Frigid reads: book review thread

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 4:47 pm

Also Havoc, I read four of those books long before Grey Hunter made it his personal mission to annihilate the Royal Navy for all time.

Good times, good times.

General Havoc · Post by **General Havoc** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 8:40 pm

Hey! Hey! I'm sure there was a destroyer still afloat when the war ended!

... in drydock.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Fri Sep 19, 2014 8:55 pm

Unless it was floating next to the carrier that spontaneously self-destructed at the dock. Which one was it, the Lex?

That was the best LP ever. Although tearing the guts out of the Japanese destroyer with his periscope was pretty out there too.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Sun Sep 21, 2014 9:20 am

Oh, and for a memoir that was written fairly fresh after the war, Helmet for my Pillow by Bob Leckie. It's one of the memoirs that the HBO series The Pacific was based on.

Keep meaning to get around to Sledge's memoir, probably after I clear my current backlog.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 2:45 pm

Warpworld by Kristene Perron and Joshua Simpson.

So this review will feature three firsts for this series. First of all, this is the first book I've reviewed with more than one author. Second and likely more important, this is the first book I've reviewed where a friend of mine is one of the authors. I've been friends with Josh Simpson for years, we've argued together, bitched, celebrated and generally carried on like a pack of manics. That said, I've never met him in the flesh, only online but I still think of him as a good friend and why not?

Lastly and the first I am most gleeful over, this is the first review of a book I didn't pay for. Josh was kind enough to send me a Kindle copy in exchange for my honest opinion. Why am I telling you this? Well, while I will swear to you that none of these things have had any impact on the review. I think I owe to y'all to be completely up front and honest over things like do I know the author, was I given this book in expectation of a review and so on and so forth. So expect to be told if I am reviewing a book that was given to me in exchange for a review, especially if by the author. If it wasn't the author, I will try to mention the individual who provided me with a copy anyways, so the credit (or blame) can be shared out as everyone deserves. But enough of me being more upfront then your average games journalist, let's get to the book.

Warpworld is Ms. Perron and Mr. Simpson's first book and it is a fantasy story. The story revolves around two lead characters Seg and Ama. I'll be focusing a lot on them in this review because the story not only is entirely dependent on their choices and actions, but 90% of it is through their eyes. So you'll be spending alot of time with them if you decide to pick this book up. Seg... Excuse me, Segkel Eraranat, Field Cultural Theorist (a cultural theorist being basically a combat anthropologist, something which tickles me pink) is a fucking asshole. A man who has knife fought his way up from the humblest of origins to the point where he can almost see the top of the mountain of his society. And Whoo Boy, this is a society of sharks and piranhas. They call themselves the People, because they don't regard anyone else they meet as people. Just living tools they can use up as they see fit. The People however, have a problem, their world is trying to kill them via a big angry life eating thing, they call the Storm. Frankly I can't blame the planet. Because of this, they must open Warpgates to other worlds, attack them and rob them of people and cultural and religious artifacts. Why cultural and religious artifacts? Because the technology they use to travel to other worlds and to keep their planet from murdering them wholesale is powered by magic. Don't look at me like that, it's tech that runs off the energy built up by belief and emotion, it's fucking magic! I don't have a problem with this in all honesty but a number of books these days attempt to tell me that the magic isn't magic, which I refuse to fall for! In fairness to the writers of warpworld, they don't try to sell me a potion of bullshit here, they get the characters to try to sell me a potion of bullshit. Which I can live with. Seg would roll his eyes at me and tell me firmly that this is not magic... And he would be full of shit, but characters are sometimes full of shit and often the story is better for it.

Anyways, back to Seg. He has been commissioned to find artifacts and sites of great religious and cultural impotence so one of the many armed forces of the People (divided between mercenaries and Noble Houses, because the People are to big a collection of Dicks to bite the bullet and centralize their armies for the greater good) can come through the warpgate and loot them dry! This of course isn't a new thing, the People have been doing this since Seg's grandfather's grandfather was a bouncing baby boy. So there are procedures, codes, regulations. Seg, despite being on his very first real mission... Believes he knows better then people who have been doing this entire lives. Because he is a genius and everyone else is a moron. He's not shy about letting people know they're morons either. I told you he was an asshole. What keeps him bearable is his willingness to admit when he doesn't know something and the fact that he keeps his word to the last. Additionally is his utter refusal to leave people behind or stab them in the back. Seg is also very forthright and blunt, which makes me wonder how the hell he survived in his society but it does add to his entertainment value. All in all, Seg keeps from being unbearable or a big enough dick that I am not consumed with hatred for him. I don't know if I like him... But I respect him and I enjoy his toils and efforts. Plus I usually hate the people he's being an asshole to more. Sometimes I'm even sympathetic to the amount of shit he's going through. Besides to be fair, given his culture and his experiences growing up he's practically Ghandi. I mean imagine being surrounded by people who are not only waiting for you fail, but are wanting you to fail so they can send you off to a life of backbreaking labor and humiliation. Now imagine this is your life from the age of something like 9...

I'd be a raging asshole to, on my good days.

On the flip side of the coin we have Captain Amadahy Kalder of the Kenda. She and her people have a problem. This problem is a another group of people named the Shasir. The Shasir are a group of people who had the industrial revolution first on their planet. Unlike the Europeans of our world though, the Shasir decided to make a religion out this and ensure that only those who entered and climbed the ranks of their priesthood would be allowed to study and understand the resulting technology. Using firearms and airships, they proceeded to conquer and subdue a good chunk of the globe. Including the part the Kenda were living on. The Kenda are a waterbound people, they worship a water god, love to sail on boats, make water oaths and metaphors so on and so forth. They're very much an oppressed people however and the book shows us this through little things (conversations and interactions between the characters) that the Kenda's lives are ringed around with restrictions and obstacles both grand and petty. In alot of ways it's kinda like looking back at the lives of the some of the colonized peoples here. Although the Kenda are not without privileges, being better off then the other subdued people, the Welf.

The Welfs don't really get to speak for themselves in this novel, the story isn't about them, they're just more or less background to it. Although we do get a couple of moments that shine a light on their lives. They live on the bottom of the social and economic order. There are no Welf priests (there are Kenda priests), no Welf land owners or anything like that. The Welf have 3 roles in society. To grub in the mud so their betters can eat without toil. To serve as their maids and cooks and other low level servants and to perform the work no one else wants to. Honestly the Welf made me a bit uncomfortable, calling back indirectly to parts of American History I rather not think about to often... But that adds to the realism. The Shasir are a imperialist, racist bunch of assholes who have seized control of large chunks (if not all) of their planet through better technology and being willing to use it and horde it. Course that kind of empire is fragile, Seg himself openly states that Shasir empire couldn't last more then another 2 or 4 generations but it can and will smash alot of people into the mud, for no better reason then who their parents were, in that time frame. Worse, it'll do so because that's one of the things it was designed to do. I don't know if the writers were trying to make the point that imperialism isn't very nice and is often a dirty, nasty business... But they did a good job of making that point without giving any lectures or rubbing your nose in it. The actions and thoughts of the characters drive that point home without any really calling attention to it.

As for Ama herself. I didn't like her at first. Not because she's unpleasant or anything. She's a fairly nice person as far as characters go, it's just... Let me just ask if this sounds familiar... She is a person fighting against what her society and family expects of her, trying to reach her own dreams. Her mother died when she was young and she wants nothing more then to be a free ship Captain. Her family on the other hand wants her to settle down and get married and live a respectable life. Her society isn't very keen on a woman Ship Captain (which I admit is very silly of them). As such she finds herself arguing with her Father, who Just Doesn't Understand! I call this standard fantasy protagonist number 3, variant b. For Ama to be variant a, she would have be a child or a teenager, a very popular choice in fantasy books, in fact I'm not sure Mercedes Lackey has actually written any other kind of character. That might be unfair dig at Ms. Lackey, and this isn't a review of one of her books, so I'll stop there.

Thankfully Ama, doesn't spend a lot of time acting like standard fantasy protagonist number 3b. She doesn't mope around and wish for adventures and whine and nag and generally act like a angsting teen. Note to aspiring and published writers, reading someone whine and angst gets old... FAST. Instead Ama does stuff. She plots, schemes, fights, swims, sails and curses. It also helps that she actually pretty good at at least some of that. Additionally, she's not moping around wanting a higher destiny or anything, she just wants to be allowed to sail her damn boat. Which is a reasonable desire in my book and a point her favor. Ama doesn't want to be a princess or an archmage... Or run around with a magic white horse with an over inflated sense of it's own importance (okay I'll stop now). She just wants people to leave her alone and let her be a ship captain and she's willing to work to that end. When she discovers Seg's secret, her reaction is "how do I make this work for my people and for me?" It's realistic, pragmatic and decisive, which makes Ama and her decisions frankly a breath of fresh air compared to say Shadow Ops, nor does Ama sit around moodily and wonder about her enemies like a certain jumped up Starship captain (I still like that character, but there are bits I could do without). Additionally pragmatic and decisive is her willingness to go behind Seg's back to warn her people and family and make sure they get the most out of this. Frankly I approve this, she isn't willing to let the best interests of her family and friends take a back seat to some dude she meet a few days ago. Ama is fairly straightforward and easy to deal with once you realize that she isn't protagonist 3b, or if she is, she's a very well done one who isn't constrained by the mold. Honestly I like her more then I like Seg, but Seg is the more interesting of the two characters. Additionally, his goals and plans end up pretty much superseding Ama's. So what Seg is going to do next towards the end of the book becomes alot more important then what is Ama going to do next.

