Rating: 
Summary: I love the characters, but where's the Mysterie?
Review: Simon Green lives in Bradford-on-Avon in real life, and I'll wager a guess as to how this book came to be written. I think Green has met some eccentric folks and seen some weird places in the time he has lived in that town, and so it occurred to him to make up magical explanations for them, and build a fantasy novel around them. Green does a great job of creating engaging characters and vivid scenery. Our hero is Toby, a thirtysomething bookstore clerk who loves books and the pretty lady on the train, and hates exercise and mornings. We also run into the lady-on-the-train herself, aloof Gayle, and her half-crazy sister Luna, both of whom are more than they seem, as well as a minor Norse god, a reluctant werewolf, a gossipy yet mysterious gypsy called the Waking Beauty, and a colony of hippie mice. They are set in a town where that spooky old manor on the edge of town just might hide the scion of elemental evil, and where any house might be more on the inside than it appears on the outside. The characters and setting are wonderful. Unfortunately, the plot feels like an afterthought. Green sets up all these great characters, and puts them into a story that feels way too simplistic and rehashed. For the first two-thirds of the book, people mostly sit around and talk. The good guys talk, filling each other in on the history of the magical world, Mysterie, with the effect that very little about it remains mysterious at all. The bad guys sit around and talk about their evil plot, which can be summed up in a famous line from a certain cartoon series: "We're going to take over the world!" Then Toby undergoes a near-death experience that seems to serve absolutely no purpose in propelling the plot along. Finally, the good guys gang up together and decide to go attack the bad guys. A fight ensues, and all ends quite sweetly. (If you don't like mushy happy endings, you won't like this. Emotional family reunions abound.) The heroes would have lost had it come to brute force, but love and coincidence save the day. No real surprises, no real mystery. *shrug* I guess it wasn't bad, but it could have been much better.
Rating: 
Summary: Average Joe visits extraordinary place
Review: Simon Green's "Drinking Midnight Wine" is a fun read. It is about a regular guy who takes a trip, via a portal to a parallel Earth, into a land of magic. This fast-moving story covers the basics; love, , wimp-become-hero, good-vs-evil, descendants of Norse gods, etc. Green spins an interesting version of this old, yet popular concept. His use of beings from 'our' mythology enables the reader to readily identify with many of his characters. I enjoyed reading it.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing....
Review: Stop me if this sounds familiar: An otherwise unassuming British male gets caught up in a battle between the forces of Good and Evil, most of which had been hiding in plain sight in some unassuming location. In the course of his journeys it turns out that our hero is not just a mild mannered clerk but is, in fact, actually the last hope for mankind. If you're lucky, you're reading Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE. If you're not, you're reading DRINKING MIDNIGHT WINE. Granted, this is probably the harshest comparison to make, but it was the first to come to my mind as I read it. This was the same type of confrontation but without the whimsy or the sense that there was much more beyond what was explained in the course of the plot. There were no delicious ideas that could spawn other stories, just references to other myths that felt shoehorned in. Worse (and I don't think I'm giving anything away here), it has a nice and neat, happy ending that leaves very little to the imagination. NEVERWHERE left me wondering, left me curious and, ultimately, makes me want to find out more not only about the characters I was following in the book but with the settings, backgrounds and one-off jokes. This book left me cold and apathetic. If there is ever another in this setting, I'll give it a miss.
Rating:
Summary: Very nice adventure--poor bookstore clerk becomes hero
Review: Toby Dexter follows a beautiful woman through a door that shouldn't be there and finds himself in the parallel world of Mysterie--a world where magic works, gods and werewolves walk, and where a terrible evil is trying to pull both our mundane Earth and Mysterie into a total destruction. Unfortunately for Toby, he has become the focus--the one man on whom the fate of the universe depends. And Toby is far from being a hero. Fortunately, however, he is a man in love--and he is willing to take quite extra-ordinary steps to keep the woman he loves. Author Simon R. Green's version of the world of magic is intriguing. Although Mysterie may be a world of magic and powers, it is also a world circumscribed by ancient rules. A hero is a hero, a villain is a villain. Progress and change are difficult concepts for Mysterie. For this reason, our mundane Earth is the source of hope for those who seek more than what already is. It is also the source of fear and danger for those who enjoy their current status and wish only for more power. The ancient powers of the universe, the Snake in the Sun, Luna the Moon, and others, battle for the future--but find that that entire future hangs by the slender fulcrum of Toby Dexter. Green writes an engaging story with a nice surprises and emotional twists. The tortured characters of Hob, son of the Serpent and Luna, and of the Angel in particular, stand out as strong and fine.
Rating: 
Summary: enchanting fantasy
Review: Toby Dexter is an ordinary man living an average life in Bradford-on-Avon clerking at a bookstore. He commutes daily by train to Bath where he sees a woman he considers most beautiful but he is too shy to strike up a conversation or let alone ask her out. One day when they both get off the train at Bradford-on-Avon, it is raining and the woman opens up a door that wasn't there a moment ago.
When Toby follows her through the door, it is no longer raining and he finally talks to Gayle, the object of his desire. She informs him that he is now in Mysterie, the magical reflection of the mundane Veritae that he knows as Bradford-on-Avon. The pair learns that Toby following Gayle, a being who is more than she seems, into Mysterie was no accident. It seems he is a focal point of power and possible Humanity's Champion in the upcoming battle with The Sun of the Serpent, his son, and a fallen being named Angel.
DRINKING MIDNIGHT WINE is an enchanting fantasy, an adult fairy tale that makes one want to believe such places as Mysterie really exist. The age-old battle between good and evil is fought between the pages of this novel but some of the villainous characters strongly evoke pity in the heart of the reader. That in turn makes the tale more believable as the ever creative Simon R. Green puts a new spin on ancient truths. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: A strong fantasy world
Review: Toby is a local bookstore clerk until he follows a beautiful woman through a rainstorm and into another world. From that point on he encounters Death, serpents, bad trolls and all manner of oddities which ultimately challenge him to rethink his world and life. A strong fantasy world.
Rating:
Summary: Ace if you're a local
Review: Which, as it happens, I am. Pretty well everywhere in the book, at least on the Veritie side, is accurately the town where I live, and that makes for a lot of fun for the local reader (only Blackacre Farm is made up out of the whole cloth, SFAIK). How much that is worth to a reader 4000 miles away, I am not sure, but I think it probably helps to give the book depth. The book *is* very chatty and the plot a tad predictable, but it's pretty well written, and I suspect that it serves as the introductory volume of a series. I hope so. I'm not particularly taken by the Haven books, but I would certainly follow if it develops as a series.
| 
