Before every editing pass, I ask myself what have I got wrong and what might I improve.
Membership of the former is not necessary for membership of the latter. There’s always been elements where I think I’ve executed them well but can see room to even better. Part of me worries that’s the sign of a writer who’ll never get anything out but as long as I continue to learn, I can - and probably should - ignore that worry.
This current pass is mostly about a few last teething issues in the subplot and minor characterisation. The prose, main arc, major characters and worldbuilding seems to be mostly there. I’ve been told by multiple published authros that the opening three chapters work. It is a strong foundation but still I look. The market is cutthroat, the bar is high, and hopefully one day I must stand by this book in public.
To know how to improve though, one mist first know what the desired end goal is. “A really good book!” Okay, great. What makes a really good book. “Fascinating characters, good prose, unpredictable yet satisfying stories”. Okay, that’s closer, but what makes a character fascinating? Makes prose good? And hey, didn’t you just finish reading your book of the year which was on a lot of levels, very predictable but succeeded anyway? This question is one that can produce more questions ad infinitum if the writer wishes it to. At some point, they need to put their foot down and say “This answer works for me”. That moment needs to come before all fire and inspiration for the project is gone.
This is an attempt to produce that answer on story.
I think that if there is one quality all great stories share it is focus. The storyteller has, consciously or subconsciously, found something that matters to them about the story and they will not shut up about it. In doing so they give their story intensity and passion, cohesiveness and theme. It can be taken too far, it can lead to the sort of bloated storytelling you see in Wheel of Time. But if steered, it will make stories come alive in readers’ heads. I know what I want my story to be. I don’t know whether that focus is in every scene though. That’s something I want to do.
What else?
Great stories live on a knife’s edge of surprising us and doing what we expect. Think I’ve got that. They constantly make us ask questions. Well, I got plenty of questions from the betas, and not just “What made you think this was a good idea you nimrod?” And while most of them do need some sort of answer, the best questions are those that live on in the mind after the book is done and the answers are only hinted at.
Honestly, having dwelt on it, I’m not sure what else there is to say here. Good stories fascinate us because of the surprises and emotional thrills and the things they have to say about the reality we know. There’s a thousand ways to get there but the end goal in terms of impact is similar. I know what sort of thrill I want to give.
Now it is just about making sure it is there in every scene it should be.
Thursday, 30 January 2020
Tuesday, 28 January 2020
The Traitor by Seth Dickinson
You know, The Traitor Baru Comorant is a far more awesome title, I don't know why they changed it to just The Traitor
Hush shadow voice. You're not needed for this one.
I beg your pardo-
The Traitor is my book of the year. Calling it now. I've got a lot of exciting sounding books on my list for this year but they're battling for second place. Maybe I'll just stop reading fiction for the rest of the year and, I dunno, run away to a monastery or something. Or work on my own writing (hahaha no).
It is a phenomenal achievement. It is crammed full with detail. It has an enthralling plot and level of characterisation. It has the emotional impact of a mushroom cloud-laying motherfucker. I'm honestly not sure I have a review beyond read it unless it really doesn't sound like your thing and I'm so sorry for you if it isn't. But you clicked the link, so you deserved an attempt at one.
There are a few things I didn't like about The Traitor. One is that my natural instinct is to read books with this much detail slowly, and to read books with plots this compelling very quick, and the contradiction between my instincts was genuinely quite distressing.
Another is it used "Fire" as a command for archers and that is a sure sign of a degenerate mind to begin with, but slightly more jarring when the world is so richly constructed. If there was muskets and I forgot them, forgive me.
Most seriously... The Traitor is painful in general, but the opening chapters (after maybe the first one or two) are heavy with it. I'm kinda with Ursula Le Guin on the boredom of pain (or at least I am when it's used that heavily), which meant I found those chapters fairly boring. Fascinating, but boring. I let that go though. It is necessary to establish why Baru Comorant is who she is and why she will do what she does. You can keep me waiting for my drink a little if it is the nectar of the gods.
You sure? Look, you need me. You can't do a review yo-
Very sure.
The Traitor is the tale of a child whose home is conquered by a colonising power that makes sweeping social changes, resulting in the death of one of her parents. Rather than spending that hate on raging rebellion, she seeks power within the Empire to avenge them and maybe even end that regime. And as a preciously intelligent child, a picked favourite of a suspiciously influential merchant, she absolutely gets a chance at power. She gets it as the Imperial Accountant of a far off, troublesome, recently conquered province named Aurdwynn.
Aurdwynn is a delight to read about, the sort of detailed, non-mirroring, slightly alien secondary world culture I adore. You can see elements of its influences but they are coherent parts of the whole. Its people are savage in their sentiments, civilised in their habits, and philosophical in their thoughts and approaches to life. They are hard to rule given their loyalty to their dukes, each part loyal to its own particular ruler and family. To say there is a collision course is no spoiler.
