Mounment by Ian Graham

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Mounment by Ian Graham

Pub: Orbit. 373 page hardback. Price: £10.00 (UK), $22.00 (CAN). ISBN: 1-84149-102-0.

Check out website: www.orbitbooks.co.uk

Through a mean theft from those who have helped him, Anhaga Ballas acquires a mystical 'gem'. The Lectivin device infects him with an overwhelming desire to find a mythic realm and he bulldozes his way through the land of Druine to find it.

Due to the bloody consequences of the hero's attempts to sell the gem, a catalogue of crimes that could put off the easiest-going reader is opened. Even though some of these are against the despicable Church Wardens, many relatively innocent bystanders are eviscerated, rent and otherwise killed and maimed as well.

Are we really supposed to empathise with this character as he bludgeons his way to the mythic realm of Belthirran where he expects to find people weak-minded enough to give him sanctuary? By the time the reliance on brutality subsides, it is too late.

'Monument' is a first novel by Ian Graham. A young writer, he has taken the bold decision to create a main character over twice his own age and with vices dire enough to alienate Bill Sikes. I wish I could say that this device works well.

Unfortunately, it is with a sinking feeling that you realise that this unlovely character, Ballas, could well endure to the end of the novel. More momentum of plot might have distracted from this creature's incomprehensibly mean nature, whether or not it is the very device that triggers the sequence of events.

Once the bloodletting has eased off, the hero's persona remains too unpalatable to elicit any sympathetic interest. Any character this unpleasant must have some redeeming feature, however bizarre, for the reader to care what happens to him, even a glimmer of irony in this journey through a compassionless world.

A glimpse of Tinkerbell may be out of the question but a little more 'magic' would have helped colour the narrative and lessen the dependence on tendon crunching, eyeball splitting conflict.
Having created a cliff-hanger device in the shape of the mysterious gem or Monument, the reader is left dangling for so long about where the device is, it becomes easy to forget that this is the other catalyst of the sad, sorry business in the first place.

The sureness of the writing should have been expended on something more edifying than an awareness of the trauma ward.

Given the tight parallel with humans, familiar creatures and places, the novel could have been more effective set in our historical past instead of having a dismal realm invented for it. This might have conferred on it the integrity that can transform a competent narrative into a compelling one.

The shelves are being crammed with more and more fantasy at the moment. To lift a novel above the rest it is necessary to have more than gratuitous violence. This may not be the fault of the author. Genre publishers now only invest in what they perceive will generate sales.

For women in Graham's book, read 'whore'. They seem to be little else apart from Heresh, the eel catcher's daughter, who admittedly seems to have the only sane point of view.
Despite the aptitude of the writing, the unremitting gore and degradations of the main character and his sleazy dimension are stultifying.

Once the necessary scene setting has been dealt with, it is not unreasonable for the reader to expect such a linear plot to lift off a little. This is supposed to be fantasy after all. It is obvious that the 20-year-old author has enough talent to widen his scope. When he does, he hopefully will not depend so heavily on the lurid.

'Monument' is an example of how the pseudo-scientific horrors of Science Fiction have been transferred to the mortuary slab of Fantasy. Self-indulgent theories of Science Fiction that were held tedious by the general reader, have now apparently been superseded by the grisly accounts of murder and dismemberment in hellish never-never lands.

Small wonder these genres seldom spill over into the mainstream. Terry Pratchett and JK Rowling may be regarded as tame by the purveyors of the grisly. Millions know which they prefer to read.

To those who are addicted to visceral horror, read this. For those who like their violence more sardonic, watch 'Robot Wars'.

Jane Palmer

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