Illness abounds in the Timonin household, and it's playing merry hob with my schedule. Also, it's that point in the semester when everything goes out the window (strange - when I was a student, I thought it was just students that felt that way, but clearly I was wrong). Frankly, the only thing that is getting this post out on time is the fact that it's 11/11/11, and how could I resist a post with that date stamp?
I suppose I could post a place holder for the cachet, but that would be cheating, right?
So. Three books this week.
Tamora Pierce - Mastiff
This is the third, and last, of the Beka Cooper novels. (I suppose it's possible that Pierce will return to the Cooper setting in a future book or series of books - let's say, this is the last of this particular trilogy.) Wait, though. I don't think I've reviewed a Pierce yet, have I? No, I haven't! What fun!
Tamora Pierce writes YA fiction. She's been writing YA fiction since before there WAS YA fiction, starting with the Alanna the Lioness series. She features strong female characters, often working in a tightly restricted male world. Also, she is brilliant. If you are not yet familiar with her work, I strongly encourage you to go, as soon as possible, and read some. Alanna is pretty cool, but clearly an early work - it lacks polish in some places. The Defender of the Small quartet is better (except you need to read Alanna first), and the two Circle of Magic quartets are excellent - I'm reading those to the big kid right now.
The Beka Cooper books are set in the past of the Alanna/Defender of the Small books, and follow the adventures of Beka Cooper, one Provost's "Dog" - basically, a police officer. Beka has some small magic - she can talk to ghosts - which she uses to help her investigate murders. The trilogy follows Beka from her beginnings as a trainee through this book, which presents Beka at the midpoint of her career. The books are written as Beka's diary, which has some ... issues. Like an epistolary novel, a novel framed as a diary is a step removed from the action. Everything is reported after the fact. In some instances, the action is presented long after the fact - days, even - which Pierce covers by having Beka trained in memory retention. Which is, admittedly, a useful thing for a police officer.
This novel, I should say, is not a good place to enter the trilogy - Terrier is the first one. That being said, this novel follows Beka, her scent hound, and her friends as they track down a gang of slavers who have kidnapped the royal prince. It's a police procedural novel, mostly, and it's exactly the sort I like - where the reader knows exactly as much as the detective - delicious! Pierce presents delightfully complex characters and a very pleasing romance. A completely satisfying conclusion to the trilogy - if there are no more books from this perspective, I am entirely happy (although I would be just as happy for there to be more!).
Frances Fox Piven - Who's Afraid of Frances Fox Piven?
Piven is an historian teaching at City University in New York (CUNY). During the 1960s and '70s, she was closely associated with the Poor People's Rights movement, and articulated a political theory about why poor people riot. Recently, she has been cast into the limelight by Glenn Beck (and may that be the only time I write his name here. Bleh) because of a proposition she made in the '70s - that everyone eligible for welfare should apply for welfare en masse, thus showing the instability of the welfare system, and hopefully result in some sort of guaranteed income policy. Beck (sorry) presented this proposition as a) current and b) a plan to destabilize the US economy, ushering in an era of anti-capitalist anarchy (which, sometimes, doesn't sound so bad). Piven responded to her sudden fame/infamy by publishing a collection of her various essays on economic inequality.
On the one hand, I'd love to say "if you want to understand what is happening with the Occupy Wall Street movement, read Piven." A lot of what she says makes sense. It is difficult to organize the poor in any society, because they are not, by nature, a cohesive group. Unlike, say, workers in a factory, you cannot organize them around their work place; nor can they be organized around a common shared experience, like military vets. Instead, Piven argues, the poor need to be shaped into brief moments of rebellion to shock the system - or, rather, the poor tend to rally themselves into brief moments of rebellion, when they, as a class, can be convinced that their misfortune a) has a clear cause and b) can be reversed through direct action. That - a moment in which direction action can reverse widespread misfortune - is what is happening right now. I'd love to say that it would be easy to see this if you read Piven - and, perhaps it would, assuming that you read fluent academicese. Because most of Piven's most fascinating work is written for a very specific audience - an audience of historians and political scientists - and so it's dense, and full of jargon. I must confess that I gutted* a lot of the book, like a well trained graduate student.