Which brings me back to pain. This is a story about people undergoing hugely traumatic experiences. Dickinson doesn't flinch from making that point. Not one iota. But nor does he flinch from showing that they're still alive, and that while alive they can and will have joy and laughter. This balance makes The Traitor more than just pain, although it does seem a somewhat masochistic pleasure at times. It is bittersweet, and addictive, and real. Baru Comorant lives in a world of tangled relationships and seemingly mutually incompatible truths, just like real people, except her relationships and truths have the clarity that fiction requires. It's a hell of an achievement.
That worldbuilding and character making is only part of what gives it so much detail and density. The other part is the prose. Dickinson's prose borders on the ornate and is filled with unexpected metaphors (that almost always makes sense). Sentences will catch the eye and demand multiple reads. Of all the better written books I ever read, to memory now I can't recall.
But then there is the plot. I shall give no spoilers that I have not already done so, but will note that it is swift moving and as viciously twisty as the roads in The Italian Job. What's more, Dickinson more or less tells you pretty early on how it's going to go. And I read along rabidly anyway, curious as to the how, unsure as to whether it could really go like that. The need to know was strong enough that I flicked to the back to spoil it for myself. It still gripped me incredibly strong.
Long story short, The Traitor has all of the elements of a good book done to more or less my ideal of perfection. Before I wrap up this review, I'd just like to touch on theme for a moment. For me,one of the great overriding themes of Fantasy that we took from mythology and more or less can't escape from, is Power. It is about having the Power to Protect Our Tribe, and therefore the Power to Menace Our Tribe. Well, The Traitor is about power, but Baru doesn't have that particular power. Only the ability to menace other people's, on the behalf of other people's, in the hope that one day it will all come good. That doesn't change the consequences of her actions though or the cost to her identity. What does this mean? I would need so much more words and spare processing power for that. But, thematically, the book delivers.
It just delivers everywhere. I am an upbeat, pro-focused reviewer as a norm, sometimes worried I stray into hyperbole and over-generosity, but I am worried I haven't adequately described greatness here. The only real true negative is it feels like I need to lay down and process this book afterwards; I don't think I have yet. It weighs on me and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Read The Traitor. You probably won't love it as much as me, but give yourself that chance, for sweet lord is it something to love.
Hush shadow voice. You're not needed for this one.
I beg your pardo-
The Traitor is my book of the year. Calling it now. I've got a lot of exciting sounding books on my list for this year but they're battling for second place. Maybe I'll just stop reading fiction for the rest of the year and, I dunno, run away to a monastery or something. Or work on my own writing (hahaha no).
It is a phenomenal achievement. It is crammed full with detail. It has an enthralling plot and level of characterisation. It has the emotional impact of a mushroom cloud-laying motherfucker. I'm honestly not sure I have a review beyond read it unless it really doesn't sound like your thing and I'm so sorry for you if it isn't. But you clicked the link, so you deserved an attempt at one.
There are a few things I didn't like about The Traitor. One is that my natural instinct is to read books with this much detail slowly, and to read books with plots this compelling very quick, and the contradiction between my instincts was genuinely quite distressing.
Another is it used "Fire" as a command for archers and that is a sure sign of a degenerate mind to begin with, but slightly more jarring when the world is so richly constructed. If there was muskets and I forgot them, forgive me.
Most seriously... The Traitor is painful in general, but the opening chapters (after maybe the first one or two) are heavy with it. I'm kinda with Ursula Le Guin on the boredom of pain (or at least I am when it's used that heavily), which meant I found those chapters fairly boring. Fascinating, but boring. I let that go though. It is necessary to establish why Baru Comorant is who she is and why she will do what she does. You can keep me waiting for my drink a little if it is the nectar of the gods.
You sure? Look, you need me. You can't do a review yo-
Very sure.
The Traitor is the tale of a child whose home is conquered by a colonising power that makes sweeping social changes, resulting in the death of one of her parents. Rather than spending that hate on raging rebellion, she seeks power within the Empire to avenge them and maybe even end that regime. And as a preciously intelligent child, a picked favourite of a suspiciously influential merchant, she absolutely gets a chance at power. She gets it as the Imperial Accountant of a far off, troublesome, recently conquered province named Aurdwynn.
Aurdwynn is a delight to read about, the sort of detailed, non-mirroring, slightly alien secondary world culture I adore. You can see elements of its influences but they are coherent parts of the whole. Its people are savage in their sentiments, civilised in their habits, and philosophical in their thoughts and approaches to life. They are hard to rule given their loyalty to their dukes, each part loyal to its own particular ruler and family. To say there is a collision course is no spoiler.
Which brings me back to pain. This is a story about people undergoing hugely traumatic experiences. Dickinson doesn't flinch from making that point. Not one iota. But nor does he flinch from showing that they're still alive, and that while alive they can and will have joy and laughter. This balance makes The Traitor more than just pain, although it does seem a somewhat masochistic pleasure at times. It is bittersweet, and addictive, and real. Baru Comorant lives in a world of tangled relationships and seemingly mutually incompatible truths, just like real people, except her relationships and truths have the clarity that fiction requires. It's a hell of an achievement.
