A short review of Fade to Black

Remember those episodes of Star Trek TNG where Picard and Data would don fedoras and hit the holodeck from some much needed R'n'R sleuthing in 20th century America? I loved those episodes, knock-out dames, gangsters, the glitz and glamour of the 30s era and a good mystery are incredibly appealing. So appealing that authors and TV shows still draw on those kinds of stories, whether directly like the Castle episode "The Blue Butterfly" where Castle imagines Beckett and himself as the stars of a cold case mystery set in that time, or indirectly, by evoking the same themes and style in a different world. 

Francis Knight's Fade to Black is this kind of fiction. Despite the magical setting, the novel is a quintessential hardboiled detective story, starring Rojan Dizon as the private dick, who, of course, specialises in finding people. Fittingly, Rojan occupies a dizzying vertical city - the typical urban landscape squared - although it's more evocative of another supplanted detective story, Blade Runner, than it is of 30s Chicago. The fact that Rojan is a pain-mage, who can use his own physical injuries to power up his Major and Minor talents and help find his lost charges, is central to his character arc, but almost incidental to his detecting skills, particularly when he uses it to power his pulse-gun, completing his gunslinging sleuth image.

Unfortunately, although Knight brings the best detective tropes to her imagined world, she forgets to leave behind some of its more tired clichés. Rojan is a philandering bastard who can't get close to women, is a stranger to his own feelings and has a properly ancient chivalric regard for damsels in distress, who can naturally only be saved by his good self. The top female character in the novel is that most unflattering of feminine fantasy portrayals, a woman whose "strength" lies in behaving like a man and attempting to have no emotions, a strength that is quickly found to be no more than a facade with a (often literally) quivering little girl underneath - who also needs saving by Rojan obviously. And how did she get like that? Naturally, both the strength and the quivering come from her treatment at the hands of men, giving her an entire character that's only defined by the guys around her. I'm all for nostalgia, but actually taking characters directly from the 30s is going just a little too far. Which is a shame, because other than that, the book is actually quite good.

The city of Mahala is a fascinating little dystopia, with hints at a greater world around it that could provide rich pickings for future works from Knight. Pain-magic is also an interesting concept with a lot of originality that is still has miles to go by the end of Fade to Black, leaving tantalising hints and questions about what Rojan's future adventures could bring. He also does plenty of growing up in the novel, which could see him ditch some of his more two-dimensional macho traits and take up a more well-rounded personality. Without that depth however, and maybe a proper woman or two, the Dizon novels will stay at popcorn status - fun at the time but leaving a rather unsatisfied feeling and a few bits niggling in your teeth.