Fiction Reviews
Bookshops & Bonedust
(2023) Travis Baldree, Tor, £9.99, pbk, 354pp, ISBN 978-1-035-00737-0
The cover promises ‘High Fantasy. First Loves. Second-Hand Books.’ and it does not misrepresent. The title also promises bookshops and bonedust and it delivers those as well. And it does so rather nicely.
This is the prequel to Legends & Lattes, which came out in 2022. That (from the snippet provided at the end of this book) tells of Viv, a battle-weary orc, who decides to retire from a life of constant travel and fighting, settle down, and open a coffee shop in the city of Thune (even though nobody in Thune has even heard of coffee). Bookshops & Bonedust tells of her early days as a young warrior, having only recently joined the mercenary company known as Rackam’s Ravens.
The Prologue describes how the Ravens are closing in on and are about to apprehend (i.e. kill) Varine the Pale, a feared necromancer. Eager to enjoy the battle lust and show the Ravens just what a strong warrior she is, young Viv leads the charge and hacks her way through hoards of wights (animated skeletons) ahead of the rest of her comrades. This, though, leaves her open to attack from all directions and, mighty though she is, one wight manages to drive a rusty pike deep into her thigh, causing a severe and potentially fatal injury. The battle over (and Varine, it turns out, not even there), the Ravens must continue their quest leaving Rackam with no option other than to leave Viv behind so that her terrible wound could be treated and heal.
And so, a few days later, Viv wakes from her fever to find herself in a room in The Perch, an inn just outside the walls of the coastal city of Murk. She learns from Brand, the sea-fey who is the owner, that the Ravens will collect her, provided she has recovered, when they come back this way, which may not be for some weeks. With nothing else to do, she hobbles towards the city, determined to regain her strength as soon as possible, though her injury is more severe than she cares to admit. One of the first people she meets is Iridia, a tapenti and the chief Gatewarden; as far as Iridia is concerned, she likes a quiet city but orcs mean trouble, and she makes sure that Viv is under no illusions that she is only barely tolerated, indeed, the slightest hint of trouble and she will be in the cells. Returning to The Perch, Viv is visited by the elf Highlark, the doctor who had saved her leg, and he makes it exceedingly clear that keeping her leg is dependent on her being sensible and actually following his medical advice - else she is facing an amputation (and, of course, the end of her career as a warrior).
But not everyone is unfriendly. At the Sea-Song Bakery, the owner Maylee, a dwarf, takes a liking to her (and they will develop more than a mere liking). Maylee, Viv soon discovers, bakes the most amazing bread and delicacies, much loved by everyone in town. Nearby is the dilapidated shop of Thistleburr Booksellers, a musty place filled with piles upon piles of books, all on the verge of toppling over. With nothing else to do she enters, meeting the owner, a friendly rattkin called Fern, and her pet gryphet, Potroast. With much time to kill whilst she slowly recuperates, Fern suggests to Viv that she might like to buy a book.
Viv, being an orc, is not much given to sitting round quietly and reading but Fern is persuasive and suggests a book that might be right up her street - lots of battles and blood and cursing. With little option, Viv acquiesces with some reluctance but, to her surprise, finds the book fascinating. Soon she is back in the bookshop for another, and then another. And so a friendship grows. The bookshop, though, is hardly selling anything and it will soon fail altogether. With little else to do, Viv decides that she will help Fern turn it round; make repairs, a spot of repainting, a new carpet, a couple of chairs, and a great deal of tidying and reorganising. And it works; customers start coming in, and returning! Fern creates packages of books (‘Knitting, Murder, and Wine’ for example) and her ‘mystery book sale’ appeals to the passengers from passing vessels when they pop ashore to visit the city.
Back in The Perch, Viv also makes the acquaintance of Gallina, a young gnome wearing a bandolier of knives and who wants to become a mercenary. Gallina is determined that Viv will be her new friend - and introduce her to Rackam when he returns. Initially annoyed by the gnome, Viv soon finds that having Gallina with you in a fight can be useful, especially as she is still recuperating and not supposed to be fighting at all. One day, as she wanders through the city, Viv spots a small, suspicious man in grey clothing and he has the smell of Varine about him. Despite her attempts to apprehend him, he escapes, only to turn up a dead few days later, very dead.
They soon learn that he had worked for Varine but had absconded with a couple of her possessions; Varine’s people had caught up with him but he had first managed to hide the objects. One of these is a great tome which does not contain the magic spells you might expect but each of its infinitely black pages is a portal to an underspace where Varine has stored something valuable - and probably very nasty. From one page Viv recovers Blackblood, the sword for which she will become famous, but the others she leaves well alone. They also discover an old satchel, containing nothing but old bones and a couple of jars of an unusual powder. Fern soon finds that a pinch of the bonedust dusted over the bones has an amazing affect, it animates them into a homunculus. Satchel, as he refers to himself, is rather glad to be away from Varine and is quite happy just to be useful, sweep the floors, tidy the books, and so on; much more pleasant than the ghastly tasks that Varine had him perform.
But things are only going to get bad. Varine wants her property back and certainly will not let an orc or a pile of books get in her evil way. There is a battle coming! (You probably guessed that.)
The pace is gentle and slow and not much of excitement happens; even the final showdown lacks thrills - though not imagination. Yet the story unfolds nicely and I found the book delightful. Perhaps it was all the time in the bookshop - and what fan has not spent many hours in bookshops? Quite clearly the author has, and has absorbed the feeling of proper bookshops. It oozes bookshopness. It is also lightly written and has an element of humour running through it; it is not laugh-out-loud funny but I found I often had an amused smile.
In his Acknowledgements, the author says ‘I hope it gave you a nice afternoon or three, and it left you warmer than when you started’. In my case it was three very pleasant afternoons and I felt the better for them. I think perhaps I must now find a copy of Legends & Lattes!
Peter Tyers
Editorial note: Legends & Lattes was short-listed for a Nebula Award.
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