Rough Magicke (Hardcover)

by John, William Houghton (Author)
Key Phrases: sally port, paschal candle, main barracks, John William Houghton, The Consul's Jewel, Rough Magicke (more...)

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Product Description
"An occult thriller, scary, learned, and charitable in the true tradition of Charles Williams and his fellow Inklings," says T.A. Shippey, editor of The Oxford Book of Fantasy Stories. A remarkable witch's brew of supernatural, Christian, classical and scientific arcana.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 420 pages
• Publisher: Unlimited Publishing (March 28, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1588321258
• ISBN-13: 978-1588321251
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,758,323 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Things in Indiana Than Are Dreamt Of In Your Philosophy, May 23, 2005

By	S. B. Straubhaar (austin, texas, usa) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Rough Magicke (Paperback)

The advance blurbs on the back of this remarkable genre-straddling novel (more accurately: three novelettes) make reference to Charles Williams and G. K. Chesterton, and quite rightly so; but good arguments could be made for Dorothy Sayers and Madeleine l'Engle as additional godparents.
Why is this book remarkable? Because in it, Christianity and magic coexist without shame or apology, in a way that hasn't happened in popular fiction (at least, in popular fiction with a contemporary setting) in decades, and in a way that is probably counterintuitive to current Anglophone majority popular culture (but would have been perfectly normal in the Middle Ages). It's nice to know, for instance, that there are alternatives to Phillip Pullman out there: that a narrative can be fantastic (and contain demons and angels as characters) without taking potshots at religions, be they Christian or any other. The Marion Zimmer Bradley formula (All Christians are prudes and witch-burners, all pagans would fun to party with) is avoided as well: magical skills are inherited rather like musical ones, irrespective of religion. (Houghton's narrative shows particular respect to Native American religions and to Judaism. There is some scorn for certain types of neo-paganism, though not all of them. Most surprisingly, that variety of Christianity we most often see made fun of nowadays -- revivalist evangelism -- does get beaten with a few stripes, but comes out fine in the end.)
Houghton's paranormal detective hero is Jonathan Mears, an Anglican chaplain at a military school in Indiana (modeled on the Culver Military Academy, of which the author is an alumnus, and which is [judging by its website] quite pleased with the novel), and later the bishop of an Anglican diocese in the same state. Military schools aren't a venue with which I am familiar, and sometimes the one in this book seems overpopulated with too-clever-by-half adolescents in uniform (like so many Miles Vorkosigans), inhabiting some kind of Austro-Hungarian neverland, complete with matching music (Franz von Suppé) and a wardrobe from the old Sissi movies of the fifties; but it is a vividly imagined world (to me; maybe Culver is/was really like this) that eventually wins the reader over entirely.
All three of the stories are engaging, particularly the third, which has a delicious villain and a stunning conclusion, featuring unexpected guests out of the past plus a surprising and satisfying star turn from a previously minor character. (Think Yoda's duel with Count Dooku, and you'll get the idea; although sabers don't feature in the scene.) Another goosebump scene is the"Jeff's a psychic, Chaplain Mears says prayers, and Larry's a nudist" sequence from the middle story; which also includes a passage in a monastery ("We did horrible things - I can't say") that is reminiscent of the scariest parts of C. S. Lewis' That Hideous Strength. (I'm carefully not spoiler-ing, for readers of this review who may buy the book.) There's also a "what religion is for" passage, citing Huck Finn and his fishhook,that echoes the thoughts of this reviewer on that subject: worth the price of admission.
The spoken dialogue is, oddly enough, both the best and the worst thing about the stories. All the characters are witty conversationalists, and there is a generous share of laugh-out-loud lines ("We'll have one greasy Christian on our hands," "We never should have stopped putting saltpeter in the mashed potatoes," "175 pounds of Lion Chow in a magenta bag," "If I meet the Buddha on the road, I shall kill him"); but they mostly talk just like each other, and when there is a string of unattributed quotations in a group of speakers larger than two, the reader has to do some detective work to unravel who is talking. One notable exception is the character Brad, with his unusual laugh, amusingly described. Back on the downside, though, the book has teenagers saying things teenagers would be unlikely to say in the 1990s, even in Indiana ("right here in River City," "some poor schmo"). And, most peculiarly, there is a sequence of 58 pages (325-383), throughout which various characters articulate the phrase "that sounds like a plan," or a close facsimile of it, approximately once every eight pages. (Well, maybe plans were particularly in order at that point in the plot. But this style gaffe should have been caught in editing, I think, especially considering the quality [and variety] of much of the rest of the dialogue.)
This reader was left with an appetite for more stories about Jonathan Mears, including perhaps a late-in-life romance in the manner of Lord Peter Wimsey, whom he resembles on more than one front. (And perhaps he has already met his Harriet in the person of the surprisingly multitalented Mrs. Jameson, who is, one presumes, a widow?)