Secret Faerie Suicide Squad

Although not completely, as of the group chosen by ex-Guard Captain Mauritane for this mission, one is half Avalonian, and the other is a fully human scientist.

All of whom are languishing in an out of the way prison for political reasons. Two of them killers, even if somewhat justified - but still alive because of who they are. The human unlucky enough to be caught trying to rescue a girl who had been Changeling switched.

In your Suicide Squad scenario of course it is 'go on this really dangerous mission we can't acknowledge and if by some miracle you survive, well, we might be nice to you.'

The mission comes from the Seelie Queen Titania, and while that matters not to most of them, they'd rather be out and adventuring than locked up.

They just have to survive a magical no-man's land, traverse a very unlikely distance, survive the Seelie political intrigue and enemies that would happily bury their leader. Plus monsters and war with the Unseelie.

Or, nothing they are really likely to survive if you were running a book on it.

Oh, and you could get blown up by a Flying City.

Pretty reasonably written for a first novel.

http://notfreesf.blogspot.com/2009/09... ( )

Better known as co-author of the first volumes of the Fables comic series, Matthew Sturges has turned his talents to novel writing.

Like his fellow Clockwork Storybook writer Chris Roberson, Sturges has produced a variation on the "Dirty Dozen" concept--prisoners given a chance at redemption by taking a one-way near-suicidal mission. Roberson set a Dirty Dozen in his "Chinese and Aztec" universe in The Dragon's Nine Sons.

Midwinter, Sturges effort, is similarly located in a place very different than our Earth--in Faerieland.

Midwinter is the story of Mauritaine. War hero, former Captain of the Royal Guard, he is in prison for a crime he didn't commit. He gets the chance at redemption at the low part of a 100 year cycle in the seasons--Midwinter. It seems that this occasion has cause for the Queen of the Seelie, Regina Titania, to offer a secret mission to him, and a few of his fellow prisoners. Survive, and their sentences will be commuted.

Not everyone is happy about this mission of course, especially Queen Titania's rival, Queen Mab of the Unseelie. As well as rivals to Mauritaine within the realm of the Seelie, and possibly within his own party...

The novel is both familiar and new in its treatment of Faerie and its inhabitants. The team has a variety of tropes, including a displaced human whose knowledge of technology and science seems useless in Faerie. At first.

We also have a couple of POVs from outside of the team, in both the Courts of Titania as well as Mab. Some of these POVs and characters are more compelling and well drawn than others.

I enjoyed the inventiveness of the premise (of winter coming to the land every century). I guessed the secret of the mission before it was revealed, but only just. And there are other delights in the world, like the strange Contested Lands, and the floating city that Mab calls her capital.

Overall, while I enjoyed the novel and was entertained, I do not think the novel quite hits on all cylinders. I do want to see how Sturges grows as a writer in subsequent novels. There is clear potential here that I would love to see in full bloom. So, if you can forgive a few faults in the novel, then you, too, just might enjoy Midwinter. ( )