That worldbuilding and character making is only part of what gives it so much detail and density. The other part is the prose. Dickinson's prose borders on the ornate and is filled with unexpected metaphors (that almost always makes sense). Sentences will catch the eye and demand multiple reads. Of all the better written books I ever read, to memory now I can't recall.
But then there is the plot. I shall give no spoilers that I have not already done so, but will note that it is swift moving and as viciously twisty as the roads in The Italian Job. What's more, Dickinson more or less tells you pretty early on how it's going to go. And I read along rabidly anyway, curious as to the how, unsure as to whether it could really go like that. The need to know was strong enough that I flicked to the back to spoil it for myself. It still gripped me incredibly strong.
Long story short, The Traitor has all of the elements of a good book done to more or less my ideal of perfection. Before I wrap up this review, I'd just like to touch on theme for a moment. For me,one of the great overriding themes of Fantasy that we took from mythology and more or less can't escape from, is Power. It is about having the Power to Protect Our Tribe, and therefore the Power to Menace Our Tribe. Well, The Traitor is about power, but Baru doesn't have that particular power. Only the ability to menace other people's, on the behalf of other people's, in the hope that one day it will all come good. That doesn't change the consequences of her actions though or the cost to her identity. What does this mean? I would need so much more words and spare processing power for that. But, thematically, the book delivers.
It just delivers everywhere. I am an upbeat, pro-focused reviewer as a norm, sometimes worried I stray into hyperbole and over-generosity, but I am worried I haven't adequately described greatness here. The only real true negative is it feels like I need to lay down and process this book afterwards; I don't think I have yet. It weighs on me and I wouldn't have it any other way.
Read The Traitor. You probably won't love it as much as me, but give yourself that chance, for sweet lord is it something to love.
Wednesday, 22 January 2020
Line of Duty and Stories within Machines
My most recent televisual obsession has been a rewatch of Line of Duty, Jed Mercurio's tour de force crime drama. For those unaware of the show, it follows AC-12 - an anti-corruption unit that finds itself pressing on the edges of very big crimes as it seeks to root out graft in the thin blue line. I forget where I first read it, but one of Mercurio's big interests as a storyteller is what it's like to be a human in these big bureaucratic machines. As such, it's not a surprise that he picked a police unit that investigates the machine for this story.
Nor is it a surprise that the first we see of our hero Steven Arnott (played by Martin Compston), he's busy in the role of cog in the machine. He's tactical command on an anti-terror operation, which means having somebody else give him orders on the phone, which he then relays to the police going in, all while doing the risk assessment paperwork on the bonnet of his car. When it goes horribly wrong, the machine jumps into action to protect its own. And when Steve objects, he's forced out of his unit and into AC-12 - a cop investigating other coppers.
The first target stuck in front of him by his new commander, the bluff and slightly self-important Ulsterman Ted Hastings (played wonderfully by Adrian Dunbar), is the Officer of the Year no less; Tony Gates (played with scene stealing verve by Lennie James). And really, Line of Duty's first season is all about the clash and contrast between Arnott and Gates. There's a lot in common between Arnott and Gates - working class lads, ladies' men, combative, believers in the police and its purpose and officers - but the crucial difference is their reaction to the machine. Arnott won't go along with it, even when its making life hard for him. Gates makes it work for him. And it's here that Mercurio got everything out of casting Lennie James - a black actor - because Gates' ethnicity in relationship to being in law enforcement gives him an immediate history. We implicitly understand he had to fight the machine to get where he is as well.
At heart, line of duty is a story that excels due to the compelling nature of its confrontations and the way they constantly evolve due to the continuous accretion of small details that change what viewer and character know. The way the characters' stances mirror the plot as a result keeps the shocks and surprises meaningful even as a rewatch.
Nor is it a surprise that the first we see of our hero Steven Arnott (played by Martin Compston), he's busy in the role of cog in the machine. He's tactical command on an anti-terror operation, which means having somebody else give him orders on the phone, which he then relays to the police going in, all while doing the risk assessment paperwork on the bonnet of his car. When it goes horribly wrong, the machine jumps into action to protect its own. And when Steve objects, he's forced out of his unit and into AC-12 - a cop investigating other coppers.
The first target stuck in front of him by his new commander, the bluff and slightly self-important Ulsterman Ted Hastings (played wonderfully by Adrian Dunbar), is the Officer of the Year no less; Tony Gates (played with scene stealing verve by Lennie James). And really, Line of Duty's first season is all about the clash and contrast between Arnott and Gates. There's a lot in common between Arnott and Gates - working class lads, ladies' men, combative, believers in the police and its purpose and officers - but the crucial difference is their reaction to the machine. Arnott won't go along with it, even when its making life hard for him. Gates makes it work for him. And it's here that Mercurio got everything out of casting Lennie James - a black actor - because Gates' ethnicity in relationship to being in law enforcement gives him an immediate history. We implicitly understand he had to fight the machine to get where he is as well.