More recently, Piven has contributed to The Nation magazine, and those articles are far more accessible, and pertinent. Here is one of her articles for The Nation, from early this year - it's in the book, but you can read it online. So, I can say "if you want to understand what's happening with Occupy Wall Street, read Piven" - just not, necessarily, this book.
*graduate students of the humanities are often expected to read and discuss 3-5 lengthy academic texts a week, in addition to teaching classes and having lives. This is difficult or impossible. Thus, graduates "gut" books - they read the intro and conclusion, and then aggressively skim the material within the book, reading paragraphs which catch their eye, but not the whole work. Ideally, in discussion, different students have noticed different things in the work, and thus the book is reconstructed. Some academic authors clearly write their works in such a way that gutting is easily accomplished - spelling out in the intro and conclusion what, exactly, they thought they had proved, and including bold section titles throughout the chapters so that readers can quickly see what the important points are. Other authors write such compelling prose that gutting is acutely difficult - many times, I have found myself engrossed in a work that I really need to be done with so that I can move onto the next one. Yet other authors write such dry, dull prose, and bury their points so effectively, that even the closest reading cannot tease out meaning. Those books are the worst.
Jim Butcher - White Night
I'm midway through the Harry Dresden books. I've reviewed a couple of these earlier. The series invites a certain amount of skipping around - Butcher is skilled at presenting enough background material that new readers don't feel the need to read everything which proceeds, yet not in such a way that existing readers feel like they are reading the same book over and over. This book is set towards the end, perhaps, of the war between the Wizard's Council and the Vampire Courts. Dresden is called in to investigate a series of suicides which might not be suicides, and finds himself dealing with some old enemies.
Butcher, perhaps, is writing himself into a corner here. Dresden is amassing power from book to book, which means that his enemies must also have a great deal of power (or else we can't believe them), and his allies must also be extremely powerful (or else they are not much help). Eventually, this becomes ludicrous - Dresden and his enemies and his allies will become like unto gods, and combat between them will shatter worlds - that would be boring. So, I suspect, in future books, Dresden will find himself battling political issues more and more - which, actually, I kinda like in a book. In this one, though, he's just fighting really powerful bad guys, and that's pretty cool too.
Butcher is playing with the idea of power, though. At what point does Dresden cease to be human? What does it mean to be human, anyway? It is often difficult to tell who the monsters are in Butcher's books - and that, I think, is what keeps me coming back for more. I like complex books, I like complex characters, and I also like the whole over the top power struggle that Butcher writes so very well.
Friday, November 11, 2011
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
November is Stupid, late Library Post 11/9/2011
It's not like I DID anything yesterday - I didn't even get any writing done. I did go to the library, however.
Peter Van Buren - We Meant Well
The account of a State Department employee deployed to Iraq to "win hearts and minds," explaining, in detail, why the whole initiative didn't work. The first vignette in the book, before even Chapter 1 - Van Buren's predecessor ordered an $18,000 library of classic American literature translated into Arabic. When it arrived, Van Buren couldn't give the books away - no one wanted them, because they served no useful purpose in Iraq.
Ekaterina Sedia - Heart of Iron
Steampunk set in Russia, with a strong dose of Wuxia (Chinese martial arts - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, that sort of thing). Couldn't pass that up!
Peter Van Buren - We Meant Well
The account of a State Department employee deployed to Iraq to "win hearts and minds," explaining, in detail, why the whole initiative didn't work. The first vignette in the book, before even Chapter 1 - Van Buren's predecessor ordered an $18,000 library of classic American literature translated into Arabic. When it arrived, Van Buren couldn't give the books away - no one wanted them, because they served no useful purpose in Iraq.
Ekaterina Sedia - Heart of Iron
Steampunk set in Russia, with a strong dose of Wuxia (Chinese martial arts - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, that sort of thing). Couldn't pass that up!
