Saturday Review Post, 1/28/2012

Two books this week.

Steven Brust - Iorich

Thursday or Friday last week, Amazon sent me the copy of this I had ordered (for 12th Night, sort of). Tor has clearly decided not to publish further editions of the Vlad Taltos in mass market paperback, so this is a Trade Paperback, which means it doesn't match my existing collection, which is surprisingly distressing, while not really being that important. Also, not to judge a book by it's cover, but this has the same sort of rubbery feel as Dark Jenny, which I reviewed several months ago. As with that book, I did get used to the feeling of the cover while reading, but it bugged me every time I picked up the book.

Ok. All that aside, the book was really quite good. It picks up sometime after Dzur. Vlad returns to Dragaera City when he learns that Aliera has been arrested. His efforts to get her acquitted plunge him into a complex plot to subvert the Empire. Meantime, he's busy dodging assassins who are still trying to kill him.

None of the big issues of the series are resolved. Vlad and Cawti have some civil conversations, and Vlad gets to know his son a little better, but there isn't a simple way even beginning to find a way of fixing that mess without there being a way of fixing the mess with the Jhereg, and there probably isn't a way of fixing that second mess. The novel begins with Vlad on the run, and it ends with Vlad on the run. The Empress owes him a favor, but cannot help with his significant problem. We still do not know what happened to Vlad's finger, even.

That being said, all of the issues within the novel are resolved. Brust presents an interesting legal drama twined around some political issues. There seems to be some gentle propagandizing about the nature of war - could be a reference to Vietnam, could be a reference to Iraq, could just be musing on the nature of war, it's really hard to tell sometimes. If you already feel that Brust is too political, you probably won't like this - but then, you probably stopped reading several books back anyway, right?

This book is somewhat less fun than some of the books set, chronologically, earlier in the series. At the same time, it's nowhere near as sad as, say, Teckla - about even, really. There are some nice jokes within the text - and Brust ends the book with a series of "deleted scenes" - snippets of dialog, mostly, positing how the book would be different if written in different styles. The scenes conclude with a snippet in the tone of Paarfi, which is both spot on and absolutely hilarious.

This is not the book to read if you are just starting the series - it assumes a certain familiarity with the characters and their various back stories.

Jill Lepore - A is For American


I've reviewed one of Lepore's works earlier - The Whites of their Eyes - and so, when I saw this book at the book fair, I knew I would like it. I was right. Lepore explores issues of language in the United States, mostly before the Civil War. There was considerable interest, prior to 1860, to create some sort of unifying language which would paper over the divisions between North and South. (and, by "prior to 1860", I mean "from the 1780s on" - this wasn't a last ditch effort to unify the country, it was a lasting movement to respond to well known tensions.) Lepore discusses that, and also various ways in which language is used to define a culture - either to bring that culture more in line with the dominant culture of the region, or to set a minority culture more solidly apart.

Lepore presents Noah Webster (who wrote the American dictionary), Samuel Morse (inventor of the telegraph and Morse code), William Thornton (who tried to invent a universal alphabet, which would allow all languages to be learned by all people) Sequoya (who developed a syllabary for the Cherokee language - not quite an alphabet, but a collection of symbols for the various sounds in Cherokee - a non-universal language), Thomas Galludet (who introduced French sign language to the United States - and who was convinced that sign language was the "natural" language of humanity; the common means of communication which would unite all people and bring about the Millenium), Abd al-Rahman Ibrahima (who used his knowledge of Arabic to win his freedom from slavery), and Alexander Graham Bell (who, while promoting his father's "Visible Speech", ended up inventing the telephone). All of these men, Lepore suggests, are linked through their thinking about language, what it is for, and where it comes from.

