Customer Reviews

Cold Iron

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

For a first novel wetting its toes into the realm of fantasy this book is not too bad an attempt though I have to admit it is borderline fantasy in certain areas. I agree with one reviewer that some of the characters could do with having their mouths washed out with soap (and I am no prude) but other than that it was pretty good. The characters (thought overtly vulgar when there was no need to be) were well portrayed, and the plot interesting enough to keep you turning the pages. The book leads you into an integrated modern society where human and elves live side-side though not always in harmony. Enter Rosie Lavine, a jaded PI who is hired by a Rock Group's official groupie, Candy Cayne (no joke here folks) to find out who might be trying to kill the lead singer of a Elf Rock Group called Cold Iron. At first Rosie thinks it is all a piece of Rosie's drug induced imagination but when she is warned off by a group of professional thugs she changes her mind and immerses herself into the bizarre world of sex, drugs and Elf Hard Rock Music. Attracted to Jorandel, the sexy but degenerated lead singer, Rosie is on a roller coaster ride of a lifetime and it's not a pleasant experience. Haunted by her own demons, mainly from her childhood, Rosie lurches from clue to clue in a desperate bid to find out who wants the charismatic Jorandel dead. There are an assortment of other characters that thread in and out of the story as it wound its way to its climax, but it was Rosie and Candy who kept me turning the pages, as well the destructive relationship taking place between Rosie and Jorandel, played out in the sordid world of Elf Hard Rock music. I did enjoy the book but I feel it could have been so much more. All the same for a first attempt into fantasy Ms Michaels didn't do too bad a job really.

I can't for a minute understand why some of the other reviewers didn't like this book. Sure, it isn't traditional fantasy, though it does have elves. Sure, it isn't Tolkein. It is a tough, contemporary, urban fantasy novel with a very strong mystery. Though its characters are not always (even usually) admirable, COLD IRON is absolutely compelling, with exceptionally strong narration and enough plot twists to make even the most experienced mystery fan (like myself) happy.

This is not a story about happy woodland creatures flitting among the trees; this is a story of hardened people, of hopes and dreams, of the horrible decadence of (some) rock bands. The magic and even the existence of the elves does not need to be explained by Ms. Michaels. They are woven seamlessly into contemporary society and are utterly believeable in the framework of this novel. The subculture that Ms. Michaels has created works - that's all that is important, not how it got to be that way. It just is. You believe it.

Even as you may not respect or agree with some of the decisions made by the characters, their choices are within character and hold together. The elfrock musicians are certainly not put forth to be emulated, but they can be studied and understood. We don't have to like all of them, but we have to believe that they could - and do - exist in the world that Ms. Michaels has created. In my eyes, that is high praise indeed.

I heartily recommend COLD IRON. It definitely is not high fantasy, but is an interesting and compelling book with a great deal going on beneath the surface. Above all, this book is engaging and entertaining! Isn't that what we look for when we read?

COLD IRON has its flaws (parts of it are a bit too graphic for my taste, and a lot of the characters need their mouths washed out with soap), but Jorandel, the lead singer for the elfrock band Cold Iron, is fascinating. Self-centered, disgusting, sociopathic, yes. Also incredibly complex and well-drawn. I bought the book for him. Jorie is repulsively attractive. I just wish I had liked the ending better.

I was persuaded to try COLD IRON even though I don't like rock music, don't like urban fantasy, and don't like "private eye" stories...Surprise! This book smashed all those prejudices! I liked the heroine immediately (she's as much of a curmudgeon as I am...and incidentally she hates being called a private eye: it's private INVESTIGATOR). Then the compelling writing and razor-sharp wit kept me reading eagerly to the end. I look forward to the next book by Melisa Michaels no matter WHAT genre it's in!

My Scale:
1 star--wretched, don't bother;
2 stars-somebody will like it, flawed;
3 stars-pretty darn good with some flaws;
4 stars-great, I'll re-read it;
5 stars-flawless, a classic of the genre.

The World:
Modern San Francisco/Los Angeles/Hawaii-with pointy-eared people. Elves have been part of the world for there to have been second or maybe third generation elf-human hybrids (haflings). No other changes to the world reported

The Plot:
Rose Levine is a not-very-successful private investigator, who is hired to investigate possible threats to the life of the lead singer of the world-famous elfrock band Cold Iron, Jorandel. She begins to travel with the band (they're on tour), and somehow she just kind of slips into the same band lifestyle. There are threats and dangers. Can Rosie save Jorandel, or even should she?

The Review:
This is a run-of-the-mill girl P.I. novel. The plot's ok (some holes); the dialog's ok; the characterization stinks. The elves come across as just humans with pointy ears stuck on. There's no background framework or explanation: how are elves different from humans in psychology, motivation, elven interpersonal relationships, and so forth. The narrator repeatedly refers to the elves in the story as "sociopaths", implying that all elves are, yet she falls in love with not one but two (well, the second is only one-quarter elf).

This is the same old world I live in, just with tall pointy-eared people in it. That the world isn't perceptibly different that now makes this novel flunk the fantasy test

Rose Levine is supposed to be a hard-boiled P.I. who has been around the block a few times. Yet without any explanation, she casually begins drinking heavily and snorting "soda" (some kind of elven version of coke or crack that is clearly illegal). Why would a P.I. jeopardize her license by casual use of an illegal substance? Why would a P.I. who is on the job drink enough to be incapacitated? There's some subplot about Rosie discovering her past, but it isnot convincing either. The whole thing leaks like a sieve and is a waste of time.