Sunday, November 6, 2011
NaNoWriMo update, for those of you that care
So, I mentioned that I have signed up for NaNoWriMo, the novel writing contest that runs through November. The goal is to produce a 50,000 word manuscript over the course of the month, with the broad motto of: "write in November, edit through the rest of the year." I've been writing bits and pieces of fiction and poetry since middle school. I've even finished some fiction (and some of my poetry isn't hideous, even - see?). It seemed like a good idea, though, given that I'm reviewing novels, to put my hands where my mouth is (that really doesn't work, does it? You know what I mean) and write a novel. So I am. And here's an update, for those of you that really care.
As of yesterday, I have written 4,791 words. Actually, I'm cheating ever so slightly - I have legitimately written 4,791 words since the 1st of November, but I'm adding those words to about 3,000 words that I already had written. The novel is tentatively called "And Jergen, As Always, Said Nothing." Here's a synopsis and excerpt. The excerpt comes from the first chapter, and is not part of the 4,791 words.
As of yesterday, I have written 4,791 words. Actually, I'm cheating ever so slightly - I have legitimately written 4,791 words since the 1st of November, but I'm adding those words to about 3,000 words that I already had written. The novel is tentatively called "And Jergen, As Always, Said Nothing." Here's a synopsis and excerpt. The excerpt comes from the first chapter, and is not part of the 4,791 words.
SynopsisShelia, a struggling free lance author, is offered a job by her fairy godmother. The job is to be a fairy godmother. Jergen, her dog, says nothing.
ExcerptSheila’s stomach gurgled. She had not eaten since lunch. Jergen followed her into the kitchen, his toes tapping on the linoleum. Sheila opened the fridge. “Damn. Groceries. That’s what else I needed to do today. Where did my day go, Jergen? Well, I guess we’ll take our walk down to the store, then. Let’s see. I’ve got an avocado – if I get some chips and some sour cream, we can have nachos. Maybe Glen will join us, and we can watch a movie.” Jergen, as always, said nothing. Sheila grabbed Jergen’s leash, and headed for the door. Jergen followed. Entering the living room, Sheila stopped suddenly. Sitting on the couch was a woman in a long white dress. She had her feet up on the coffee table and she was smoking a cigarette in a long holder, like Audrey Hepburn had, in that movie. Or was that someone else? “Oh hell, not you! How the hell did you get into my house?” “Dahling! I’m your fairy godmother, of course. Hello, did you not see the magic wand? You think a little thing like locks is going to keep me out?” The woman flicked some ash from her cigarette, which disappeared before it hit the floor, and pointed the holder at Sheila.More to follow, as warranted.
Saturday, November 5, 2011
Saturday Review Post, 11/5/2011
Two books this week.
S.M. Stirling - The Tears of the Sun
This is the most recent of Stirling's Embervese books. Set in a world where all modern technology just stopped working in 1997, Stirling is now telling the stories about the second generation post-event (so, actually in the future). The books are best described as science fantasy - there's some science stuff there, but the plot is entirely fantasy. Gods affect the events, and there is magic and singing swords and the whole bit.
Ok. This is five books into the series, and, if you haven't been reading them, this is not the place to start. If you have been reading them, this may be the one that makes you want to stop. It has all of the things that I like about Stirling - the long, chewy compound sentences, the characters facing absurd odds, the clearly defined good and evil, and all of that. It also has all of the stuff about Stirling that makes me cringe - the writing of accents, mostly.
There are three things that I didn't like about the book - three things that make me almost inclined to tell fans to steer clear. One - the book is largely flash backs, and flash backs within flash backs - as in, the character is describing something that happened three months ago, and in the midst of the description, has to describe something that happened six months ago. These flash backs are presented entirely out of chronological order - something that Stirling does, but it's quite egregious here. You really have to pay attention to the date stamps at the beginning of each section. Two - the whole book is building up to this big climactic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Everything is working towards that end. Lots of discussion of mustering troops, and talking to this group and convincing them to work with that group, and rescuing people so this other group can safely work with all of the pre-existing groups, and etc. Setting the ground for the battle. Making sure that everyone, even the enemies, are in the right place at the right time. And then, there's this battle, and it's a short chapter at the end of the book, and then it's done. For all the build up, I expected more. I wanted to read about the heroic last stands. I wanted to read about the forlorn hopes. I wanted the clash of arms and all of that. And it wasn't there. If you're going to set up a big set piece battle as the whole purpose of the book - well, you should have that battle, is all I'm saying. Three - This book should have been the last book in the series, and it wasn't. Hopefully, the next book will be - the big bad has noticed our bold heroes of good - but there was a lot of back filling and flash backs and setting up of toy soldiers and such that didn't need to be in this book, and which could have been the big climactic battle followed by the bigger, climacticer battle.