I also enjoyed a number of the secondary characters, like Brin, Ama's cousin. Seg's mentor Jarin, a cunning and crafty old man with his own mission and his own possibly shady past. He seems to have been in Seg's position before in a lot of ways and is trying to keep the kid from repeating his mistakes. Seg seems to feel that Jarin hasn't done him that many favors coming up, but considering the fact that someone with Seg's lack of connections and rather smart mouth is still breathing... I kinda think Jarin has spent a lot of time giving Seg cover. However, my favorite minor character is hands down the old rogue that is Viren. Who we met trying to rob Seg when he stumbles around a port city after being drugged by Ama (I told she was pragmatic didn't I?). Viren was a bit of treat for me. He's sly, clever and irrelevant and completely refuses to take this shit seriously. He's no Han Solo but he is pretty fun. Just don't ever play cards with the man.

There are drawbacks to the story. I felt the action scenes were overall pretty average. Not bad just... Average. They are competently written and plotted out, I was never left lost or confused but they lack a certain edge. The mass firefight at the end of the book for example didn't quite click for me. I enjoyed reading it but I was also sitting thinking "that's not how it would really work..." This might be my own life experiences working against me, plus I'm not a huge fan of 'large masses of under equipped enemies throw themselves in frontal assaults against dug in enemies with better weapons.' Yes, it's happened more than a few times in history. Yes, it makes perfect sense in the context of the story. I'm still just not a fan. I'm hoping to see more even fights later in the series.

The antagonists are the weakest part of the story. We don't get much of a sense of them, other then one member of the people being ambitious and petty and a law enforcer being an utter bastard for reasons unknown. For the most part the antagonists are a faceless mass. The People's society and the Shasir empire are the main antagonist forces in this book, only they are left without spokesmen (or spokeswomen) to speak to their side of the story or to give an opposing viewpoint to the characters. Instead everyone who opposes them is a petty, ambitious bastard, an utter psychopath or a deluded victim. I'm left wondering why the CMC (the People's organization that is opposed to the Cultural Theorist Guild) is so dead set on wrecking Seg's raid when he can provide grand amounts of the the very energy they're so desperately hungry for. Why is the Constable so fired up to see Ama put in what he thinks is her place? For that matter why is he so anti-Kenda? That said, they serve fairly well as forces or individuals that are dangerous to our characters. Ama and Seg bleed, they get beat up, they have problems and suffer. This is not an easy walk over for them, unlike some professionally published stories I could name. So there is more then enough tension in the story to keep you turning the pages. For that matter, you don't feel like the antagonists are absolute idiots (Seg's opinion not withstanding, but he thinks almost everyone is an idiot), it's just you're not very sure their motivations or their goals expect in a vague broad sense (keep the Shasir in power, get more power over the People and get more magic energy to keep the planet from killing us, stuff like that). The antagonists are serviceable but nothing more.

Warpworld rests on the character of it's protagonists and their relationship with each other. Which is a dynamic evolving relationship between two people with their own goals and desires. The relation is also put under strain by the stakes and tensions of the situation and how Seg's and Ama's goals align or clash depending on the situation. Which works fairly well. It makes for a strong interesting story with enough bad things happening to the protagonists to keep it interesting. This is good first book for these authors and a good start to the series (there are something like 4 more books) and I can recommend these books with a clear conscience.

Warpworld gets a B+, the lack of attention to the antagonists and averageness of the action keep it from going any higher but the well written plot and characterization lift it firmly out of the average run of the mill fantasy.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 8:48 pm

Wow, that's much nicer than I was anticipating.

Mostly because you're one of a handful of people on this planet who's opinion I earnestly give a damn about, so I was braced for the worst even though you said you were enjoying it.

Okay, to hit some points:

Don't look at me like that, it's tech that runs off the energy built up by belief and emotion, it's fucking magic! I don't have a problem with this in all honesty but a number of books these days attempt to tell me that the magic isn't magic, which I refuse to fall for! In fairness to the writers of warpworld, they don't try to sell me a potion of bullshit here, they get the characters to try to sell me a potion of bullshit.

Yeah, it's magic 'energy' Z that shows up in a lot of stories, and honestly I kind of cringe at calling it 'energy' in the first place because it doesn't have the characteristics of actual defined-by-physics energy. It's an entirely different state of, well, magic shit, the energetic equivalent of unobtanium. Explaining that it's not really 'energy' would make for too much exposition, so we leave it as 'emotional energy', a concept that the audience can readily relate to in terms of stuff like chi and other mystical concepts. So... guilty!

I don't know if the writers were trying to make the point that imperialism isn't very nice and is often a dirty, nasty business... But they did a good job of making that point without giving any lectures or rubbing your nose in it.

I don't consider myself a 'message' writer. Obviously a lot of my beliefs are going to bleed through, but I never set out with a story like this to tell people things, especially stuff that should be blindingly obvious to the average educated person. I tend to follow the David Drake model of just taking actual examples of our own world and adjusting them to differing circumstances. So I guess that worked in that depicted a scene without being preachy. Neato.

Seg's mentor Jarin, a cunning and crafty old man with his own mission and his own possibly shady past. He seems to have been in Seg's position before in a lot of ways and is trying to keep the kid from repeating his mistakes. Seg seems to feel that Jarin hasn't done him that many favors coming up, but considering the fact that someone with Seg's lack of connections and rather smart mouth is still breathing... I kinda think Jarin has spent a lot of time giving Seg cover.

And how. Jarin sees in Seg a model of the sort of revolutionary thinker that he feels they need to break the declining stagnancy of their own culture. They're losing their fight for survival, and they're too busy knifing each other in the back and fighting to keep the status quo.

The problem he has with Seg is that a revolutionary thinker is, well, revolutionary. Also Jarin's one of those guys who rarely comes out and just says what he means. He's using to being the puppetmaster, and that in and of itself is a source of much of their friction.

Viren was a bit of treat for me. He's sly, clever and irrelevant and completely refuses to take this shit seriously. He's no Han Solo but he is pretty fun.

I think you'll be satisfied with his role in the upcoming novels, then. He gets a lot of screentime.

The antagonists are the weakest part of the story. We don't get much of a sense of them, other then one member of the people being ambitious and petty and a law enforcer being an utter bastard for reasons unknown.

Guilty guilty guilty. Here's where I'll let you in on the dirty secret of the first book manuscript: Corrus and Dagga weren't in the original. Neither was Jul Akbas, for that matter. Or Adirante Fi Costk. There wasn't a single named villain in the entire thing, and it was a much more compact story. Akbas didn't actually show up in the original run of the series until the fourth book, Fi Costk got a cameo role in the second and third, while Corrus and Dagga were incorporated during our revisions on the original manuscript, so most of the material concerning them and responses to their actions were added in, which is why their characterization gets short shrift.

We do end up with some mustache-twirling on the parts of our villains in the series, something we've worked to chop back on.

My original concept and the reason for no named villains is because ultimately what Seg and Ama were fighting and will continue to fight throughout the series is not so much people as systems. If Dagga and Corrus weren't wandering around being nasty and throwing their weight around, it'd just be another pair of thugs with badges. The same goes for the CWA baddies- they're the product of a corrupt institutional ethos, and the real enemy is the system that produces them. Which isn't to say the Guild are the 'good guys' because as the next few books will show the Guild is basically a giant egotistical clusterfuck. Again this is a personal belief shining through in the way I write, but it comes back to my belief that institutions cannot have honor and without good people to steer them away from bad things, they'll inevitably get nastier and nastier in the name of expediency.

I'm left wondering why the CMC (the People's organization that is opposed to the Cultural Theorist Guild) is so dead set on wrecking Seg's raid when he can provide grand amounts of the the very energy they're so desperately hungry for.

To clarify from the story, the CWA is trying to usurp the Guild's role in raids. For centuries since the two institutions were founded, they've existed in an uneasy balance of power, with one side or the other tending to have a slight dominance. The Guild has carefully protected its formulas and methodology so that you can't kick off a raid and expect to have a good amount of success without employing a Theorist to do the scouting. On the other side, the CWA is the central vita bank of the world, and thus holds a tremendous amount of economic power.

After the disastrous Lannit raid some forty years before, the Guild took a big hit in the PR department and the relationship (which had been leaning heavily toward the Guild at that time) took a heavy turn backward. Going along with that, the CWA had been steadily implementing a policy of incremental gain- they were taking on the debts of cash-strapped Houses/raider units and absorbing them into a growing coalition.

So as mentioned in the story, the CWA has been developing their own version of the Guild in-house, with an eye toward eventually replacing the Guild altogether. Because the Guild's primary function by far is scouting and plotting raids, once that's gone they're fucked.

The weakness of the Guild is that by and large it's a collection of fractured political cliques with little to no coherent long-term policy. After all, they've survived for centuries and why won't they just keep on surviving? The irony being that people who've studied the history and cultures of literally hundreds of worlds have been in many ways blind to their institutional decline, pointing at somebody else's house while their own is on fire.

The CWA, on the other hand, has a reasonably coherent pair of missions: protect the World from the Storm, and knock out the Guild. Even though they're full of bureaucractic knife fights, they have that much going for them and at this point of the story it's doing pretty damned well.

As for why they're willing to dick themselves out of a load of vita, that's just taking a long-term gain over a short-term loss. They're accountants by the nature of their institution.

And if you have to write several paragraphs after the fact to explain an important plot point, you obviously didn't communicate it well enough in-story. My bad.

And now, as a DVD extra!

The original, never-before-released-anywhere original short concept story I wrote that spawned this monstrosity.