At heart, line of duty is a story that excels due to the compelling nature of its confrontations and the way they constantly evolve due to the continuous accretion of small details that change what viewer and character know. The way the characters' stances mirror the plot as a result keeps the shocks and surprises meaningful even as a rewatch.
It is a particularly smart choice for a story about the machinery of the police, a machine made to gather information and that consumes the lives of its members. The details will be there anyway, because that's what the police do, so use them for all they are. Use them to up the intensity and dynamism of the character relationships in a way that is rarely done to the utmost in police dramas.
The other big benefit that comes from the accretion of small details is that it is easier to deliver shocks that feel dramatically right because the foreshadowing can be found in many little packets rather than one big obvious shape. It's why R+L = J blew so many people's minds the first time they read that theory and it is why Line of Duty is able to deliver so many huge shocks without losing its audience. And the huge shocks are needed as payouts to the audience's patience with the accretion.
And without trying to give away too many details, a lot of how Line of Duty's first season works is the way Arnott and Gates, mirror images of each other, gradually go through journeys that reverse some of their polarity. Arnott starts find a home and mission in AC-12; he ceases raging at the machine and finds his place in it again. Gates, under pressure from AC-12 and mistakes in his own private life, starts going rogue. Getting to see the story from both angles gives us a fuller appreciation of what the machine does to you; the pressure, the camaraderie, the empty hole when it's no longer there.
In its later seasons, Line of Duty moved away from the concentration on the police's internal machinations and more onto the characters' lives, and focused more on characters other than Arnott. In particular Kate Fleming often seems to be the star of the show, insomuch as the star is anyone other than the guest star getting to play the copper under suspicion. It probably made better TV but the first season of Line of Duty is unusual and special. It's like an early Le Carre book in its obsession over dry detail and how an organisational machine is a character in its own right. It is a very hard thing to do right, but when done right the effect is phenomenal. And I think there's lessons in how Line of Duty made it work for all stories dealing with the machines of society.
Monday, 20 January 2020
Daggerspell In Depth Review Pt 1
Awright.
I dunno if we've got any other compulsive re-readers in the house but I find that after a few, I know things so well that I don't really have to pay attention, which means my mind wanders and finds new and interesting things in the text. And that happened during this re-read, so I decided instead of doing one review for the whole book, I'd do reviews really digging into what's going on in 60 page segments.
Excited? No? Good.
Prologue in the Year 1045: They usually tell writers to avoid word repetition. Consider then the opening lines:
"In the hall of light, they reminded her of her destiny. There, all was light, a pulsing gold like the heart of a candle flame, filling eternity. The speakers were pillars of fire within the fiery light, and their words were sparks."
That's a lot of light. And I like it. I like the use of deliberate repetition to hammer home a point and here the point is that we are in a place that isn't reality as we know. It's a place of light, of flames, of vast forces greater than humanity. And as we shortly find out, this is a place where a human soul exists before birth. And as the quote right before the prologue says:
"Men see life going from a dark to a darkness. The gods see life as a death..."
The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
One of the big fantasy elements here is reincarnation. If it wasn't obvious from the blurb, Kerr has made it super obvious in these opening pages. Proclamation of big themes is something that I think validates the use of prologues and if we've already got reincarnation, we're about to get one of the others:
"These spirits of wind had faces, and she realised that she too now had a face, because they were all human and far from the light. When they spoke to her of fleshy things, she remembered lust, the ecstasy of flesh pressed against flesh."
We'll see how it goes but trust me, lust comes up a lot, both on that page (5 times!) and in the book in general. Which is - ironically to some - something that's not always true of Fantasy. And I will say at this point that while I think Daggerspell is very much representative of its type and era, there are some elements about it that feel a bit off-piste as is true of all great fiction. The focus on lust is one of those elements. Also, when you compare this sense of earthly lust and flesh vs the world of pure light, you can see why the gods consider life as a death.
But now we cut away from this otherworldly scene to meet Nevyn, the shabby old herbman who treats the poor yet strides around like a young prince and whose gaze commands respect even from the noble born - a neat little bit of worldbuilding tossed in as an aside. He's also a 400 year old dweomerman (sorcerer). He's busy looking for herbs in Eldidd when he sees an omen related to the birth of the human we've just seen:
"Out in the meadow, two larks broke cover with a heartbreaking beauty of song that was a battle cry. Two males swept up, circling and chasing each other. Yet even as they fought, the female who was their prize rose from the grass and flew indifferently away."
I ask you to consider for a moment how many stories - books, movies, myths, in Fantasy and outside - end with a female as a male's prize. It is as the stars in the sky. And here's Katherine Kerr saying clearly on the third page of text: Fuck. That. Noise. Yes, the males' competition might have a "heartbreaking beauty" - there's no hate here - just that women aren't prizes.
