but when I saw another book by him in a used book store I picked it realizing it was part of the Secret Histories series. I grabbed this one so that I could start the series at the beginning. I really loved this book. I read fiction and mainly fantasy, because I want to be entertained and the less it has to do with the real world the better. Eddie Drood (AKA Shaman Bond) is is estranged from his family. That family happens to be secret guardians of humanity. His family declares him rogue and orders him to be killed on sight. There is plenty of action, witty writing, and unrealistic gadgets galore.

There’s no way getting around it. You’re going to see this as James Bond with Daemons, which is probably the point, especially if the cover and the pun-riddled title are anything to go by. That isn’t to say that is a pale pastiche. Green has created a hero and an adventure in its own right.

Bond, Shaman Bond is in fact Eddie Drood a protector, along with the rest of the Drood family, of humanity from the forces of darkness and through him Green shows an alternative world where all the things that you thought were just myth and mystery are in fact real.

Green does takes this idea slightly too far in places but overall he gets the tone and mix and reality about right. So that the creatures he introduces fit quite well. Ironically it show more was the aliens that didn’t quite fit in as they seemed, well alien, and out of place.

What at first annoyed me about Eddie Drood turned out to be his greatest weakness - his golden armour. It makes him, super-strong, invincible and arrogant. That is until he’s shown that he isn’t as invincible as he’s always thought. It’s also a lesson he teaches a few others along the way.

Green keeps the pressure on Eddie and the reader and doesn’t stop for breath as the action takes us from a Harvey Street Hospital, to a devastating chase along the M4 and the hidden areas of London amongst many other places. It isn’t just the solving of a mystery. It’s the journey of Eddie as he learns more about himself and gets closer to someone he’s tried to kill on more than one occasion.

Green keeps up the laughs so it’s closer to Austin Powers than 007. The ideas flow from an imagination that seems far from running dry. I’m looking forward to where Green takes Eddie Drood after he’s built up and destroyed so much in The Man with the Golden Torc. show less