Oh. And the title was never explained, as far as I saw.
So, I will probably pick up the next book in the series when I see it, because I am a completeist, and because I care enough about the characters to see where the story ends. But, if you are not a completeist, I would suggest skipping this one. And if you aren't reading the series, this is not the place to start.
Emily Diamand - Fire and Flood
The sequel (and, I'm pretty sure, conclusion) to Diamand's Raider's Ransome. Also set in a post apocalyptic setting, these books follow Lilly, Lexy, and Zeph as they struggle to overcome differences between their societies, and to bring their AI friend to Lundun, where he hopes to be able to power up fully. The book is YA, and I'd say the low end of YA - I'd even go so far as to call it juvenile fiction - so the writing is geared at that level, and the characters are somewhere between 12 and 16. Diamand has clearly done some thinking about the way in which societies fall apart, and how the resulting tribal groups would struggle with each other. She's thought through the sort of fail-safes that a slightly more advanced society than ours might have put in place, and how those fail-safes might fail, and what that failure might look like. All in all, a simple but delightful book, with a lot of adventure and action. I'd recommend it to 8-12 year old readers, boys and girls, and people who like to read stuff for 8-12 year old readers. Good stuff.
S.M. Stirling - The Tears of the Sun
This is the most recent of Stirling's Embervese books. Set in a world where all modern technology just stopped working in 1997, Stirling is now telling the stories about the second generation post-event (so, actually in the future). The books are best described as science fantasy - there's some science stuff there, but the plot is entirely fantasy. Gods affect the events, and there is magic and singing swords and the whole bit.
Ok. This is five books into the series, and, if you haven't been reading them, this is not the place to start. If you have been reading them, this may be the one that makes you want to stop. It has all of the things that I like about Stirling - the long, chewy compound sentences, the characters facing absurd odds, the clearly defined good and evil, and all of that. It also has all of the stuff about Stirling that makes me cringe - the writing of accents, mostly.
There are three things that I didn't like about the book - three things that make me almost inclined to tell fans to steer clear. One - the book is largely flash backs, and flash backs within flash backs - as in, the character is describing something that happened three months ago, and in the midst of the description, has to describe something that happened six months ago. These flash backs are presented entirely out of chronological order - something that Stirling does, but it's quite egregious here. You really have to pay attention to the date stamps at the beginning of each section. Two - the whole book is building up to this big climactic battle between the forces of good and the forces of evil. Everything is working towards that end. Lots of discussion of mustering troops, and talking to this group and convincing them to work with that group, and rescuing people so this other group can safely work with all of the pre-existing groups, and etc. Setting the ground for the battle. Making sure that everyone, even the enemies, are in the right place at the right time. And then, there's this battle, and it's a short chapter at the end of the book, and then it's done. For all the build up, I expected more. I wanted to read about the heroic last stands. I wanted to read about the forlorn hopes. I wanted the clash of arms and all of that. And it wasn't there. If you're going to set up a big set piece battle as the whole purpose of the book - well, you should have that battle, is all I'm saying. Three - This book should have been the last book in the series, and it wasn't. Hopefully, the next book will be - the big bad has noticed our bold heroes of good - but there was a lot of back filling and flash backs and setting up of toy soldiers and such that didn't need to be in this book, and which could have been the big climactic battle followed by the bigger, climacticer battle.
Oh. And the title was never explained, as far as I saw.