It's an interesting decision to have two different scenes in a prologue - I've rarely seen anything like it. The contrast of writing styles is fun, but I'm not sure how much that adds. I think the real answer is the two scenes allowed Kerr to introduce the big elements and themes in a straight forwards way. You could call it an inelegant solution; you could say it is elegant to get so much done in so few words without it feeling forced.
And with that, lets progress to the first section.
Cerrgonney, 1052: "The young fool tells his master that he will suffer to gain the dweomer. Why is he a fool? Because the dweomer has made him pay and pay and pay again before he even stood on its doorstep..."
The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
First up, all these place names and quotes really create a sense of depth and place. Second, these quotes do a fine job of setting the agenda. If the first was reincarnation and earthly corruption, then this one looks a bit like 'life is pain'. But it's more than that. It is a statement about the dweomer - the magic of Kerr's Deverry - and what it takes to get that. And it raises a question - in this context, what is suffering?
The first page of this section features Jill, a young girl fetching wood and having a fight with a gnome (spirit) over it, in order to fetch wood for the fire by which her mother lies very ill. Our first impression of Jill is part sadness and fear, but also steel:
"How is she?' Macyn said.
The priestess looked at him, then pointedly at Jill.
"You can say it,' Jill said. 'I know she's going to die."
The reason for this lies partly in her pride in her father - a great warrior to her, a Silver Dagger to others. Another part probably lies in her circumstances - even before her mother's death, she's an impoverished bastard already helping to work for her keep, which comes from the kindness of the tavernkeep Macyn. And here we see suffering very early; bereavement, poverty, an absent father. One of Kerr's strengths as a writer is the way in which she implants questions into the reader's mind - provokes desire about what they would see - then provides answers, sometimes quite subtly. Having provided the first set, the next questions are What's Going to Happen to Jill, and Who's This Cullyn (Jill's Father) anyway?
These answers come slow as Kerr shows us Jill's everyday life instead first - the Stasis point of a storytelling arc. It's a bit of a fakeout, because her mother's death feels like a Trigger point, but it works. The Stasis part of an opening can feel slow, but the death is an instant hook, and seeing how Jill mourns and adapts to life without her a natural reaction to that we readers want to see. And because we want that and the everyday life is incorporated, it doesn't feel slow. It's clever storytelling. Clever worldbuilding too, for we find out a lot about Deverry and its culture through Jill's eyes.
We also find out a bit about Cullyn too when the local lord asks who Jill's father is:
"Oh, not a doubt in the world, my lord," the ride said with an unpleasant grin. "Cullyn of Cerrmor, and no man would have dared to trifle with his wench."
...
"Well, no doubt a warrior's glory doesn't mean much to a little lass, but your da's the greatest swordsman in all Deverry, silver dagger or no."
Jill's childish surety that her father is a great warrior falls short of the truth; she is the daughter of Deverry's Muhammad 'I'm Hard' Bruce Lee. We also get a big dollop of theme here - the idea of Jill's mother being defined by being Cullyn's - and also cultural worldbuilding. The men of Deverry are a hard bunch, paying homage to Cullyn's reputation as a warrior and amused at the thought of anyone getting on the wrong end of it. This is the first point at which we see just how strong the vein of violence runs in the Deverry psyche.
The stasis continues. Jill has a moment of doubt over the realisation the local lord gave her charity, and wondering what would happen to Macyn (or Macco as she calls him, because real people use nicknames). She serves customers. Talks to her gnome (we learn the spirits are called the Wildfolk). We hear Cullyn has been fighting a war, and that all Silver Daggers are a bad lot - which is then followed by a small infodump that an editor might frown on today. Worked for me, but feels odd for Kerr to be so patient about building it up then just going boom. Then Jill dreams that Cullyn is coming - just in case there was any doubt she's the child of the prologue, marked for the Dweomer. And so he does.
Our first impression of Cullyn is as an emotional, honest, violent man - but then we do not see Cullyn until he's been told that Seryan (Jill's mother) is dead. 'My poor little lass!' Cullyn said. 'By the hells, what a rotten father you've got!' are his first words to Jill after picking her up. He loses control, weeping and bereft in public after Jill tells him that Seryan's last word was his name. And when the tavern's patrons are a little too close with their tight little smiles, he lays into them:
"None of you are even fit to be killed to pour blood into her grave."
Fantastic line.
And when it's all done, he takes Jill away from everything she's known onto the Long Road with her. Is this Cullyn doing the right thing? Is this treating her as a possession? It's hard to say. Is this the action of a loving, dedicated father, or of a jealous possessive one? It pleases and terrifies Jill. We've seen her realise the tenuousness of her situation - but is her situation with Cullyn any better? Shouldn't he settle down with her somewhere safe rather than being a mercenary? Or is he right to take care of her, him her closest flesh and blood, and to risk his life to earn the coin to pay for a decent life for her? Kerr never really answers these questions, just simply raises them and leaves them be. But it's the first time we're asked to consider where true love stops and controlling obsession starts.