Heh, never edited, either. I just spotted a major goof-up there, but whatever, here's the raw.

"Cultural Theorists are the very backbone of our society," Segkel said, taking a sip of water before turning away from the window toward his pupils. Behind him, the dark clouds of an afternoon storm whipped across the landscape, heat lightning shimmering as it struck in rapid, strobing pulses. His acute eye could see the tiny forms of scrabbling surface scavs darting through the dusty surface, seeking shelter or trying to pull in that last bit of precious salvage. He put his glass down on the mantle, then turn to take a slice of fruit from a proffered tray. "Cultural Theorem divides us from any number of primitive raiding societies and barbarians. Without it," he gestured toward the window. "We'd all be out there until the gates burned the planet lifeless. There would be no caj, no luxury, ultimately no survival."

The three students sat quietly, making no comment or question. Questions, of course, would come afterward, submitted in written form. Segkel actually felt that tradition to be obsolete and counterproductive, but he'd caused enough issues of Non-Orthodoxy for any two careers and really needed to occasionally demonstrate a willingness to work within the accepted bounds of the Guild. Besides, he was going to have to fail one of these seekers, and her family was likely to cause him no small amount of pain in consequence.

He turned back toward the window as the light darkened, the storm finally arriving. The faint pattering sound of drops against the armored glass belied the driving force of the impacts as the water began sheeting down. He loved the storm, the power and the sheer chaos of it. It was much like storming through a gateway with an armored legion, pouring forth into an unsuspecting world to capture and pillage their fortresses, citadels, and cities.

"These thoughts are first cycle training," he said. "I repeat them to drive home their vitality. The level of responsibility assumed by the CTG is enormous, crushing. Corinse, what percentage of raids bring back enough vita to justify the cost of expedition?"

She answered quickly. "Fifty-seven percent." Facts and figures were no challenges to the young woman. It was understanding the nuances of her desired profession and a basic lack of social proficiency that failed her. He nodded at her, then looked to the woman next to her.

"Usalln, what percentage of raids bring in enough vita to meet goal?"

"Thirteen percent, mentor." This one was more promising. Sharp, incisive. Should she survive the next stage of training, she could well go far.

"Gelen, what percentage fails to return entirely?" This was something of a trick question, another of his motions to draw his final and most enigmatic pupil out. Gelen seemed to have the necessary attributes, but balanced this with a seeming dispassion for the work. He often seemed... bored.

"Seven percent failure," the final pupil answered. "For actual complete loss of mission force. Fifteen percent recovers no vita." He offered a small smirk at having evaded the trap inherent in the question. Segkel nodded, granting him the small victory. Dispassionate but arrogant. Marks of a prodigy, as he'd thought. He'd make double sure to grind on the little bastard. Either Gelen would break, or he'd find enough challenge to get up and start actually applying himself.

"So, upon the weight of thirteen percent rests forty-three percent of failure, with twenty-two percent being abject. Non-goal expeditions bear some slack, but are still a form of failure. It is imperative that we maximize every trip through the gates. Every trip. Every trip."

***

"Did we evolve here, or did we immigrate by some happenstance in the distant past? Who knows? Our myths and stories contain tales of fantasy and exodus, but then so do the myths and tales of nearly every world we encounter. The irony is that we'll laboriously sift through those foreign myths to learn their ways and isolate their centers of vita, while essentially ignoring our own. This brings us to the assignment of the week- a level one survey of our own society. What are our centers of vita?"

***

"So when I'm finished with these three neophytes, my exile will be finished?" Sekgel paced impatiently as he fired off the question.

"Seg, you're one of the few I've ever met who regarded a home assignment as exile," his old mentor answered. "The answer lies, as always, with the Council." Jarin shook his head. "Twenty years and you're still as pig-headed and willful as ever. I tried to break you of that."

Sekgel snorted derisively. "I should apply some of your methods to the current crop. I'm sure a bit of pain-stim would work wonders. I'm going to down the Haslit neo. She'll make the Guild a good accountant."

"And when the Haslits call for your head?" Jarin drummed his fingers on the desk.

"I'll point out to the Council that we already have enough half-qualified morons running about carrying Guild badges and remind them that this training rotation was their idea. I have a job and a responsibility to the Guild, and I'll discharge it to the best of my ability." He settled into the overstuffed armchair across from Jarin.

"So what is the current assignment?" Jarin asked.

"Locate our centers of vita," Sekgel said, waving a dismissive hand.

"Evil," Jarin said. "They'll waste the entire week tearing their hair out over that."

"Not the boy. He'll make a conclusion one way or another inside of three days. If he makes the correct assumption, he'll spend the rest of the week drinking and fucking caj. Usalln likewise may figure it out, though she'll proceed to thoroughly and exhaustively test her hypothesis, then agonize over her answer until presentation. The Haslit will probably give me a coordinate list of arenas and brothels."

"That is where we've got what little vita left, of course."

"Of course, but the point of the exercise is to demonstrate that we live in an utterly barren wasteland that wouldn't be worth raiding. The larger issue being that we're in a terminal arc of decay that is only being braked by the actions of the Guild, which is why we can't let idiots like the Haslit girl be guiding expeditions into dumps like this one."

"You've been drinking, Seg,"

"Of course I have. Why haven't you?"

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 8:49 pm

Oh, and thanks! I really appreciate it.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 8:57 pm

Also further addendum: Kris pushed for including villains with actual names and faces in the revision, and she was right there. I don't think my idea would've worked as well.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 9:18 pm

Oh, one other note: the first time the term 'combat anthropologist' occurred to me was when I first described the book to you back before it was even published.

rhoenix · Post by **rhoenix** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 9:30 pm

I have to say, reading the review Frigid gave, and the resulting discussion has been fascinating to read.

Also, the fact that the protagonist is a combat anthropologist is tremendously awesome.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 10:41 pm

I get the idea of Seg and Ama having to fight systems, but I think it would have worked better with more fleshed out people. Systems don't work without people choosing to uphold them, usually for their own reasons. I hope in the future we get to see why characters in your stories choose to try to maintain or uphold the system.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Thu Oct 02, 2014 11:12 pm

I definitely get you and it's excellent criticism that I intend to keep in mind moving forward. I'll argue that in Dagga's case, though, he's not about upholding the system. He's just one of those nasty asshole types you get who uses the system as an outlet for his cruelty.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 9:44 am

And yet another salient point:

characters are sometimes full of shit and often the story is better for it.

Very much a policy of mine in writing. I try very hard to avoid having any character be my 'voice' on the state of affairs and any given speech or statement should represent what the character thinks and not what I as a writer think about the situation. I hearken back to something that Joe Strazcynski once said about his dropping Talia from the storyline. Several viewers on usenet brought up a story from the previous season where a telepath had told her she was the future, etc., and then she was unceremoniously jettisoned from events and never seen again.

"Why would you ever trust what one of my characters says about another one?"

That's what I try to keep in force when I'm writing. Seg is flat-out full of shit, especially in the first book. He survives and thrives thanks to obscene luck and a lot of other people pitching in for him, but in his mind he thinks that a lot of it is down to his being just that good.

So bear in mind when reading what I write that when a character of mine makes a statement about life, the universe, and everything, it's just as likely as not to be something that I personally agree with. That goes back to the bit about not being a message writer trying to preach my ideals through a fictional setting, something that often produces godawful stories built around magically demonstrating the truth of whatever principle the writer is preaching.

(Mother Goose Tales being one of the exceptions.)

There's an arc to Seg in the series and it breaks down pretty distinctly book by book.

Book one Seg is the gifted student meeting the full force of reality for the first time. By luck, doggedness, and several assists from the people around him he meets his challenges.

Book two Seg is about his baby steps as an actual leader, coping with the responsibility he has. His derringdo and risks no longer affect just him and a couple of people in his vicinity as well as some faceless masses, but rather a decent-sized body of people who have entrusted themselves to his leadership.

Book three Seg is about the maturation of that leadership. It's about beginning the transition from revolutionary to president, as it were. He's carved out a corner of existence where he can do things the way he thinks they should be done, now he has to actually implement his vision in the face of problems internal and external. It's always easier to agitate from the outside, harder to actually run things. One of the big subplots of the third book is exploring how people can condemn a way of life and system and then when put in similar circumstance they naturally begin going down the exact same path.

Book four Seg is about hard choices and facing situations without optimal answers. During the last plotting session with Kris, I brought up the point that basically B4 is an extended Kobayashi Maru for everyone involved, and that in revision we need to accentuate that in challenging all the characters with their own no-win scenarios as much as possible.

Book five Seg is the end product of continuous stress and turmoil. He's been through the fire, lived in the fire for years now, and he's got to come up with enough to see things through to the end before he breaks down completely. The power he's had to wield, the choices and sacrifices he's had to make, no human comes through it whole and this is where he faces his final great moral, mental, and physical trials.

Josh · Post by **Josh** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 12:43 pm

One other thing, then I'll stop cluttering up the thread.

One of the funny things about any art creation is that there's always something that you really groove on that mostly passes without notice by the audience. For example at our play, there was one scene where one of the actresses just consistently nailed the moment. She was playing a character pretending to tell a story about imaginary dire events, so she's playing somebody who's playing somebody, basically. And she consistently hit it out of the park and it was hilarious to watch. But most audiences were pretty neutral on the moment.

Same thing for stories. Inevitably people will key on elements that you had no idea would resonate, and pass right by the ones you really love.

Which is fine, once you release a creative work you yield the control over it as you do.

Two scenes from Warpworld that stick out for me in hindsight, one by Kris and one by me.

