Books
While I wait for M_ to finish in the shower, let's burn down this list a bit.
Let's begin with Maria V. Snyder's Scent of Magic, sequel to Touch of Power. This continues the adventures of Avry, the last magical Healer in a land devastated by plague. Various factions are still vying to take control of the region, particularly the evil life mage Tohon. While the story continued, the tone was quite different. Little is made of the Healer-hatred (they're blamed for the plague) that used to dominate Avry's life, and new lover Kerrick is away pursuing his own plot. Avry goes undercover with one of the armies opposing Tohon and tries to reconnect with her estranged sister. Kerrick goes to his homeland to gather troops and gets caught up in a barbarian invasion. Oh, and it turns out corrupt life mages can make zombie armies. All in all I didn't dislike it, but it's got a lot of middle book syndrome.
Next up is Blood Trade, book six in Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock series. Jane's nominally a vampire hunter, but these days she mainly work for one. She's avoiding him, though, so she takes her new partners and heads off to do a contract for the master of Natchez. It's supposed to be a simple job cleaning out a few rogues, but Jane's life is rarely simple. Soon, she's dealing with nigh-unkillable monster vamps, missing witches, government agents, and all the dramatic action scenes that go with. We also get some more of her backstory, this time a few of her years being raised by the state. This is mostly a stand-alone story... there's not any real progress on her troubled (and largely uninteresting) love life, her magical tie to the master of New Orleans, etc. It may be the better for it, though, since it was a solid story that mostly wrapped in a single book.
To have something portable for my flight to Florida, I reread Patricia A. McKillip's The Book of Atrix Wolfe. The book opens in something of a prologue as an army from one principality is besieging the castle of another. The near-legendary archmage Atrix Wolfe wants to avert the war but can't talk the leaders out of fighting. Trying to find a bloodless solution, Wolfe overextends himself creating something terrible enough to drive both armies from the field. The result is the Hunter, a dark warrior that scatters the armies and kills several of the leaders. What Wolfe doesn't realize is that he has accidentally dragged the consort of the Faerie Queen out of his parallel world and used him as the seed for the Hunter. After him came the Queen's daughter Saro who loses her memory and speech in the crossing.
The story fast forwards twenty years to where Talis, the younger son of the formerly besieged is studying magic. He's called home by his brother who has realized he cannot father a child and want his brother-heir to pay attention to the kingdom. Before leaving, Talis uncovers Wolfe's hidden spellbook and takes it with him. Talis and his more provincial family have a hard time relating, particularly since Talis's experiments with the spellbook tend to cause minor disasters. He also pays little mind to the mute scullery girl Saro who is something of a mascot to the kitchen staff. His magic draws attention, though, and soon he, his brother, Saro, Wolfe, and the Faerie Queen are all caught up in the unresolved consequences of Wolfe's terrible mistake.
This is a somewhat lyrical book at something of a remove from the action (like most of McKillip's recent work). The first time I read it I found it hard to follow, but it's either better the second time or I was just paying more attention. It's far from perfect, and the parallel stories of Talis and Saro could have been better entwined. Still, it was enjoyable, and I was happy to have revisited it.
For a nearly total opposite, I next read The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (I know why they're doing it, but these titles are still ridiculous). This is the latest installment of Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series - not that the fleet's been lost for some time. In this episode, Admiral "Black Jack" Geary has brought the Alliance fleet back from an exploration of alien space to the edge of human territory. He's a long way from the Alliance systems, though, and the Syndic government is determined to make his life difficult on the return trip. He'll have to deal with Syndic traps and internal fleet stress as he makes his way home. If this sounds familiar it should... there's a strong sense of "didn't we already do this?" to the first half. The latter part feels more original as we deal with some more Alliance government issues and head off for a visit to previously unseen Earth.