The following pages in which Cullyn and Jill ride around Deverry are some of my favourite in the book and reveal so much about about the characters. We see them coping with the Long Road, dealing with the disdain Cullyn faces as a Silver Dagger, fighting a tavern brawl, Cullyn facing Jill's belief she can see the Wildfolk, riding a war and simply getting to know each other. They know each other well enough to love each other but are still very much strangers, unused and unfitted to the roles they find themselves in.
Cullyn is, by and large, a decent man and decent father. He makes sure Jill is safe and fed. He indulges her curiousity with candour except when she wants to see the direct results of his trade, which is a fairly reasonable stance with a seven year old. He can protect her. He can love her. He knows how to do these things. But when it comes to the things he can't do, he struggles. His impatience in cutting her hair short because 'cursed if I'll spend all my time combing it for you like a nursemaid' is this trait encapsulated in neat storyteller's shorthand. He also resorts to physical discipline a number of times. Why? It is tempting to simply say it is the action of a violent man. There's truth to that.
But it's not the whole truth because as we get to see on numerous occasions, Cullyn avoids killing when he can. When challenged in a tavern he doesn't back down from the confrontation, but everything is instigated and escalated by the other man. Cullyn contents himself with breaking the man's wrist and riding on to avoid trouble. When fighting the war - a very little one, seven versus five until he gets there - he seeks peaceful resolution, derides his employer's bloodthirsty attitude, and mourns the man he kills. Cullyn can control his violence. But not always with Jill.
So why? He is not constantly violent with her. He is apologetic and seeks to make her understand what he didn't want her to do afterwards. The three occasions we see her slap her are when she's talking to the Wildfolk, a habit that'd lead people to regard her as a witch; when she volunteers to ride as a messenger in a war, putting herself into danger; and when she runs forwards to see a man he's just killed, something nobody wants their child to see. The consistent pattern is him using it as a form of discipline when he's scared for her and in his fear, he doesn't have a better way of reaching out to her. Does this make it fine? To many today, no, although I wonder what Katherine Kerr herself makes of it. But in any case, I do not seek to excuse him. I seek to explain. The picture I see of Cullyn is a product of his violent environment, woefully underequipped for being the active parent, but trying as best he can.
The other thing that comes across from Cullyn in this portion of the book is his concept of honour. To him, it is hugely important - "Never dishonour yourself, Jill... dishonour sticks closer to you than blood on your hands." Yet when Jill praises him for being honourable and letting a lord's son lives, he corrects her and points out that was done solely for the ransom. To Cullyn, honour doesn't seem anything that important. Its dishonour - revealed to be the reason for why every man becomes a Silver Dagger, for only a dishonoured man would fight for pay - that matters. And that opinion in the mouth of the pragmatic Cullyn acts as a key piece of worldbuilding; dishonour will have big real life consequences in Deverry.
And what of Jill? She is full of curiosity, a bit naive but not slow in learning. She's not afraid to answer back most of the time, or to punch a snot-nosed boy who calls Silver Daggers scum. It is quickly clear there's a lot of her father in her - 'stubborn just like you and every bit as nasty when I wanted to be' is the posthumous judgment of Seryan as relayed by Jill to Cullyn. There's a lot of love for him, a lot of hero worship: "Da, you're splendid, and this is splendid, too. When I grow up, I'll be a silver dagger like you."
There's also fear. She loves her da, but she's also scared. Why wouldn't she be? He's been out of her life more than in for all his influence, and is a physically imposing man who makes his living through bloody violence and imposes discipline with a slap. This truly comes home when she sees the man Cullyn kill and realises who her da truly is.
"He was still her da, her handsome wonderful da, but she had just seen him kill a man. When he laid his hand on her shoulder, she flinched."
The hands that comb her hair kill men. Its the sort of thought most people would push aside, but she can't fully. Yet, having accepted that this is simply how Wyrd is in Deverry, she also comes to peace with this being Cullyn. He's all she has after all. And that night she has a dream where she sees the blood and dead rider all over again, and this time she watches and watches as the thick green grass grows over it. And the figure in her dream (a legendary woman warrior) smiles. This is Deverry. Blood and suffering are the order of the day. Yet neither Cullyn nor Jill fully accept it, even if they do not reject it.
There is a final coda to this section and that is back to Nevyn, the herbman of the prologue, riding along the road and despairing of ever finding the girl we know to be Jill. In his reverie he's about to ride into a warband - hard-edged fighting men like we've seen bickering and quarrelling all the way through Jill's narrative. Sure enough they shout for him to get off the road, but before he can comply they do that same thing. The reason for this is their lord - an eight year old child named Rhodry - has commanded them to do so. Rhodry is impossibly handsome, friendly and open, and with a very fine sense of honour as demonstrated by his decision that young men should cede the road to old men, regardless of rank. He is a young lord fit to have walked out of a fairytale. And sure enough, he's going back to his home in Eldidd (where Nevyn's story begins), and he's the reincarnated soul of someone who was part of Nevyn and Jill's tangled wyrd.