The Kris scene was where Ama goes in pretending to be caj. The idea we wanted there was that there was this flourishing culture that was happening literally underneath the noses of the People, this whole hidden world that they never even deign to look down on. I think it was a good idea and I think Kris just fucking nailed it when she wrote it.

The one I did that I'm most proud of is the whole business with Seg on the run and treating his wound in the abandoned port house, specifically the business with the dead woman in her bedroom. What I was going for there is that for the first time he's really come face to face with the larger consequences of his actions- he's set the countryside afire, and innocent people like this woman have died because of what he's done. The Kenda revolution could easily be argued as a righteous cause, but regardless it's a revolution, it's a war, innocent people are going to die.

And when he's faced with that, his response is to kick the body to turn the face away from him, to reject his responsibility for that moment. He's a cold fuck and a supremely self-centered dick at this point in the story, but not a sociopath. It was a heavy scene to write, and I feel that I did a pretty good job with it.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Fri Oct 03, 2014 1:32 pm

I remember both of those scenes and they were very well done. You might notice that I avoided talking about scenes due to my desire to avoid spoilers. If a book is awful, yes I will spoil the fuck out of it, why give the readers of my reviews any excuse to pay for crap? A good book? I'm gonna try to avoid spoilers so you have to go out and read it.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Fri Oct 31, 2014 11:52 pm

Just a note, reviews are on hold until I something other then an iPad to type them on.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Mon Dec 08, 2014 2:21 am

GyreWorld by Eve and Robert Forward.

Like Warpworld, this review also has a number of firsts, this will be the first web novel I've reviewed, the first unfinished work I've reviewed and the first work written by siblings. Eve Forward has two novels (The Villains by Necessity which I hope to one day get a copy of and review and Animist which I know nothing about) and a number of animated episodes from shows like GI Joe (a great favorite of my childhood) and Biker Mice from Mars (which... I'm gonna be honest, I loathed). Robert D.Forward has also written two novels and has an extensive list of writing work for various shows among them Transformers Beast Wars (which I also enjoyed), GI Joe and BraveStarr... Which most of you won't have heard of and I won't get into here. I was around to watch both shows as a child though, which I am aware dates me. They are both the children of Robert Forward, a noted science fiction writer and physicist whose work I also hope to review here in the future. Rest assured I will do at least some of the works that have been recommended to me first, especially given that the folks of SpaceBattles, Libarc and elsewhere have handed me a huge list of books.

But moving on!

GyreWorld is a fantasy story set in a fairly original world very unlike our own. It's a world of moving gears and parts with 3 races of sapients settled in whatever parts can support life. It's a harsh world in a lot of ways, but the inhabitants have managed to create civilizations and cities despite that. While there are 3 races mentioned in the book, the story only focuses on two of them and so will this review. The most important race in this story is that of the kin, a small race of fuzzy humanoids that live in the city with humanity but apart in their own area they call the warren. The kin could have easily been another hobbit knock off race and I'll admit when I started the story, I had my doubts. The Forwards however do a very good job at making them distinct and a touch alien. None of the citizens of the Shire would fit in with these small, but at times, feral people. Their practices and outlook on life have been shaped by a long period of living in sparse, harsh environments and even centuries of easy city life haven't dimmed those cultural memories or erased the marks of that past. What I like best about this though is this is never info-dumped to us but details are fed to us through the interactions and statements of the characters. We are introduced to traditions and ideas that the Kin have by the Kin characters and left to come to our own understanding of this culture. Which makes the anthropologist in me giddy and the reader tired of wading through giant paragraphs of "As You Know Bob" dialogue feeling liberated when writers do this. There is one bit where a drunken ex-priest in jail begins to explain some social and political background to another character but I'm willing to spot a writer one chapter of "As You Know Bob" when you make a world this different and complex.

The story that takes us through Gyreworld is a simple one. A band of thieves have stolen a very important holy relic from a local church. I say important because with it missing, bad things are happening. Very lethal and dramatic bad things. I can't say much more then that without giving up some big spoilers. Suffice to say, our heroes have to find the relic and get it back to the church in question or the consequences will be dire. As in Oh God! Oh God! We're All Gonna Die! The Forwards do a good job with showing us these consequences to, as things build up gradually but unavoidably and we the reading audience must logically agree that the damn relic has to go back!

Our main viewpoint character is an odd Kin, by the name of Tod Pottersfield. Tod is a priest of the Kin god Badger and the Human Church Merciful and Inevitable. I think most of you have figured out that the Church concerns itself mainly with the dead and death. In fact we meet Tod in the course of his day job.... Cutting out the organs of a dead woman for storage in jars. Afterwards he'll cut away the flesh as well. Burial rituals on GyreWorld are very involved. Badger is a Kin god, a totemic force which also has a lot to do with death, dying and the here after. Tod is actually part of a thing in his culture where some Kin serve both Kin and Human religious organizations and it's made very clear that not all Kin (or all Humans for that matter) approve of this. I'll talk more about the religions later but right now I want to focus on Tod.

Tod is a howling zealot of a fanatic. Utterly and completely devoted in his belief and service to the divine force of death (divinity is not anthropomorphized in this story which makes it kinda like Roman religion before the Greek influences) to the point that it frankly unnerves even some of his religious superiors. It certainly unnerves me and I am religious! Most stories would make someone like Tod a one note character but Gyreworld refuses to do so. Tod is a zealot. Tod is a fanatic. Tod is also a person with thoughts, emotions, ties and desires outside of his admittedly powerful religious devotion. He loves people such as his sister and other family/clan members. He's feels guilty about the way a past relationship ended. He struggles with the burden put on him by his now dead father Wey, who wanted him to work to bring the Kin and Human religions together. He desperately wants to live up to the goals given him and do the right thing. Of course he has his vices as well, he tends towards self righteousness, can be rather tiresome about the whole death thing and... He's kind of a bigot. This really comes up in regards to our third main character. Tod's bigotry is however a product of his culture. Tod's position in this culture is complicated, what with his ties to a major human institution and his clan talent which leaves him in a distant position. See all the Kin are divided into clans and each clan has a special talent. Tod's clan talent is being able to tell when someone is going to die. This doesn't mean they can see the future, it's just that if you're terminal ill or if something especially lethal is going to happen soon, they can sense it. As you can guess most people don't take the news of "Hey my special mojo tells me you have 2 months to live." all that well. Add in Tod's withdrawn and somewhat downbeat personality and... He is not Mr. Popular with the Kin or humanity. Tod is also strangely divided at times. The division between Tod Pottersfield and Brother Tod, priest of Badger and fucking Death Itself is readily apparent. When given the responsibility for tracking down the thieves Tod becomes relentless and unstoppable. The Terminator would find Tod's gives no fuck and will not stop for shit attitude impressive as Tod is willing to fight, question or threaten anyone and everyone under the sun to complete his holy mission and if that means he got to run you over? So the much the worse for you! Meanwhile when not on church business Tod is passive, unwilling to do violence even in self defense (to the point that a band of teenage Kin punks rob him pretty much everyday) and frankly a push over. The reasons for this emerge over the story and are fairly interesting and make sense. What we see is a person who doesn't trust or care much for himself and is looking to be of service to what he sees as the best and greatest power he can serve. Unfortunately for him, that means he gonna get ass kicking after ass kicking.

Our next viewpoint character and only second to Tod himself is also a Kin named Jillick. Jillick is in many ways Tod's equal and opposite. She's a girl and not very religious. He's conservative and very law abiding, Jillick likes to dabble in law breaking for the thrills. Tod is a bigot, especially in regards to the third character. Jillick had an licit relationship with him for shits and giggles and remains friends with him. Jillick is a watchmaker and lockpicker. Both of these things have alot to do with her clan the Pinchbecks whose talents has to do with machines. Figuring out how they work, how to make them, how to take them apart all sorts of things. It's frankly a more useful talents in many respects then the Potterfields' one and certainly has a lower social cost. No one gets afraid of the guy who knows how to fix your watch (well... girl in this case). But maybe they should because Jillick thinks your damn watch is boring and would rather take apart your locks and see if you have any cool stuff. She is quiet a bit more worldly then Tod in a variety of ways as you've likely guessed by now. She's a very vibrant, fun loving character and rarely judgmental. Most likely because she's aware that her metaphorical house is made of glass. She's also fairly clever, which is good! Because she's keeping a hell of a secret from Tod, who has recruited her to find the thieves who stole the priceless holy thingy bob. Jillick is not as selfless as Tod nor prone to wide character swings. She's fairly consistent throughout the story in mainly playing for what's best for herself and the people she personally cares about. This really helps balance Tod out, as I think if Tod was surrounded by characters who reinforce his world view and actions he would quickly become insufferable as character. On the flip side Tod also helps balance Jillick out, as her selfish streak could render her very unsympathetic without someone constantly pulling her towards working for a greater goal then breaking her boredom. What I really find interesting is despite her dabbling with corruption, is that Jillick enjoys greater status in Kin society. Tod is something of an outsider despite (or maybe because of) his priestly status. Jillick is a person in good standing in the both the respectable and disreputable layers of Kin society. Which is a testament to her charisma I think.