So, I will probably pick up the next book in the series when I see it, because I am a completeist, and because I care enough about the characters to see where the story ends. But, if you are not a completeist, I would suggest skipping this one. And if you aren't reading the series, this is not the place to start.
Emily Diamand - Fire and Flood
The sequel (and, I'm pretty sure, conclusion) to Diamand's Raider's Ransome. Also set in a post apocalyptic setting, these books follow Lilly, Lexy, and Zeph as they struggle to overcome differences between their societies, and to bring their AI friend to Lundun, where he hopes to be able to power up fully. The book is YA, and I'd say the low end of YA - I'd even go so far as to call it juvenile fiction - so the writing is geared at that level, and the characters are somewhere between 12 and 16. Diamand has clearly done some thinking about the way in which societies fall apart, and how the resulting tribal groups would struggle with each other. She's thought through the sort of fail-safes that a slightly more advanced society than ours might have put in place, and how those fail-safes might fail, and what that failure might look like. All in all, a simple but delightful book, with a lot of adventure and action. I'd recommend it to 8-12 year old readers, boys and girls, and people who like to read stuff for 8-12 year old readers. Good stuff.
Friday, November 4, 2011
Friday Post
Bleh. I am sick. My throat is all scratchy. This weekend doesn't look to be as long and complicated as last weekend, but I'm in no fit shape to make a full review tonight. Plus, I have a book that I haven't finished yet. Tomorrow, I promise!
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Tuesday Library Day, 11/1/2011
So, I'm posting this now, so that I don't forget. Timely posting, on a fixed schedule - I know I can do it, if only I work at it, right?
Three books today, and I'm deeply in serial narrative mode here:
George Martin - A Feast of Crows
This is the next to most recent Martin novel, which will bring me up to date on the series.
Allison Goodman - Eona
The other half of the Eon/Eona duology.
M.D. Lachan - Wolfsangel
Some sort of epic werewolf novel/series, involving vikings. It has the potential to be awesome, or to be awful, or, perhaps, awesomely awful. I'm kinda hoping for option 3...
Also, a heads up. Because I am a masochist (not really - put away the spankers), I have signed up for NaNoWriMo - the National Novel Writing Month contest. Basically, I'm thinking that if I make myself MORE busy, I'll actually accomplish things in defiance of logic and to spite myself. I shall endeavor mightily to keep up with myself.
Three books today, and I'm deeply in serial narrative mode here:
George Martin - A Feast of Crows
This is the next to most recent Martin novel, which will bring me up to date on the series.
Allison Goodman - Eona
The other half of the Eon/Eona duology.
M.D. Lachan - Wolfsangel
Some sort of epic werewolf novel/series, involving vikings. It has the potential to be awesome, or to be awful, or, perhaps, awesomely awful. I'm kinda hoping for option 3...
Also, a heads up. Because I am a masochist (not really - put away the spankers), I have signed up for NaNoWriMo - the National Novel Writing Month contest. Basically, I'm thinking that if I make myself MORE busy, I'll actually accomplish things in defiance of logic and to spite myself. I shall endeavor mightily to keep up with myself.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
An actual Sunday Review Post, 10/30/2011
Gah. I am exhausted. Who knew that bugs and pumpkins and chili could take so much out of a guy?
Actually, now that I read that, it sounds really ... wrong. Sorry.
So, I promised you a review of Mark Charan Newton's Nights of Villjamur, and here it is.
I said, on Friday, that the book was solidly good, but not excellent. First off, Newton is treading some well trodden ground here. We have an empire on a world which is about to enter into an ice age. Everyone knows that the ice age is coming, and the empire has been preparing for the coming disaster. So - empire in danger; we've seen that before. An ice age - not a common disaster, but not unheard of. There are forces within the empire which seek to turn the disaster to their own ends - in particular, there is a conspiracy attempting to overthrow the Emperor. This produces lots and lots of nice politics - but political plots are a dime a dozen. We have a detective who stumbles onto the conspiracy while doing an investigation of the mysterious death of a council member. Ok, a police procedural. Plus, there's a romance plot involving the sister of the Empress (the Emperor throws himself off a balcony a couple of chapters in. This isn't my spoiler - it's on the book flap) and the man she thinks she's hired to teach her dancing and sword fighting. (There's a fair bit of mistaken identity throughout the book.) There's a military plot involving a variety of threats, including zombies and giant crab-like monster things. There are cultists who accumulate relics, which seem to be clearly some sort of advanced technology - perhaps the remnants of an earlier, much more advanced, society? So, not only is Newton treading ground that has been trodden before, but he is also treading it in many many different directions. All of these plots do blend together, somewhat, but the whole left me a little baffled and breathless. I felt like saying, "damn it, man, pick one and follow it through!"