It's two stars not one because the actual writing--mechanics, dialog, scene setting--is competenetly done.

For the most part, books about people from magical lands coming to earth don't seem to work for me. Afterall, what's so great about normal old earth companred with a land of elves, dwarves and the occasional dragon?

It works pretty well in COLD IRON by Melisa Michaels. The concept is that elves from Fairie had grown tired of the homeland and with their exceptional musical skills, travel to earth to become musicians. Once such band is COLD IRON. When a girl comes into the office of private investigator Rose Lavine claiming that someone's trying to kill the lead singer of COLD IRON, Lavine reluctantly agrees to help.

This book isn't your typical fantasy with a culturally diverse band of strangers on a magical quest. So if you've been looking for something a little different, then maybe COLD IRON is for you.

Casey Thomaston

Cold Iron, and its companion novel Sister To The Rain, are rich and compelling reads that I freely recommend to anyone who enjoys reading fantasy. The thing I like best about Mrs. Michaels' writing is that she manages to avoid many of the worst faults commonly found in fantasy today. For starters, she has cleverly avoided the "cutesy" trap. The world she has built is every bit as dangerous as the one we live in and just as filled with bits of heartbreaking beauty and sorrow. You can see the gorgeous forest or the broken glass of a violently thrown whiskey bottle equally well. Another common fault she has avoided is "cardboard" characterization. Her characters are complex; both likeable and repellant, as unpredictable as real people, and you get the sense of depth and personal history that you do with real people. The relationships among the characters are also as varied, complex, and tangled as among real people and their relationships as well. I wish other writers worked as hard doing this as she has. There is only one flaw that I can find with Mrs. Michaels' books: They are too hard to find! I had to nag, nag, nag my local bookstore to "special order" this book for me when it should have been regular stock! Why do local bookstores not want to carry this book? I am so tired of seeing nothing but "trekky" and "gamer" books in the speculative fiction section and complaints to the bookstore do nothing. Thank God for Amazon!

Cold Iron is a wonderfull book to read...Page turning and fast paced action...Makes for a real good night's read...I could not put it down...If she write's any more book along the same line then she will have her own little coner of the fantasy reader's truning to her book in a rush. Tragic,Enlighting,and thoughtfully put together with a plot that renders the haert.

This appears to be an attempt to cash in on the recent popularity of the urban fantasy genre in general and the "Bordertown" shared universe in particular. Unfortunately, it really doesn't work. Aside from a few oddments of detail (elves and occasional references to magic or the "laws of Faerie"), this novel takes place in our world, completely unmodified. Not the "our world" of a novel like Emma Bull's _War for the Oaks_ where Faerie lurks at the fringes of society, hidden from mortals by glamour and guile. Nor the "our world" from which many of the human chracters of the Bordertown series have fled, a world which seems to have deliberately turned itself away from the magic on the other side of the Border. Instead this is our world in every detail, complete with Starbucks, shopping malls, and heavy metal music, not differing in any way except for the presence of elves, in and among and around ordinary society. Frankly, I don't buy it. The elves of Bordertown have a distinct presence all their own, bringing their own culture to everything they do, and even though some of them do play rock and roll, most of them play it in their own unique style, adding Faerie instruments and melodies, and oftentimes lyrics in their own language, in much the same fashion as contemporary "ethnic rock" bands. These elves are just spoilt brats who mostly act like regular ordinary standard-issue over-paid, over-dressed, and over-sexed rock stars, only with pointed ears and names like Jorandel and Jimendan. Their music sounds like plain, ordinary hard rock, with no influence from their own heritage; if the author at least offered some explanation for this, (even one as thin as the lead guitarist talking about how as an adolescent he'd rejected his lessons in Elvish Classical <stringed instrument> and spent all his nights with a Fender Strat, copping licks off Van Halen albums) I'd suppose I could accept it, but she doesn't even attempt to deal with the issue. Worse yet, there is apparently an entire genre of "elf rock" (of which these are allegedly the best--I don't think I could have finished the book if we'd seen any of the rest). Despite this major difference in the music business, we still have bands like Aerosmith and Poison, apparently even recording the same songs. I'll grant that the lineups of these bands aren't really described (maybe in this world they're all elves as well), but somehow I just can't believe the whole scenario. On the whole, this strikes me as a mainstream mystery novel about a private investigator who has personal issues developing a strange bond with a rock star who is more complex than he seems, only dressed up in a few shreds of fantastic clothing. I'll admit, I don't like mainstream heavy metal; the "folk-rock" fiddle-and-electric-guitar sound of the classic urban fantasy is much more to my taste. But I could have forgiven Cold Iron for being a bunch of typical overgrown adolescent stadium rock stars if they'd just had the decency to be believable elves as well. The only reason I give it as many as two stars is because the author at least has workable prose, and because Amazon.com doesn't provide a "no stars" option (this certainly wasn't as bad as _<fill in the blank> of Gor_ or the typical Sidney Sheldon novel)

Cold Iron is not a bad story about a PI hired to figure out if someone is trying to murder the leader of the band. However, it is mislabeled as a fantasy book. There happen to be elves in the story but they are people like anybody else. There is nothing in the book that makes it a fantasy book.