The third member of the cast is a half Kin, half human named Spanghew. He's considered an abomination by Kin society and human society isn't much kinder. At first he seems something of a joke character. Another obstacle to Tod in his inhuman pursuit of fulfilling his superiors commands. But over chapter by chapter, we see more of him and realize what's going on. His existance is a comfortable but tragic one. Adopted by a wealthy but childless couple, he lives well but with no official legal rights. He can't marry (being a hybrid he's sterile which means under the laws of the Church of life... No marriage for him). He can't inherent. He can't be considered a citizen and in many ways he's rather insane. He's had many relationships with curious women of both Kin and Human background but all those relationships are fleeting ones at best and he knows it. Because of his half in and half out status in society all of his friends, lovers and so on eventually move on. "They grow up" is how Spanghew puts it and you realize that he views his place in society as someone imprisoned in an external childhood. He can never have the rights of an adult, he can never be allowed to fulfill the responsibilities of an adult, he will always be viewed as half a person at best. So in public he adopts the role of the eternal teenager because why the fuck not? Spanghew gets involved when one of the few friends he has who didn't leave him was murdered in his home. Tod realizes Spanghew is holding on to important evidence and Spanghew uses it blackmail his way into the investigation. That said, Spanghew doesn't become a load around Tod's neck but instead is at times incredibly useful for reasons of his studies, money or use of the influence of his adoptive parents. He also is amazingly polite and cheerful in the face of Tod's rather rampant assholery (Spanghew makes the point that almost everyone thinks what Tod's says but Tod has the honesty to just say it to his face). It's not until much later in a scene set in a church run brothel (the church of life views sex as holy thing, because that's how you make more life, so you should have lots of sex) where a bribe is offered to him. The church can make him able to sire children or as the priestess puts it "We can fix you." Spanghew's response of screaming at the top of his lungs "I'M NOT BROKEN!" Pulls back the curtains of the hidden pain and rage that is in him. We don't get to see this inner font often but when we do, we're reminded that Spanghew isn't a joke and his societies treatment of him as one has a cost.

There are more characters here, from the thief that Tod is hunting who happens to be a famous adventurer (to be honest in a more standard fantasy novel this guy would be the protagonist). The various clan members of both Jillick and Tod. Like the details of the cultures we deal with we are feed parts and pieces of these characters leaving us guessing at their roles in the story. Are they allies? foes? Recurring individuals? Walk on parts? The mystery pulls you along as the Forwards refuse to make this a standard find the macguffin plot. We are also shown the the consequences of the holy relic of stuff's disappearance long before we're told. In fact when Spanghew finally digs it up in a Library, you're nodding along as it all makes sense with what you've already seen.

I also really enjoy the somewhat alien religions you deal with in Gyreworld, humans worship 9 divine forces (the Kin worship 3) that are very impersonal and focused. The "gods" aren't anthropomorphized here, their these vast alien forces that a person cannot hope to understand but many are driven by emotion and reason to serve. The sheer power that the priests and their devotees wield justify the political powers of the churches and you're never left wondering why these gods don't take a more direct hand in these things. Again we're not told these things, we're shown. Left to piece it together from things we hear and see while accompanying Tod, Jilliack and Spanghew in their quest. Which is I think one of the better ways to do it.

That said there are times when I want to scream at the Forwards to just get on with it. There's a bit of wondering around I felt we could have done without which means the plot isn't a tight as it could be. There are also several encounters which I felt were done mostly so the Forwards could show off this amazing world they built, not to tell a better story. There are also conflicts I felt we could have done without (Tod and his superior Badger Priest for example). That said it's hard to make that determination until the story is finished. Which I believe we are close to, as it stands Gyreworld weights in at 167 chapters.

Gyreworld gets a B, which is as high as it can go until it is finished. Once it is, I will revisit it and decide if the grade should be changed.

I'mmmmm bacccckkkk....

Steve · Post by **Steve** » Wed Dec 10, 2014 10:39 am

Two recommendations for you, Frig.

Scott Lynch's "Gentlemen Bastards" series, with three entries: The Lies of Locke Lamora, Red Seas Under Red Skies, and Republic of Thieves. My brother read it due to recommendations from Patrick Rothfuss on his site, Rothfuss being the author of the Kingkiller Chronicles. Think fantasy Ocean's 11.

Brian McClellan's Powder Mage Trilogy, currently with two entries: The Promise of Blood and The Crimson Campaign. Fantasy French Revolution and Napoleonic Era is how I'd sum it up. Well, mostly the former right now, I get the feeling the latter has yet to come - I still haven't started Book 2.

LadyTevar · Post by **LadyTevar** » Thu Dec 11, 2014 3:18 pm

I nominate Naomi Novik's "Temeraire" series.

This is the world Gen Havoc based the "Dragons in WWII" game on. In the novels, it's Dragons in Napoleonic Europe. Good read, imho, although the "Throne of Jade" is quite literally a slow boat to China.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 12:58 am

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You A Happy Birthday by Neil MacFarquhar.

Neil MacFaruhar has more experience then most with the middle east. Having spent a good part of his boyhood growing up in pre-coup Libya and a good chunk of his adulthood as a reporter for various papers in the middle east. Working in just about every nation there and sneaking into the ones he wasn't suppose to be working in, MacFaruhar developed a street level knowledge of the nations of the middle east that most of us don't have. He's decided to share his experiences and his knowledge in this book, giving us a peek at what's going on over there.

Or what was going on before the Arab Spring and the Syrian/Iraqi civil wars. Released in 2009, in a lot of ways the situations described simply don't exist anymore. Other situations, remain sadly unchanged.

We start with a view of his boyhood in Libya, before Qaddafi took over the nation. Interwoven into this is the realization of just how shallow his interaction with the native culture was when he was a boy. He lived in an enclave that was carefully built to maintain as much of a feeling of the west as possible you see. This left him with the desire to know more as an adult which he tried his level best to satisfy working as a journalist in the middle east. Nostalgia and regret for lost chances are themes in this book although I couldn't tell you if Mr. MacFaruhar meant for them to be there. Whether it's nostalgia for the Lebanon that existed in the 1950s and 60s, or the old Alexandra of Egypt or the many missed chances and mistakes of the United States that he points to the book (I'll get back to this).

The book takes us of a tour of the Islamic middle east, taking us from Morocco to Saudi Arabia. We meet professors, Imans, photographers, farmers, cooks and more. Because of this we get a multi layered view of middle east, one we don't often see in the news. We are allowed to meet these people on their terms and to come to grips with their view of the world and what they want. We see societies in the midst of an intense debate over what kind of societies they want to be, what kind of social and political freedoms should individuals have? What is the role of religion in society? The rights and roles of women? To say there is no consensus is putting it mildly. All across the middle east you see a deep well of support for some public and recognized role for Islam (or at least with the people MacFaruhar talks to, excluding some Christian co-workers, MacFaruhar doesn't really seem to want to touch on the non-Muslim or non-Arab minorities of the Middle East). At the same, that doesn't translate to wanting a Islamic theocracy or even the kind of heavily restricted society envisioned by the Muslim Brotherhood (who get their due coverage in this book as well, I can only wonder how many of the Brotherhood members who spoke to him are now in jail or dead).

We also see that there are at least 2 middle Easts. One is a region of rich oil states ruled by despots, who are ruthless in neutering dissent and at times use terrorism either as an excuse or a method of getting their way. The other Middle East is the place where millions of people actually live, the one where public service is at best shady, government is an exercise in surrealism and being young means having no job. It's in that middle east we meet people trying to make a better tomorrow, or a least a bearable today. Often in the face of resistance from their own government. It's here we learn about a ever present fixture in the Middle East outside of Israel and Turkey. The secret police. Even “moderate” nations like Jordan and Morocco have them and they will come down on you for making such mistakes as spray painting the wrong Arab proverb on the side of your alley wall (it could be misinterpreted you see).

One of things I learned in my brief stay in the Middle East is that Allah Akbar, “God is Great,” has been turned into a catch all phrase that could mean anything from down with the government, hooray for the local sports team, to fuck you. Seeing stories like the above it becomes very easy to understand why people would take the one phrase no one in the Middle East would ever dare ban and turn it into a catch all statement. Because they have no other options. It does kinda show why 1984's new speak idea would never work, but now I'm wondering into different topics.

One thing that held true in every nation was a deep frustration with their government, the slow pace of change and a undeniable desire for that change. We saw that in 2012 and all things considered I believe we will see it again. In Libya people were angry because their government kept changing the official calendar, meaning no could even be sure what day it was! No wonder they rebelled. Or in Saudi Arabia where the education system regulations means that every lesson must reference Islam in an open and basic way, often driving Math and Science professors near madness.

Another is a deep sense of skepticism about the United States Government and it's commitment to things like democracy and human rights. For one thing the communication and the government's bumbling of it are on a level that if I wrote it in a fiction book people would deride it as unrealistic. For example there's the fact that when a Chinese or Russian diplomat goes on Al Jazeera (like it or not, it's the biggest, most popular and at the moment freest news network in the middle east) they speak Arabic. An American? Often only speaks English. So basically the richest, most powerful nation in the world can't find enough Arabic speakers to ensure that the people who are in charge of communicating the US position to people... Speak a language that most of them can understand. Even our outreach programs meant to benefit the people on the ground seem to be at best clumsily done. There's a dairy program in Lebanon, where the US government buys cattle from American farmers at full price and sells them for much less to Lebanese farmers, or in some cases just donates them. Sounds good right? Expect the cows are lackluster at best and frankly aren't making enough milk to turn a profit (as far as a I can find, American farmers use the program to offload old and sick cattle onto the government who always pays full price). This damages the American reputation and makes it harder for other programs to take root. Not to mention costs us taxpayers money for no good return. The only people who benefit are American Dairy Farmers, who frankly already receive a lot of support as it is.