Honestly, this scene doesn't truly fit. It's a quick and well-written way to introduce Rhodry and segue into the first of the time jumps, but it is inelegant and feels forced to jump suddenly to this narrative at this moment. To me, it doesn't fit the cadence of the narrative. But that is a small gripe and as an introduction to Rhodry and a way to shed light on just how old and tired Nevyn is, it works.
Salient Points
I'm going to talk about Cullyn first, up to this point the most controversial character on page for most. I am, admittedly, a big fan of his. And something that I've only really recently realised to put into words is that for a character of his type - the veteran warrior - he is probably the most convincing to me in Fantasy outside of David Gemmell's books. He's wise, but not impossibly so. It is difficult to explain, but I think it's best to say is no matter how wise, how professional, it takes a certain amount of obstinate pride, numbed emotions, and capacity for hurting people to engage in violence regularly and willingly. And those things do not switch off when they're not wanted, even if a wise man can be a great deal more. Cullyn sells that.
That's not why I'm a big Cullyn fan though, although it helps. It's because he's honest, loves his daughter, and never stops trying to do the right thing. He sometimes gets very confused about it, because he's not perfect, but he tries to find his way there. We're all products of our environment and it leaves marks on us; people who try to overcome theirs, I like. Cullyn's one of them.
I'm a big Jill fan too. She's fun to read about and has so many enjoyable moments. She is, at this point, a lot less complicated than Cullyn, so I shan't go on too much, but what I really love is them together. They are a fantastic duo with so many character dynamics. It can be hard to make a character feel realistic when there's only really one person for them to interact with, but when done well it brings huge depth and life to a character. Kerr nails it. And she does it by a constant attention to what makes each of the characters brave and afraid, hopeful and heartbroken. There's little time wasted on minutiae here. It is bravura storytelling.
She is also quite the worldbuilder too. There's some flaws. A couple of awkward sections of omniscient infodump exist that surely wouldn't get past an agent today (but probably wouldn't actually affect anyone's enjoyment of a book). The use of the very Germanic-Nordic wyrd and dweomer in the otherwise completely Celtic milieu are bound to irritate a certain type of pedant and leave others a bit jarred from time to time. But Deverry's culture and societal norms are brought to life. I can't tell you all that much about what they wear, drink or eat (although some) but I know exactly how they act. And it makes sense, despite a level of violence and honour culture alien to most people in the modern western world. In fact, Deverry's one of the most macho cultures in Fantasy.
And the really neat trick - possibly the neatest of all - is that despite Kerr having clearly set this up so she can criticise the frequent carnage of such behaviour, as no point do I feel like it exists just to be slaughtered. It is given a full hearing and plenty of admiration - just ultimately, an exasperated judgement of "do grow up boys". Almost like the men of Deverry were two birds singing warcries of heartbreaking beauty, fighting over a prize that doesn't even exist for them and never should.
I dunno if we've got any other compulsive re-readers in the house but I find that after a few, I know things so well that I don't really have to pay attention, which means my mind wanders and finds new and interesting things in the text. And that happened during this re-read, so I decided instead of doing one review for the whole book, I'd do reviews really digging into what's going on in 60 page segments.
Excited? No? Good.
Prologue in the Year 1045: They usually tell writers to avoid word repetition. Consider then the opening lines:
"In the hall of light, they reminded her of her destiny. There, all was light, a pulsing gold like the heart of a candle flame, filling eternity. The speakers were pillars of fire within the fiery light, and their words were sparks."
That's a lot of light. And I like it. I like the use of deliberate repetition to hammer home a point and here the point is that we are in a place that isn't reality as we know. It's a place of light, of flames, of vast forces greater than humanity. And as we shortly find out, this is a place where a human soul exists before birth. And as the quote right before the prologue says:
"Men see life going from a dark to a darkness. The gods see life as a death..."
The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
One of the big fantasy elements here is reincarnation. If it wasn't obvious from the blurb, Kerr has made it super obvious in these opening pages. Proclamation of big themes is something that I think validates the use of prologues and if we've already got reincarnation, we're about to get one of the others:
"These spirits of wind had faces, and she realised that she too now had a face, because they were all human and far from the light. When they spoke to her of fleshy things, she remembered lust, the ecstasy of flesh pressed against flesh."
We'll see how it goes but trust me, lust comes up a lot, both on that page (5 times!) and in the book in general. Which is - ironically to some - something that's not always true of Fantasy. And I will say at this point that while I think Daggerspell is very much representative of its type and era, there are some elements about it that feel a bit off-piste as is true of all great fiction. The focus on lust is one of those elements. Also, when you compare this sense of earthly lust and flesh vs the world of pure light, you can see why the gods consider life as a death.
But now we cut away from this otherworldly scene to meet Nevyn, the shabby old herbman who treats the poor yet strides around like a young prince and whose gaze commands respect even from the noble born - a neat little bit of worldbuilding tossed in as an aside. He's also a 400 year old dweomerman (sorcerer). He's busy looking for herbs in Eldidd when he sees an omen related to the birth of the human we've just seen:
"Out in the meadow, two larks broke cover with a heartbreaking beauty of song that was a battle cry. Two males swept up, circling and chasing each other. Yet even as they fought, the female who was their prize rose from the grass and flew indifferently away."