The police procedural worked as the central piece of the book, and it was clearly the most complete element. It had a defined beginning, middle, and end. However, it was a "we, the reader, know more than the detective does" sort of procedural - and I don't like those. Also, I felt that the mystery was a little weak in other ways too, chiefly motivation for the murderer. Additionally, the police bit featured a particularly nasty bit of betrayal - good writing, but uncomfortable. That was an odd bit where an excellent piece of writing made me not really like a whole bit of plot - weird.
The politics were the best part of the novel. I really like political novels, and the politics here were murky and twisty - exactly the sort of thing I like. The motivation for the villain here was clear as a bell - in order to take over as Emperor, he needs to remove the existing dynasty. Watching him plot was delightful, and he was an excellent villain. If he had a mustache, he would have twirled it. Jeremy Irons could easily play him in the film adaptation, and chew scenery to his heart's content. Seeing him get his comeupance will be delightful.
Newton's characters in general are really well written. Given the extent that this is a character driven novel, that's a good thing. Poorly written characters would have doomed this novel. Newton offers us a broad cast that we can care about. We can root for the cocky young sword and dance instructor learning to love for the first time, or for the young rulers learning that there is more to their empire than the palace they grew up in. We can watch the slow re-building of the relationship between the detective and his estranged wife. We can thrill to the exploits of the military commander facing unfaceable odds. We can ponder the motives of mysterious cultists, engaged in byzantine plots of their own imagining. All of these myriad characters make the book worth reading, and compensate many many times for the problems I've mentioned.
The other thing that Newton does that I found interesting (and also frustrating). The empire has several different species in it - humans, and Rumels (who are bipedal, mammalian, furred, have tails, and are very long lived), and Guaradas (who are bird type things), and possibly other things hiding in the wings. All of these different species of character make for some interesting dynamics - how does it all fit together?
The frustrating thing about these alien species is that Newton never really explains how it all fits together, or where the various species came from, or offer us a glossary or a "history" of the Empire - the bits that might, tacked onto the end of a book like this, fill in the gaps that a reader like me really craves. There isn't even a map of the empire, or a suggestion of how large it is, relative to the world it's on. Perhaps a map would spoil a big reveal in a future book - "ha ha! Look, they're really on Earth!" - but given the distances people were travelling between islands, and the suggestion that there are hostile forces just outside the empire - I wanted a map. These are little things, but they accumulate.
My final complaint about the book is that it doesn't end satisfyingly. It's clear that Newton is writing an Epic (I feel some justice in using the term, because deities do play a role in the novel, if not directly), and so the novel ends somewhat abruptly, just as the conspiracy plot comes to fruition in one place, and the heroic military expedition is retreating from sure and certain death in another place. I know the second book has been published (because it was seeing Book 2 which prompted me to pick up Book 1), and I'm not opposed, per se, to a serial narrative - but, on top of the other little things ... Well. The strong characters will draw me back into the second book, but it will be a "pick up when I see it" rather than a "hunt it down because I must have it" type thing.
Actually, now that I read that, it sounds really ... wrong. Sorry.
So, I promised you a review of Mark Charan Newton's Nights of Villjamur, and here it is.