I walked away from this book with a slightly better understanding of what the Middle East was like on a street level and how American foreign policy was more then a little tone deaf. While honestly I don't think the average Arab won't ever be happy with us (I'm not about to abandon support for Israel for example which is something many of them dearly want), I still think we could and should do better. This book is also very good at humanizing the often faceless masses of the middle east, letting them tell us their desires, hopes and opinions. That in and of itself makes it a worthwhile book. It's biggest flaw besides not speaking about the Kurds, Turks, Jews and Christians in the middle east, is the fact that the ground itself has changed so radically. Two governments had fallen in Egypt, Syria and Iraq are in full blown civil war that has bred something darker and frankly more evil then Al Qaeda. While I then to believe that the Islamic state is something of a wild fire that will burn itself out, like a wild fire it's passing will have left the region changed. Whether for the better or for the worse is yet to be seen.

The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You A Happy Birthday by Neil MacFarquhar gets a A-. I would urge everyone with even a passing interest in the Middle East to read it.

Cynical Cat · Post by **Cynical Cat** » Thu Feb 05, 2015 1:59 am

If we are talking fiction, there is no question.

"The Thousandfold Thought"

"The Judging Eye"

"The White Luck Warrior"

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Fri Feb 27, 2015 1:44 am

Queen Mab Courtesy by Dr. Bruce Davis.

To continue my almost tradition of full disclosure (I'm told you have to do something 3 times before it's actually tradition), I do know Dr. Davis and have been lucky to be the close friend of his eldest son. In fact his eldest son gave me my copy of his book. His family have been very gracious and kind to me over the years and I remain continually grateful. That said I promise that everything I say about this book is because it's what I actually think, whether y'all believe that or not is up to you.

This is not Dr. Davis' first go around at writing, he has been in fact writing for some time which is impressive when you consider he is also a respected trauma surgeon for one of Arizona's many hospitals. A profession not known for having a lot of free time. Despite this Dr. Davis has over the years built up a good amount of written work. This is his first fiction work that I've read however.

Queen Mab Courtesy is his most recent fiction work, a near future science fiction that embraces a lot of the same themes and ideas of cyberpunk... Without the cyberpunk baggage (sooo much 80s... SOOO MUCH). Don't get me wrong, I love me some Cyberpunk although I tend to prefer the edge cases. For example, I love me some Shadowrun! Hoping to restart that game soon! That said Cyberpunk does tend to demand the use of certain tropes and themes some of whom I think are rather obsolete. It also tends to have writers thinking they can do nothing but style over substance or go way down in the depths of cyanical posturing without anything of any real weight to say. Frankly if I wanted that I could go watch the news. I'm not saying you can't have dark stories. I'm not saying that the bad guys can't win. But do something with that darkness don't just wave it around like a flag! Seriously, this kind of waste is just criminal.

**Cough**

Right, book review, sorry. Moving on. Queen Mab Courtesy takes place in the near future in the year 20something. How story focuses on a young man named Horacio 'Tito' Guzman. Tito is in many ways an unfortunate young man, although through no fault of his own. Tito is a Denver Dwarf, or to explain, he is someone who is born with massive birth defects due to a vaccine that wasn't properly tested. Now I'm sure you ask, why would we use an improperly tested vaccine on people? Simple. The vaccine was to contain a genetically engineered plague released in the worse terrorist attack in over a century. The terrorist group that committed this attack is frankly unimportant, what's more important are the effects that attack had on Tito and the society he has to live in. For example Tito is a dwarf and has eyes that are placed in a way that gives him a blind spot right in front of him. It makes reading somewhat difficult for him but he manages.

Let me talk about Tito for a second. Tito is a intelligent, determined young man who not only has to live with being treated like a circus freak by the average person but also a mental 5 year old. His gifts and talents are constantly denied and constrained. Anything good he finds in his life will inevitability be taken away. The best he can hope for in the system is a life of menial labor constantly supervised by people he could outsmart while high and drunk. Add in that his father disappeared when he was 3, pretty much abandoning him and his mother to the tender mercies of that system. His father was the man who invented the vaccine which makes Tito's own troubles somewhat ironic in a sense. As one can imagine all this has made him a tad angry and bitter. He is also deeply mistrusting of people and the society he must navigate. Let's talk about that society shall we?

The society is one that has become obsessed with safety and normalcy. Enormous powers have been ceded to the state in exchange for comfort and security. The police for the most part have been replaced with robot crawlers (although there are human supervisors you can demand to speak to). Citizenship has become more strictly defined, and means becoming part of a system that tracks everything about you. For example one of the robot police crawlers remembers a character that his water bill is due that day. Dr. Davis doesn't actually tell you any of this. You're left to infer this from Tito's commentary and the actions and statements of other characters. This is actually one of the things I like best about the book. The good Doctor resists the temptation to drop massive amounts of exposition on his readers and insists that if you want to know about the society that the story is taking place in, that you pay attention to that story and the characters within it. When done well and it is done well here, it's another thing that pulls you in because you frankly want to know more. It also prevents the flow of the story from being broken up with paragraphs of explanations a lot of people would rather skip (I'm looking at you Weber!). Another trap avoided here is politicizing this society. There are elements that could be considered right wing (omnipresent security state, surveillance and powers deferred to a corporation) and left wing (massive welfare state, incredible focus on comfort and avoiding offense etc). One thing that drags down a lot of distopian fiction in general is the authors standing up on a soap box to assure that if his political opponents win, THIS IS YOUR FUTURE! My usual reaction to that is to roll my eyes so hard that I'm left with a headache. This makes continued reading difficult honestly. Here we don't get that. The society here feels like something built in a bi partisan moment. Usually those are good things, but I'll remind you that bi partisan moments also created the Patriot Act. This society is a distopia but a comfortable one that could be cobbled together by Senators from both parties working together under popular demand after the deaths of way to many people.

There are people who have refused to become part of the machine and they aren't citizens. They're called blanks and they have no rights and live very dangerous lives on the edge of society. Tito isn't one of them but damn if he isn't trying. When the book opens Tito is fleeing from a police crawler for the grand crime of welfare evasion. See as a Denver Dwarf (the majority of the group suffering from mental disabilities that haven't effected Tito thankfully) Tito isn't a citizen but a ward of the state. He hates that and is determined to escape that fate. Unfortunately the robots know neither pity nor fear and as such are unmoved by Tito's determination to simply live his own life. Lucky for him this time he is aided in his escape by another character in this story, Charlemagne Sleazer, aka Charlie, who pretends to sell chestnuts for a living. In reality he makes his living by trading favors or what he calls “Courtesies.”

Charlie is a really fun character to read. He's flamboyant and eloquent and quotes literature in a fun way. He also doesn't do it so often that you get tired of it. We also never have to suffer from Charlie telling us what he can do. He just shows us. I'd like to note that to other writers, showing me instead of telling me things will get you many bonus points. Charlie does favors great and small, for people of all sorts of social stations from his land lady (who he gets smokes for, which he has to because tobacco is banned), a local grocery store owner, a computer programmer and more. Charlie is also interested in Tito, for reasons that will remain unstated in this review as they would be spoilers. After rescuing Tito, Charlie takes him as sorta of an apprentice in the fine art of favor trading. Tito and Charlie shadowrunners for hire in and of itself would have been an awesome book, but Dr. Davis ups the ante. Maybe a little to quickly but there are limitations of space to consider after all.

With the discovery of a dead man who doesn't exist, Charlie and Tito find themselves embarking on a investigation that will force both of them to confront their pasts. In Tito's case he'll find himself learning things about himself and his family that will both comfort and disturb him deeply. We'll also through flashbacks get a look at the major events of Tito's life, helping us learn why he's so angry. Frankly, you'll see he has good reason. I really enjoyed this book and frankly I think you will to. I've already given a copy of this book out as a gift. That said it wasn't perfect. There are parts of the book that drag a bit (I didn't care for the section of the book going over Tito's school days honestly, I felt the book could have done without that) and the book is maybe slightly over focused. It's good that it stays devoted to it's characters instead drowning the story in a desire to explain everything... But... This was a larger picture I really would like to have more of a look at. Other then that it's a great story about a young man coming to grips with his past while trying to avoid capture by the police and solve a murder.

Queen Mab Courtesy gets a A-.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Thu Apr 02, 2015 9:50 pm

The Bone Doll's Twin By Lynn Flewelling

“Black makes white. Foul makes pure. Evil creates greatness.”
Bone Doll's Twin chapter 1

This book was recommended to me by my little brother, yes, that's right being related to me means your recommendations get to the head of the line. Frigid Reads makes no bones of practicing old fashion Family Values and there's nothing more old fashion then letting kin jump the head of the line!

Anyways back to books. Written by Lynn Flewelling whose first book Luck in the Shadows was a finalist for the Compton Crook Award and picked by the editor of Locus Magazine as best first novel. The Bone Doll's Twin is a fantasy book published in 2001, it is Ms. Flewelling 3rd or 4th book and the beginning of a new series. This is the first book of her's I've read though. The story itself maintains a dark and creepy atmosphere through most of it, the offsetting moments only strengthening the overall themes running through the story.

The story is set on the peninsula nation of Skala, a former imperial province of another power (Plenimar) that lies across the sea from it. Nor it is the only nation with this background. Once under the rule of Priest Kings, Plenimar ruled all the nations bordering the inner and outer sea (which honestly look like the same bloody sea to me just broken by the peninsula of Skala but what do I know?). However like all empires do eventually, it fell and many of the provinces made their own way. Skala and other nations that share the sea with it must contend with Plenimar's constant attempts to bring them back into the imperial fold and in addition with Plenimar raiding their nations for goods and people to carry off into slavery.