The book is scholarly, with extensive footnotes and considerable evidence of research. At the same time, it is written in an accessible style - I think that the educated layman could easily handle this book. My only complaint is that, in her concluding chapter, Lepore makes what feels like a clumsy attempt to connect the rest of the book to the current moment, with a discussion of the Graffiti alphabet designed to help people write on Palm PDA computers. In 2002, when the book was published, Palm PDAs were state of the art - they aren't anymore, and so the Epilogue dates the book a little. More, though, it feels tacked on, and unnecessary. Other than that, an excellent book. Scraps of it have already started showing up in my lectures.

Friday Reviews, 3/4/2011 (one day late)

Two books (and a short story!) this week.

Leonard Wolf - A Dream of Dracula


No image for this one - it's too old. This was the last of my vampire month books, and I finished it on Monday. It's a non-fiction exploration of Dracula and vampire myths and modern blood drinkers (wherein modern = the 1970s).

The book isn't awful. His discussion of Dracula is pretty standard now, I think - it's all about sex and Christianity - but I gather that it was provocative when it was written. His exploration of vampire stories and films produced after Stoker is far more interesting, if only because I had not heard of many of the books he mentioned. His over all thesis, though, is that vampirism is about transgressing social mores about sex - perhaps, but I think, as a metaphor, it can be much broader than that.

In addition to a fairly narrow interpretation, Wolf does two things that bothered me. First, he wanders through his material without a great deal of organisation. A particular example -  chapter 4 addresses myths about vampires. Wolf is exploring the thesis that vampires exist in a variety of societies. After several pages presenting vampires, or at least blood drinkers, from around the world, Wolf begins to present an argument for why we (as human beings) are drawn to stories of vampires. Then, suddenly, he stops to insert the following sentence:

"In Malaysia the vampires are mostly females, and are credited with a great fondness for fish." (p.128)

With no context or discussion, he returns to his early discussion of our human attraction to vampires. This was the most egregious example, but this sense of wandering is evident throughout the book.

The second thing that bothered me - Wolf inserts himself into the text - in addition to exploring myths of vampires, he also spends some time talking to people in his immediate surroundings about vampires - he attempts to find a modern vampire (and partially succeeds). This is perhaps acceptable, but there are also several passages outlining Wolf's sexual escapades - they get tied in, but I'm not sure why they needed to be there in the first place.

The overall impression that I got was that scholarly writing was less formal in the 1970s than now. The book was  interesting, and a fine addition to Vampire Month, but I'm sure there are more recent, and more formal, texts covering the same material.

As I said, I finished this on Monday. Wednesday evening, I sat down, and realized I hadn't started anything else, which is why only two books this week.The second:

Robert Conroy - Red Inferno, 1945

The American army stopped at the Elbe River in March, 1945, allowing the Soviets to capture Berlin - this was part of the Yalta accords. The Yalta accords were agreed to by FDR, but by March of 1945, Truman was in office. Stalin seemed unlikely to keep his part of the accords, especially in regards to granting free elections in Poland and other Soviet controlled states. FDR was inclined to use soft pressure on Stalin, rather than risk an open confrontation. Truman was more confrontational - what if Truman decided to send the army across the Elbe to show Stalin that the US meant business? That is the turning point in Conroy's alternate history. The result is a hot shooting war between the US and the USSR, instead of the protracted cold war that actually happened.

Conroy is clearly an American chauvinist - England and France are both quite useless against the Soviets, and the Soviets have few, if any, redeeming characteristics - a clear "good guy/bad guy" environment, which doesn't sit well with the historical record as I understand it.

Further, there was a strong sense that Conroy was re-fighting battles. There is a reworking of the incident at
the Bridge at NoGunRi - in the Korean War, US troops massacred Korean refugees trying to cross a bridge. The justification was that the refugees were being used as cover for North Korean soldiers, out of uniform - evidence exists on both sides of the debate, but there is no conclusive sign that the massacre was (or could ever be) justified. In Conroy's re-presentation, the Soviet soldiers are clearly evident. While the US troops are remorseful, they have a clear case - shooting the German refugees prevents the US position from being overrun by the Soviets. I'm not at all sure that this justifies the actions, but it is less ambiguous at any rate.

