Liz Williams, Shadow Pavilion (Nightshade, 2008)
In this fourth instalment in Williams' colourful fantasy-sci-fi-mystery gumbo, the Detective Inspector Chen series, the reader is placed inside the head of a character who, while a regular presence in the previous three novels, never had his own personal viewpoints explored. Chen's wife, Inari, is followed everywhere by a devoted earth familiar, who can take the form either of a badger or a tea kettle. A gruff and simplistic character, the badger usually provides advice or snarky comments, but now finds himself part of the adventure when he is kidnapped and taken to a foreign version of Hell.
Meanwhile, Mhara, the Celestial prince Chen helped out in Demon and the City (book two), and whose father (the Emperor of Heaven), was destroyed in Precious Dragon (book three), is having trouble adjusting to his new position. As the new Emperor of Heaven, the reform-minded Mhara has to struggle against millennia of stagnant tradition and a court of Celestial nobles who would rather be told how to think than to take initiative. Not everyone is pleased by his plans for progress, least of all his mother, the Dowager Empress, who decides to take things into her own hands when she summons an otherworldly assassin to take her son out of the picture by any means necessary.
While the previous three books have dealt mainly with Chinese mythology (as the setting is the futuristic Chinese city Singapore Three), in this instalment, Chen investigates the extravagant and evocative magic of India. Previous adventures with Zhu Irzh have explored the bureaucracy-stifled and hierarchical Chinese hell, but the books have always hinted at the existence of separate hells corresponding to different religions and cultures. In this case, the badger is snatched and carried off to an Indian hell populated by fire-princes, devas, and capricious tigress demons.
My personal response to each of the Detective Inspector Chen novels has always been splendid enjoyment, and Shadow Pavilion is no different. Liz Williams always finds some new facet of mythology or magic or politics to drench in her intoxicating blend of humour, imagery, and mystery, and the series shows no signs of slowing down or becoming stale. At the same time, while the characters remain fundamentally the same, each comes equipped with a series of layers that are successively peeled away to reveal more about them, keeping them from becoming repetitive caricatures. This is especially true for Inari – the normally passive, obedient, and kind-hearted wife to Chen, in this instalment she's given a true opportunity to take action and move the plot forward.
Williams has managed to maintain a near-perfect balance between formula and creativity: more of her talented writing, rather than simply more of the same.