Skala is in luck however as the gods of the setting have promised that as long as a Queen sits on the throne. For 300 years the divinely sanctioned Warrior Queens of Skala have held the nation safe and ensured it prospered. Which is actually a problem... Because the book opens with a King having planted his ass on the throne.

Now to be fair to King Erius, he did it because the Queen at the time (his mother) was batshit insane and killing everyone! That's a pretty good reason to overthrow a Monarch I think. Less defensible are his actions after taking the throne. For example... Murdering every woman who had royal blood expect his half sister, who he married off to a powerful nobleman for his support. This is where the story begins. Let me say up front that I really enjoy the villain, King Erius and his servants. He clearly starts out with good intentions and slides into villainy in the pursuit of staying in power. I can almost hear him rationalizing every act he does as being for the good of the nation... And if the good of the nation should make him more powerful and secure.. Well, it's all for the best isn't it? It makes him very human and understandable. Don't get me wrong, I hate his guts because he's a fucking baby murderer and an increasingly tyrannical ruler who is dragging his nation down in a paranoid quest to secure his own power. But it's a paranoid quest that makes sense and I can actually see a person doing! That means a bit to me.

Another villain is the King's wizard henchmen Niryn. As Erius paranoia grows, he suspects wizards and priests of plotting against him (to be fair... He ain't wrong) and with Niryn creates his own organization of wizards to register, number and police the wizards while beginning a bloody suppression of the priests of one god, while favoring another. Niryn is rarely ever present physically in the book, but his hand is often in evidence. In the white robed King Harriers enforcing his will, in the dead bodies being strung up everywhere our characters follow. In the numbering system that he enforces on behalf of the king and the system of informants and secret policemen that he creates. While the motivations of Niryn or his past are never discussed, it seems clear that he desires wealth and power, especially power over his fellow magic users. Additionally this is all done without ever making either of them view point characters. Which is good work in and of itself. So full points there!

The prologue is magnificent, focusing on a pair of wizards, Iya and Arkoniel, who are teacher and student. Iya, the elder of the two is the person to blame for this whole story. As she is granted a vision while visiting a oracle, which convinces her that she has two jobs. First, create a wizard organization and school. Second, put a queen back on the throne. The first job is easy and just involves traveling around the country to talk wizards into the idea. How does she intend to do the second job you ask? Lies, Politics, Black Magic and Infanticide (our Heroes ladies and gentlemen.). The only woman left with royal blood in her veins, is the King's little half sister Princess Ariani, married to the Duke Rhius an old war buddy of the King... Who now has doubts about being buddy buddy with a guy who has clearly gone over the line. Worried about his country and tempted by the thought of putting his daughter on the throne... He agrees to Iya's plan. The plan is simple. Ariani is pregnant with twins. A boy and a girl. Iya tracks down Lhel, a witch belonging to the original people of Skala who have been driven into the hills by the main characters people a long time ago. Lhel practices a different kind of magic then Arkoniel and Iya. A magic forbidden to them. Combining their magic abilities will allow them to craft something more then illusion but less then a full shape change to make Rhius and Ariani's daughter look and feel like a boy to everyone. Including herself. All they have do to do it... Is kill her twin. Iya makes it happen.

Iya is one of the main view point characters here and she is an interesting one. A woman and a wizard in her 3rd century of life. She shows a lot of certainty and courage. Having been granted a vision she is determined to do her part no matter the cost to herself or sometimes the cost to others. Iya frankly makes Abraham look like wuss here. Having been given orders by her god and told if this doesn't happen her nation is heading to ruin and destruction, she does not hesitate or turn aside. She spends years in the countryside tracking down wizard after wizard to recruit them into her secret society of wizardly cooperation. Making each one swear to support the Queen to come, leaving Duke Rhius to deal with the fall out of her actions that awful night.

Duke Rhius is another character who despite not getting a lot of time on center stage is made entirely human. He is up to his neck in a conscirpy to defy his best friend and to be blunt kill one of his children to save the other from said best friend (let me just say God save us all from such choices). He does this by lying to the wife he loves, the captain of his men who is practically a brother to him, dealing with forbidden magics and afterwards doing whatever it takes to keep the King from being suspicious. He does this all despite the guilt and doubt that is clearly gnawing at his soul the entire time. He is the only character in this little plot to ask hey wait a minute couldn't we do this another way? While his doubt is shown openly by having him question Iya and later Arkoniel. Ms. Flewelling shows this guilt subtly without having him beat his breast or whimper in corners about the state of his soul. This is a book where you'll have to pay attention to catch these details but they're there. Sometimes they pop out in his dealings with his wife, who was driven insane by the fallout of that night... And his daughter Tobin.

Ah, Tobin. Our protagonist and main view point character.... And the source of most of my problems with this book. Just for the record, I am going to use feminine pronouns for Tobin despite the fact that physically she's a boy in this book. Her boyhood is a magically created lie to protect her, she is actually a girl and for simplicity sake's I'm simply going to refer to her as a girl. After that amazing prologue/1st chapter... I am forced to deal with several chapters of 7/8 year old Tobin trying to piece together just why her life is the way it is. Why is her mother insane? Why is her father often gone? Why is she haunted by a angry spirit that torments almost everyone in her home? Why does she live in a fortress out in the middle of nowhere? You know... Questions we already had have been fully shown the answer to! Frankly I hate that. I hate having crawl through a character figuring out things we already know. There's no mystery or excitement in that! There's only me waiting for the bloody character to catch the fuck up so the story can go somewhere I haven't been! I don't blame Tobin for this, as far she knows she's the first born son of one of the most powerful men in her nation and she is a perfectly normal boy... As far as she knows. Tobin isn't written as a genius child either (which I am okay with)or has Harry Potter but as a perfectly normal kid all things considered. Which means she is terrified of her mother, adores her father and is in turns freaked out and utterly enthralled by the spirit that roams her home. She also is consumed with the desire to be the greatest warrior possible. Mainly I think because that brings her approval and attention, which she gets very little of from her parents. She also gets a lot of acclaim for being an artist has she is capable of great works with wood and wax. I enjoy this part of her character. I am forced to spend more time with Tobin flailing about then I would like, while Iya and Arkoniel are out doing interesting shit. That honestly annoys me, Tobin is the least interesting person in this book but is also the one person I have to spend the most time with.

Thankfully, Ms. Flewelling fixes this by having Arkoniel come to live with Tobin after yet another tragedy slams into her life. Let me talk about Arkoniel, because he is a character we also spend a lot of time with as well. Arkoniel is a young man full of idealism and fire and that loads him with guilt and a powerful desire to do right by Tobin and her family. He also has a vision from his god and it drives him to make his own path in life, leaving Iya to become a tutor and protector to Tobin eventually. He fully believes in the future that Iya is pursuing but hasn't bought in fully to her methods in some cases I think. His relationship with Lhel is a complicated one, he wants the knowledge she has whether it be forbidden or not. But he's also afraid and tempted by her. He doesn't want that knowledge for power sake though, but for two reasons. One he thinks he'll need it to guard Tobin from her enemies. Two, for knowledge's own sake. Arkoniel is one of my favorites here and I enjoyed anytime he was the center of the book. His constant quest to try and do right by Tobin and give her a decent life while everyone else kinda sees her as a tool to be used or a precious object to be hidden way makes him a breath of fresh air.

Arkoniel's return also brings the witch Lhel back into the picture to explain things to Tobin and teach her how to control the angry spirit... Who is the ghost of her murdered brother, chained to her by the magic Lys and Lhel performed the night of their birth. The key to controlling the spirit that Tobin names Brother? A doll crafted by her mother that hides the part of the physical remains of the boy (I did mention creepy right?). Arkoniel also brings in another child character, a country Lord's son named Ki.

Ki is bloody awesome. His appearance compels Tobin to do things and interact with someone beyond an adult-child level. I am supremely thankful for Ki being in this book. He is easily my favorite character. The only person here with a sense of humor and an earthy easy understanding of people. Add in a devoted loyality to Tobin and you got a great kid running around in this book who humanizes Tobin to a great degree. Ki is also the only one willing to meet Tobin at her level and accept her for who she is. Frankly, to my thinking that means there's a huge target on the poor boy's back.

On the flip side we have Lhel, who I am of two minds of. Lhel seems less of a character at times and more of a plot device. Her job is to pass information on to other characters, often challenging their understanding of the world around them and to represent a completely different way of life. But I'm often left groping for a handle on her character. I get that she's a practitioner of an older, rawer form of magic than Iya and Arkoniel with different rules (Iya and Arkoniel get their powers by having ancestry that isn't entirely human and live under rules to maintain it, Lhel gets her power through... I'm not actually sure). I get that she's a representative of a different people and has a different way of viewing things. I don't get what she wants or what she actually believes besides some grab bag Wiccan style paganism with yin/yang elements. She's left her home to teach Tobin and Arkoniel and lives out in the wilderness for years maintaining a watch over Brother and she claims that's the price she bares for creating the spell that makes Tobin look like a boy in the first place. But I'm left with more questions then answers and I'm not entirely sure I believe Lhel.

