No Present Like Time

Wit it's twitchy, flying, immortal, drug addicted narrator, its voyage of discovery to uncharted lands, its Empire threatened by dissent and rebellion and the occasional sideways jump to the nightmarish dream-logic world of the Shift, the second volume in the Fourlands series has a LOT going on, but the pacing is calm and the plotting assured. Opening with a duel, ending with a bloody mess of a battle or a riot or both, it's also action-packed. What a weird and brilliant mix.

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Having enjoyed The Year of Our War, I was looking forward to Swainston's second book; and indeed it was a good read. Here she has put more effort into world-building: the island empire of the previous book is only one of three locales, the other two being Tris, a newly discovered island off to the east, and Epsilon, a parallel dream-city into which Jant, the narrator, escapes when he has taken sufficient drugs. There is less office politics, and more high politics; the humour is a bit more sophisticated (especially the confrontation between the imperial instincts of Jant and his friends and the democrats of Tris). Good stuff.

'No Present Like Time' is the second book in Steph Swainston's 'Castle' series. It's a lot better than the first one.
Most of the things that annoyed me in the first volume are absent now. It's much better plotted, characters are introduced in a more organised manner, the lapses into present are almost (but not entirely) eliminated.

Without these annoyances and distractions, the writer's talent for language can show forth to much better effect. Swainston has a real gift for descriptive language and a delight in playing with words. In the 'Shift', the alternative world that Jant reaches under the influence of drugs, many of the strange beings there have names that are puns or clever plays on word meanings.

Sadly, there were still a few show more minor things that threw me out of the text. It's usually the bits that the writer adds as almost throwaway afterthoughts that tend to spoil the book for me. A description of a hurricane has windmills rotating so fast that 300 catch fire and burn. Clearly the writer doesn't know that any miller worth his salt will take the canvas off his sails and lock the sails in position at the first sign of really bad weather.

And Tris, which ironically has no need of a long-distance communication system, turns out to have the semaphore towers which were lacking in the Fourlands - which did need them.

Still, overall, a well-written book and one that encourages me to continue with the series. show less

No Present Like Time is the second novel of the Fourlands Series by Steph Swainston.

Plot:
A few years have passed since the last big success against the Insects and things are pretty much back to normal, with the big difference that Jant, the Emperor San’s Messenger, is actually clean at the moment. But the calm is disrupted when a challenger to the Emperor’s Swordman appears – and actually manages to take his spot in the circle of immortals. At the same time, Mist – the Emperor’s Sailor – is charged with sailing to an heretofore unknown island and to try and convince them to join the Fourlands ruled by the Emperor. San also orders Lightning (his Archer), the new Swordsman Wrenn and Jant to accompany Mist – much to Jant’s show more terror as he fears water above all.

No Present Like Time was another wonderful read. The plot may not be the strongest, but I loved the characters, the world-building and the prose. And that is more than enough for me to love the book.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2016/06/28/no-present-like-time-steph-swainston/ show less