A second battle which Conroy re-fights is histriographical. One of the debates about the atomic bomb is over whether it could have ever been used tactically - that is, against soldiers in the field. If not; if it was only ever effective as a strategic weapon, for use against civilians, then it is an illegal weapon. Conroy depicts the use of the bomb against a Soviet field army, with only minimal damage to the US forces facing the Russians - again, cutting through significant debate without discussion.

In the end, it was a troubling book. There was a lot of fun there, in a mil-fic sort of vein, there was a cute romance - indeed, two cute romances, some acts of heroism, and a happy ending, but there was a heavy dose of nastiness as well. I think, by and large, I'd say give this one a miss.

Short story!

Tor.com posted a short story by Steven Brust, set in the Dragaeran universe, detailing a first meeting between some familiar secondary characters. Very interesting, and definitely worth a read if you are a Brust fan. I can see how the story might be confusing if you are not already familiar with the world and Brust's writing style.

Reviews for Friday, April 16th, 2010 - posted Saturday, April 17th, 2010. Shut up, Loish.

Over the past week, I have been re-reading Steven Brust's Vlad Taltos books, through Jhegaala. The most recent book is Iorich, but that's not out in paperback yet, so I haven't read it. Brust is by far one of my favorite authors; someone I would very much like to sit down and have a chat with, probably over dinner. The Taltos novels follow the story of Vladimir Taltos, an assassin in the fantasy world of Dragaera. There are a projected 18 books in the series (one for each house of Dragaera, plus Taltos, which is a book about Vlad, more or less.). Tangential to the series are Brokedown Palace, which is about life in the East and the Khaavren romances, which are a trilogy of "historical" romances, written more or less in the style of Dumas, and describing the historical world of Dragaera around the beginning and just after the beginning of the Interegnum. Very little of that, I expect, makes any sense to anyone who hasn't already read the books, so lets see if I can't clear some of that up.

Dragaera is a strange mix of a fantasy setting with a heavy dose of implied sci fi - it is a different planet, there are strong implications that the planet has been terraformed, and that the dominant inhabitants of the planet were a) settled on the planet by others and b) genetically tampered with. There are 3 prominent sentient species on the planet, Humans (called Easterners, of which Vlad is one), Dragaerans (called Humans by fellow Dragaerans, called Elfs by Vlad's grandfather), and Serioli, who we are told are the original inhabitants of the planet.

The Dragaerans are in 17 Great Houses, each named for a native animal.

Vlad is the principle character in the books, and he is a member of a criminal organization (also one of the Houses) called the Jhereg (named for an indigenous flying reptilian scavenger.) He is, as I said above, an assassin, and also a witch. Loish is his familiar, also a jhereg.

Brust's narrative style, with a few exceptions, is very noir; in many ways, Vlad is closer to Sam Spade than to most literary assassins.

I believe that is sufficient background material.

I have been reading the books in publication order, which is different from chronological order.

Jhereg - this is the first book. We meet Vlad and watch him plan and complete an assassination.  It is not a bad place to start reading the series. The jhereg are flying reptilian scavengers, and the Jhereg are the criminal class in Dragaera.

Yendi - this is the second book, and I think it is also my favorite of the series. The yendi is a snakey chameleon type creature, and the Yendi are known for developing twisty plots which do not appear to be what they appear to be. Yendi takes place before Jhereg, and tells the story of how Vlad met his wife, Cawti. What I like about this book is the twisty plot. I am a huge fan of caper novels, and this is pretty close to that.

Teckla - this book follows Jhereg. The teckla is a small timorous rodent, and the Teckla are the peasants on Drageara, the farmers and the workers. The jhereg feed on teckla, and the Jhereg steal from and cheat and con the Teckla. Many of Brust's fans do not like this particular novel, it has a fair bit of politics in it, and it's emotionally tough to read. I find that the novel grows on you.