I enjoy this series, but Campbell really needs to change things up to keep it fresh. I understand that the problems Black Jack faces don't go away overnight so he has to keep playing whack-a-mole with the symptoms, but as a book series it needs to avoid getting bogged down. Oh, and Geary's relationship with his wife/flag captain is ridiculous. The issue would seem to be that he's married to his subordinate - not whether or not they're sharing a bed. So, refusing to ever be alone together feels absurd.
I'll wrap tonight with David Weber's Midst Toil and Tribulation, the sixth big book in the sprawling Safehold series. Safehold is a planet settled by refugees fleeing an alien-destroyed Earth. The military crew decided to keep folks safe by brainwashing all the passengers and establishing a religion. The idea was to provide the best possible 17th Century lifestyle while utterly suppressing the scientific method and any social patterns that would lead to technological advancement and eventual contact with the aliens. Crew who disagreed with this plan made their play in the form of a hidden android imbued with the memories of Commander Nimue Alban, a naval officer who died during the escape from Earth. A few centuries after planetfall, Nimue "wakes up" and sets about triggering a renaissance and overthrowing the now hopelessly corrupt Church. This is all backstory.
In this installment, Nimue and her allies are moving in on the main continent where the Church resides. All the usual elements are here... lots and lots and lots of blather about minor (although I'm sure crucial) tweaks of 18th/19th Century military and production tech. The Church leaders are a mix of the rabid and the conflicted-but-see-no-alternatives. Many small battles are fought. The vastly sprawling cast of characters sprawls out just a little more. People are conflicted but usually pretty obviously split between the good folks and the bad. The fun parts of religiously motivated war start making more of an appearance (who's up for a counter-atrocity?). At the pace he's going, I'd say there will be at least two more large books, and I'm guessing he's aiming at a nice round ten. I want to see how it all comes out, but it really is a slog getting through it.
And that's enough for tonight.
This brings my total for the year to thirty-three.
This entry was originally posted at http://squidminion.dreamwidth.org/368319.html.
There are
comments there. You could add one via OpenID.
Or you can comment here if you'd rather; it's okay.
Let's begin with Maria V. Snyder's Scent of Magic, sequel to Touch of Power. This continues the adventures of Avry, the last magical Healer in a land devastated by plague. Various factions are still vying to take control of the region, particularly the evil life mage Tohon. While the story continued, the tone was quite different. Little is made of the Healer-hatred (they're blamed for the plague) that used to dominate Avry's life, and new lover Kerrick is away pursuing his own plot. Avry goes undercover with one of the armies opposing Tohon and tries to reconnect with her estranged sister. Kerrick goes to his homeland to gather troops and gets caught up in a barbarian invasion. Oh, and it turns out corrupt life mages can make zombie armies. All in all I didn't dislike it, but it's got a lot of middle book syndrome.
Next up is Blood Trade, book six in Faith Hunter's Jane Yellowrock series. Jane's nominally a vampire hunter, but these days she mainly work for one. She's avoiding him, though, so she takes her new partners and heads off to do a contract for the master of Natchez. It's supposed to be a simple job cleaning out a few rogues, but Jane's life is rarely simple. Soon, she's dealing with nigh-unkillable monster vamps, missing witches, government agents, and all the dramatic action scenes that go with. We also get some more of her backstory, this time a few of her years being raised by the state. This is mostly a stand-alone story... there's not any real progress on her troubled (and largely uninteresting) love life, her magical tie to the master of New Orleans, etc. It may be the better for it, though, since it was a solid story that mostly wrapped in a single book.
To have something portable for my flight to Florida, I reread Patricia A. McKillip's The Book of Atrix Wolfe. The book opens in something of a prologue as an army from one principality is besieging the castle of another. The near-legendary archmage Atrix Wolfe wants to avert the war but can't talk the leaders out of fighting. Trying to find a bloodless solution, Wolfe overextends himself creating something terrible enough to drive both armies from the field. The result is the Hunter, a dark warrior that scatters the armies and kills several of the leaders. What Wolfe doesn't realize is that he has accidentally dragged the consort of the Faerie Queen out of his parallel world and used him as the seed for the Hunter. After him came the Queen's daughter Saro who loses her memory and speech in the crossing.