After Ki is introduced, another tragedy hits and Tobin is forced to come to live in the capital. There we meet Tobin's cousin, the heir to the throne and his court. The prince is a nice teenager, if rowdy but slowly going to rot being left in the capital with no responsibilities and a strong desire to join his father in his wars. We also made very aware of certain realities that Tobin has been sheltered from. First off, draugth and plague have been hammering the country for years now. The poor ride the ragged edge of starvation, which only makes them more vulnerable to plagues that flare up killing thousands if not more. Also... Tobin's home is at war. Sick of the constant raiding and needing loot to pay for imported food (and something to keep people's mind off the idea that this might be a punishment from the Gods for having a King instead of a Queen like they were told to), King Erius has gathered together an alliance to attack Plenimar directly and teach them a lesson. This war is however increasingly costly. This section is rather brief but we do see more portents, as Tobin sees more ghosts and spirits. We also see the children of the nobility that frankly are a mixed bag.

The story starts with Tobin's birth and ends with her... Well let me be blunt about it, it ends with her having her first period. Which is the event where Tobin finally learns that she is not a boy and what happened to Brother in the first place. Sadly, we don't get to see the fall out of this in the book. The book ends there with Lhel creating an even more powerful spell using Brother's bones to keep Tobin looking and feeling like a boy and Tobin reeling under the revelation that her entire life has been a lie. That made me scream with frustration right there! You've been building up to this the whole book and then you tell me to get another book to answer the question! Dirty Pool Ms. Flewelling, this is behavior I hate when I see it from Hollywood, forget the book industry. Still I knew this was a trilogy going in.

The Bone Doll's Twin gets a B-. Well written and masterfully plotted but making me deal with a kid stumbling about to find answers I already know for chapter after chapter and not letting me view the full resolution that you've building up to is going to cost you. I do however recommend it if you're into dark fiction and willing to start a new series. Hopefully when I pick up the 2nd book, Tobin will be more interesting.

frigidmagi · Post by **frigidmagi** » Tue Apr 07, 2015 1:12 am

A Bridge of Birds by Barry Hughart

“Take a large bowl, fill it with equal measures of fact, fantasy, history, mythology, science, superstition, logic and lunacy. Darken the mixture with bitter tears, brighten it with howls of laughter, toss in three thousands years of civilization, bellow kan pei, which means 'dry cup' and drink to the dregs.”

“And will I be wise?”

“Better, you'll be Chinese.”

Dialogue between Li Kao and Procopius, page 29.

A Bridge of Birds is the first spacebattles recommendation, but it won't be the last. Set in a China that never was but should have been, it's a tale of a simple quest that starts simple and quickly explodes into a complex, gloriously entertaining mess. Given that the book won the World Fantasy Award in 1985 and the Mythopeic Award in 1986. Which makes it one of the more accomplished books I've done a review for on this blog. Despite this, I am more then willing to add my two cents. Let me start with the author of course.

Written by Mr. Hughart, who currently resides in Tucson Arizona. Mr. Hughart has a lot of experience in Asia, having served in Japan and Korea with the United States Air Force and working with a military surplus company that was based out of Asia. Interestingly enough, he admits in interviews that while he's read many classics of Chinese literature, he has never visited China due to the cold war (his service was during the 50's). He wasn't even allowed to visit Hong Kong. His exposure to eastern culture shows in the book. While it doesn't have the same voice as the Journey to the West (but then, the Chinese parts of Asia are big places and there is plenty of rooms for more then one voice therein), it still feels like a Chinese story, instead of a Western story set in China. Let me clarify that, Mr. Hughart writes like a man who has sat down and read the classics of Chinese literature and taken a deep drink of the culture. That said I wouldn't say he writes like a native, just someone really familiar with the old culture of China. Of course I should point out that I am no where near an expert in China so I could be completely off base here. Anyways, I was sad to find out that this is the first book in a series that will never be finished. Mr. Hughart had wanted to write 7 books but due to disagreements with his publishers (among them selling it in the fantasy lot), books 4-7 were never written. I am told that book 3 might change my mind about this being a sad thing, but I digress

The story begins when the children of the village of Ku-Fu are poisoned while harvesting feed for silk worms. Lu Yu (not to be confused with the famous man who wrote The Classic of Tea) who goes by the name Number Ten Ox is charged by his aunt to find them a sage. Unfortunately she gives him 5000 copper coins and as anyone who has played a fantasy RPG can tell you... Copper coins will buy you about 2/3rd of a cup of give a fuck and not a drop more. This is demonstrated to us when Number Ten Ox doesn't even make it pass the doormen of most the sages for hire. Lucky for our protagonist, he discovers there is a sage willing to work for cheap. Surname Li, personal name Kao and with a slight flaw in his character... If you consider being a drunk, a thief, a liar and a cheat all slight flaws anyways. That said, Master Li may just be the smartest guy in all of China, which is pretty damn smart, he's willing to go to insane lengths to finish the job, his professional ethics are impeccable and he'll work for copper coins. So you know... He'll do.

Let me discuss our two main characters here. Number Ten Ox is a village kid with large muscles and a bigger heart. The story is told from his point of view, which leads to an interesting situation where a number of nearly superhuman feats are down played because Ox is a modest boy. While he is a good boy, he's also willing to go the mat to save the children of his village. If that means dealing with bandits, monsters and gods... Well that's what he'll do. He plays a lot of roles in this book, he's a dashing hero, a lying liar who lies, a man mourning a lost love, an innocent farm boy and a sage's treasured pupil. If there was a traditional hero in this story Number Ten Ox would be it. He's also the audience stand in some situations, as being from a tiny little village, he of course doesn't know all that much about some of the figures and places that he and Li Kao find themselves in. Course Li Kao will be happy to explain that.

Let's take a look at Li Kao, a man with a colorful past that ranges from imperial palaces to the dirty gutters. When Number Ten Ox's find him he's passed right out and all he wants is a jar of cheap wine (the kind you can buy with copper coins). Give him a tipple and a job though... And he doesn't give a crap about wine. Which kinda suggest whatever his problem is, it's not an addiction to booze. Older then old (oh to be 90 again I can hear him sigh) and with every ounce of the kind of sly, wicked wisdom that comes from surviving misspent decades. That said, while at times venal, I wouldn't call him evil or all that bad. A little corrupt perhaps, but his predatory urges seem restricted to people who are just as bad or even worse. Yeah, this is a guy who is willing to lie, cheat and murder to get the job done but frankly this is a guy trying to save the lives of dozens of children for a bowl of copper coins he already spent going up against people who are wealthy and as vile as ripe sewage. I kinda find it hard to hold his flaws against him in such a situation especially given the people I am forced to compare him to.

The villains in this story are uniformly wealthy, powerful people who think nothing of bringing ruin and pain to everyone around them. Often for the most petty reasons. We all know people like this so sadly these people are incredibly realistic despite their fantastic surroundings. I mean we have the Ancestress, based on Empress Dowager Ci xi, a woman who started as an imperial concubine and worked her up to ruler of China. She was however utter crap at it on a account of only being interested in her own comfort and rights. Thrown out of power and exiled to the countryside she plots revenge and makes the life everyone around her utterly miserable. S Then there's the Duke of Chin, who rules from behind a Tiger mask so every Duke of Chin will be the same as the first. This is a guy who when told that the crops of a village had been destroyed and the peasants begged for tax relief so they could rebuild, kills everyone and burns down the village. Compared to people like this, Li Kao could be nominated for sainthood.

The recurring minor characters are also joys and interesting case studies of the skill of a good writer. I found myself cheering on the scholar Henpecked Ho on his murderous rampage. This book made me cheer on a man going on an axe murder spree! I felt sorry for Miser Shen. The story of Bright Star was tragic and moving. Minor characters are given just enough color to feel like actual people with interesting stories, but they never overshadow our heroes. This is a tough tightrope to walk but it's done with panache here.

The story itself is broken up into episodes as our heroes chase down leads, encounter obstacles and learn more about the increasingly high stakes game they've bellied up to. Form trying to figure out the proper cure, to hunting it down and more. Each episode reads as a nearly contained story in and itself which is an interesting way to write a book. At the end of each episode they return to the village and it's there we usually get revelations about Number Ten Ox, or the village itself that plays into the story later down the line. That said, we learn more about the children of the village then the adults. They (excluding our buddy Ox of course) don't do much besides sit vigils by their kids. There's the abbot of the village temple of course and his job is basically to nod with Li Kao and confirm that he's a genius. As well as assist with the treatments they come up with. Besides that the village is the most lifeless part of the book, which is damn odd. Part of it might be that every moment past the first chapter we spend in the village the characters are preparing to be somewhere else. We learn a lot more about the life and past times of the children of the village. We learn about their games, relationships and more. This is despite most of them never getting a line here. Don't get me wrong, there is color to the village, mostly in the misplaced section of the Wall of China, the general who built there claimed he was ordered to by heaven itself. The wall called the Dragon's Pillow is a bit of curiosity and plays a part in the story. As does the ghost who sits watch over the wall.

That ghost isn't the only one! You'll run into several ghosts reading this story, each with their own story and often with a task that our heroes must perform to complete their mission. The ghosts work pretty well. They often work to introduce a touch of the fantastic as well as advance the plot. Additionally we see brief but interesting appearances of Taoists and they are set in the right role. That of people living pretty outside of the Confucius order of society and subtly critical of it. In fact, I would suspect that Li Kao is himself a Taoist given some of his comments. The whole book itself has some subtle criticisms of ruling parties who get to wrapped up in their privileges and wealth to remember just what they're suppose to be doing. Which ironically plants it firmly in the Taoist tradition, which I am aware of but haven't really looked into.

Bridge of Birds gets an A. It's one of the best fantasy works I've read and I encourage everyone to give it a tour.

General Havoc · Post by **General Havoc** » Wed Apr 08, 2015 4:06 pm

I second this recommendation. Bridge of Birds is a staggeringly good work of fantasy, and everyone should read it.

LibriumArcana.Games

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