Taltos - this is the first book, chronologically, and describes Vlad's trip into the Paths of the Dead. Vlad is a Taltos, in that his last name is Taltos - in Brokedown Palace, we learn that Taltos is also a word for witch, which Vlad also is.

Phoenix - chronologically, this book follows Teckla, and is my least favorite. The plot seems a little cludgy, there's a fair bit of deus ex machina - except not, because the gods do very little to save the characters and a great deal to get them further into trouble - what's the opposite of deus ex machina? Anyway, it's a frustrating novel to read, and it builds on the emotional turmoil of Teckla. The phoenix is an extremely rare flaming bird, and the Phoenix is a very small House (in this series, as far as is currently apparent, a House of one) - currently, the ruling House.

Athyra - the athyra is a largish raptor-type bird - at one point, Vlad and some companions eat one, so it's fairly large - and the Athyra are the magical philosophers in Dragaera. This book is, unlike the rest of the series, not told in first person by Vlad, which is somewhat difficult to appreciate when you begin reading it. This book follows Jhegaala, chronologically.

Orca - the orca is a large whale, and the Orca are the ship building, sailing, merchant class. Vlad shares the narration in this novel about a banking crises and the sort of credit con that should be painfully familiar for the current audience. I think this is my second favorite of the books - I appreciate the plot, and I like the surprises which come throughout the book. This book follows Athyra, both chronologically and in publication order.

Dragon - this book comes both after Taltos and after Yendi - Brust is playing with the chronology. This introduces an element which I find a little distracting. Brust tries very hard to make each of the novels stand alone, without a lot of explanation of back story. In this novel, Vlad makes specific reference to a "golden box" that he is speaking to - some sort of magical tape recorder. Although it doesn't come up directly in later books, Vlad sometimes breaks the fourth wall and wonders if his audience is aware of the back story. It's a little distracting. The dragons on Dragarea are a little different from what we're used to - large reptiles, yes, but with tentacles around their heads. The Dragons are the military types, leading and fighting in wars. Vlad gets dragged into a small war. This is, in this re-read, the funniest of the novels.

Issola - the issola is a crane-type bird, very graceful. The Issola are the graceful embodiment of manners. This book follows Orca, and tells how Vlad inadvertently saves the world. I recall, the first time I read this, that the twist ending was a huge surprise on an emotional level - I hadn't known that I cared so much for the character involved. There's a scene early on that I didn't like involving a bagel. Way too cute.

Dzur - this book follows Issola - indeed, it begins mere hours after the end of Issola, if that much. The dzur is a large catlike creature, and the Dzur are the warriors of Dragaera - the hero types, who charge into situations and fight against suicidal odds. Because it's fun, apparently. This book has a lengthy description of a meal throughout.

Jhegaala - this book comes between Phoenix and Athyra. The jhegaala is an amphibian with a lengthy metamorphosis - the Jhegaala are artists and artisans, but later in life they tend to become art critics. I'm not sure how I feel about this book - Vlad goes East to spend some time with his own kind. I've only read the book once, since it's the newest one (that I own), so I may have to read it again to present a better review.

What I have particularly enjoyed in re-reading the series is watching the growth of the characters, and also watching the changes in Brust's writing ability. Dzur and Jhegaala are much deeper and more complex novels than Jhereg. Brust has become far more comfortable with including philosophy in his books, his humor has grown throughout the series, and he has stopped shying away from writing lavish descriptions of food - seriously, these books will make you hungry for complex food. Well, ok, it makes me hungry for complex food. Finally, Jhegaala was the first Brust novel that I've read since finding Brust's blog, so I caught things in the book which he had referenced in his journal - he requested some discussion of what a particular sort of fabric might be, and then included the information in the book. Looking back through the books, it's almost possible to pinpoint the place where Brust starting asking his fans online what things might be, and he begins to include little Easter eggs - tiny descriptions of things or explanations of things which have clearly been the result of someone saying "what is this thing you keep mentioning?" Authorship in the electronic age!

For more information that anyone really needs about Dragaera and etc, you can go here.