The story fast forwards twenty years to where Talis, the younger son of the formerly besieged is studying magic. He's called home by his brother who has realized he cannot father a child and want his brother-heir to pay attention to the kingdom. Before leaving, Talis uncovers Wolfe's hidden spellbook and takes it with him. Talis and his more provincial family have a hard time relating, particularly since Talis's experiments with the spellbook tend to cause minor disasters. He also pays little mind to the mute scullery girl Saro who is something of a mascot to the kitchen staff. His magic draws attention, though, and soon he, his brother, Saro, Wolfe, and the Faerie Queen are all caught up in the unresolved consequences of Wolfe's terrible mistake.
This is a somewhat lyrical book at something of a remove from the action (like most of McKillip's recent work). The first time I read it I found it hard to follow, but it's either better the second time or I was just paying more attention. It's far from perfect, and the parallel stories of Talis and Saro could have been better entwined. Still, it was enjoyable, and I was happy to have revisited it.
For a nearly total opposite, I next read The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (I know why they're doing it, but these titles are still ridiculous). This is the latest installment of Jack Campbell's Lost Fleet series - not that the fleet's been lost for some time. In this episode, Admiral "Black Jack" Geary has brought the Alliance fleet back from an exploration of alien space to the edge of human territory. He's a long way from the Alliance systems, though, and the Syndic government is determined to make his life difficult on the return trip. He'll have to deal with Syndic traps and internal fleet stress as he makes his way home. If this sounds familiar it should... there's a strong sense of "didn't we already do this?" to the first half. The latter part feels more original as we deal with some more Alliance government issues and head off for a visit to previously unseen Earth.
I enjoy this series, but Campbell really needs to change things up to keep it fresh. I understand that the problems Black Jack faces don't go away overnight so he has to keep playing whack-a-mole with the symptoms, but as a book series it needs to avoid getting bogged down. Oh, and Geary's relationship with his wife/flag captain is ridiculous. The issue would seem to be that he's married to his subordinate - not whether or not they're sharing a bed. So, refusing to ever be alone together feels absurd.
I'll wrap tonight with David Weber's Midst Toil and Tribulation, the sixth big book in the sprawling Safehold series. Safehold is a planet settled by refugees fleeing an alien-destroyed Earth. The military crew decided to keep folks safe by brainwashing all the passengers and establishing a religion. The idea was to provide the best possible 17th Century lifestyle while utterly suppressing the scientific method and any social patterns that would lead to technological advancement and eventual contact with the aliens. Crew who disagreed with this plan made their play in the form of a hidden android imbued with the memories of Commander Nimue Alban, a naval officer who died during the escape from Earth. A few centuries after planetfall, Nimue "wakes up" and sets about triggering a renaissance and overthrowing the now hopelessly corrupt Church. This is all backstory.
In this installment, Nimue and her allies are moving in on the main continent where the Church resides. All the usual elements are here... lots and lots and lots of blather about minor (although I'm sure crucial) tweaks of 18th/19th Century military and production tech. The Church leaders are a mix of the rabid and the conflicted-but-see-no-alternatives. Many small battles are fought. The vastly sprawling cast of characters sprawls out just a little more. People are conflicted but usually pretty obviously split between the good folks and the bad. The fun parts of religiously motivated war start making more of an appearance (who's up for a counter-atrocity?). At the pace he's going, I'd say there will be at least two more large books, and I'm guessing he's aiming at a nice round ten. I want to see how it all comes out, but it really is a slog getting through it.
And that's enough for tonight.
This brings my total for the year to thirty-three.
This entry was originally posted at http://squidminion.dreamwidth.org/368319.html.
There are
comments there. You could add one via OpenID.
Or you can comment here if you'd rather; it's okay.