I said, on Friday, that the book was solidly good, but not excellent. First off, Newton is treading some well trodden ground here. We have an empire on a world which is about to enter into an ice age. Everyone knows that the ice age is coming, and the empire has been preparing for the coming disaster. So - empire in danger; we've seen that before. An ice age - not a common disaster, but not unheard of. There are forces within the empire which seek to turn the disaster to their own ends - in particular, there is a conspiracy attempting to overthrow the Emperor. This produces lots and lots of nice politics - but political plots are a dime a dozen. We have a detective who stumbles onto the conspiracy while doing an investigation of the mysterious death of a council member. Ok, a police procedural. Plus, there's a romance plot involving the sister of the Empress (the Emperor throws himself off a balcony a couple of chapters in. This isn't my spoiler - it's on the book flap) and the man she thinks she's hired to teach her dancing and sword fighting. (There's a fair bit of mistaken identity throughout the book.) There's a military plot involving a variety of threats, including zombies and giant crab-like monster things. There are cultists who accumulate relics, which seem to be clearly some sort of advanced technology - perhaps the remnants of an earlier, much more advanced, society? So, not only is Newton treading ground that has been trodden before, but he is also treading it in many many different directions. All of these plots do blend together, somewhat, but the whole left me a little baffled and breathless. I felt like saying, "damn it, man, pick one and follow it through!"
The police procedural worked as the central piece of the book, and it was clearly the most complete element. It had a defined beginning, middle, and end. However, it was a "we, the reader, know more than the detective does" sort of procedural - and I don't like those. Also, I felt that the mystery was a little weak in other ways too, chiefly motivation for the murderer. Additionally, the police bit featured a particularly nasty bit of betrayal - good writing, but uncomfortable. That was an odd bit where an excellent piece of writing made me not really like a whole bit of plot - weird.
The politics were the best part of the novel. I really like political novels, and the politics here were murky and twisty - exactly the sort of thing I like. The motivation for the villain here was clear as a bell - in order to take over as Emperor, he needs to remove the existing dynasty. Watching him plot was delightful, and he was an excellent villain. If he had a mustache, he would have twirled it. Jeremy Irons could easily play him in the film adaptation, and chew scenery to his heart's content. Seeing him get his comeupance will be delightful.
Newton's characters in general are really well written. Given the extent that this is a character driven novel, that's a good thing. Poorly written characters would have doomed this novel. Newton offers us a broad cast that we can care about. We can root for the cocky young sword and dance instructor learning to love for the first time, or for the young rulers learning that there is more to their empire than the palace they grew up in. We can watch the slow re-building of the relationship between the detective and his estranged wife. We can thrill to the exploits of the military commander facing unfaceable odds. We can ponder the motives of mysterious cultists, engaged in byzantine plots of their own imagining. All of these myriad characters make the book worth reading, and compensate many many times for the problems I've mentioned.
The other thing that Newton does that I found interesting (and also frustrating). The empire has several different species in it - humans, and Rumels (who are bipedal, mammalian, furred, have tails, and are very long lived), and Guaradas (who are bird type things), and possibly other things hiding in the wings. All of these different species of character make for some interesting dynamics - how does it all fit together?
The frustrating thing about these alien species is that Newton never really explains how it all fits together, or where the various species came from, or offer us a glossary or a "history" of the Empire - the bits that might, tacked onto the end of a book like this, fill in the gaps that a reader like me really craves. There isn't even a map of the empire, or a suggestion of how large it is, relative to the world it's on. Perhaps a map would spoil a big reveal in a future book - "ha ha! Look, they're really on Earth!" - but given the distances people were travelling between islands, and the suggestion that there are hostile forces just outside the empire - I wanted a map. These are little things, but they accumulate.
My final complaint about the book is that it doesn't end satisfyingly. It's clear that Newton is writing an Epic (I feel some justice in using the term, because deities do play a role in the novel, if not directly), and so the novel ends somewhat abruptly, just as the conspiracy plot comes to fruition in one place, and the heroic military expedition is retreating from sure and certain death in another place. I know the second book has been published (because it was seeing Book 2 which prompted me to pick up Book 1), and I'm not opposed, per se, to a serial narrative - but, on top of the other little things ... Well. The strong characters will draw me back into the second book, but it will be a "pick up when I see it" rather than a "hunt it down because I must have it" type thing.
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