I ask you to consider for a moment how many stories - books, movies, myths, in Fantasy and outside - end with a female as a male's prize. It is as the stars in the sky. And here's Katherine Kerr saying clearly on the third page of text: Fuck. That. Noise. Yes, the males' competition might have a "heartbreaking beauty" - there's no hate here - just that women aren't prizes.
It's an interesting decision to have two different scenes in a prologue - I've rarely seen anything like it. The contrast of writing styles is fun, but I'm not sure how much that adds. I think the real answer is the two scenes allowed Kerr to introduce the big elements and themes in a straight forwards way. You could call it an inelegant solution; you could say it is elegant to get so much done in so few words without it feeling forced.
And with that, lets progress to the first section.
Cerrgonney, 1052: "The young fool tells his master that he will suffer to gain the dweomer. Why is he a fool? Because the dweomer has made him pay and pay and pay again before he even stood on its doorstep..."
The Secret Book of Cadwallon the Druid
First up, all these place names and quotes really create a sense of depth and place. Second, these quotes do a fine job of setting the agenda. If the first was reincarnation and earthly corruption, then this one looks a bit like 'life is pain'. But it's more than that. It is a statement about the dweomer - the magic of Kerr's Deverry - and what it takes to get that. And it raises a question - in this context, what is suffering?
The first page of this section features Jill, a young girl fetching wood and having a fight with a gnome (spirit) over it, in order to fetch wood for the fire by which her mother lies very ill. Our first impression of Jill is part sadness and fear, but also steel:
"How is she?' Macyn said.
The priestess looked at him, then pointedly at Jill.
"You can say it,' Jill said. 'I know she's going to die."
The reason for this lies partly in her pride in her father - a great warrior to her, a Silver Dagger to others. Another part probably lies in her circumstances - even before her mother's death, she's an impoverished bastard already helping to work for her keep, which comes from the kindness of the tavernkeep Macyn. And here we see suffering very early; bereavement, poverty, an absent father. One of Kerr's strengths as a writer is the way in which she implants questions into the reader's mind - provokes desire about what they would see - then provides answers, sometimes quite subtly. Having provided the first set, the next questions are What's Going to Happen to Jill, and Who's This Cullyn (Jill's Father) anyway?
These answers come slow as Kerr shows us Jill's everyday life instead first - the Stasis point of a storytelling arc. It's a bit of a fakeout, because her mother's death feels like a Trigger point, but it works. The Stasis part of an opening can feel slow, but the death is an instant hook, and seeing how Jill mourns and adapts to life without her a natural reaction to that we readers want to see. And because we want that and the everyday life is incorporated, it doesn't feel slow. It's clever storytelling. Clever worldbuilding too, for we find out a lot about Deverry and its culture through Jill's eyes.
We also find out a bit about Cullyn too when the local lord asks who Jill's father is:
"Oh, not a doubt in the world, my lord," the ride said with an unpleasant grin. "Cullyn of Cerrmor, and no man would have dared to trifle with his wench."
...
"Well, no doubt a warrior's glory doesn't mean much to a little lass, but your da's the greatest swordsman in all Deverry, silver dagger or no."
Jill's childish surety that her father is a great warrior falls short of the truth; she is the daughter of Deverry's Muhammad 'I'm Hard' Bruce Lee. We also get a big dollop of theme here - the idea of Jill's mother being defined by being Cullyn's - and also cultural worldbuilding. The men of Deverry are a hard bunch, paying homage to Cullyn's reputation as a warrior and amused at the thought of anyone getting on the wrong end of it. This is the first point at which we see just how strong the vein of violence runs in the Deverry psyche.
The stasis continues. Jill has a moment of doubt over the realisation the local lord gave her charity, and wondering what would happen to Macyn (or Macco as she calls him, because real people use nicknames). She serves customers. Talks to her gnome (we learn the spirits are called the Wildfolk). We hear Cullyn has been fighting a war, and that all Silver Daggers are a bad lot - which is then followed by a small infodump that an editor might frown on today. Worked for me, but feels odd for Kerr to be so patient about building it up then just going boom. Then Jill dreams that Cullyn is coming - just in case there was any doubt she's the child of the prologue, marked for the Dweomer. And so he does.
Our first impression of Cullyn is as an emotional, honest, violent man - but then we do not see Cullyn until he's been told that Seryan (Jill's mother) is dead. 'My poor little lass!' Cullyn said. 'By the hells, what a rotten father you've got!' are his first words to Jill after picking her up. He loses control, weeping and bereft in public after Jill tells him that Seryan's last word was his name. And when the tavern's patrons are a little too close with their tight little smiles, he lays into them:
"None of you are even fit to be killed to pour blood into her grave."
Fantastic line.
And when it's all done, he takes Jill away from everything she's known onto the Long Road with her. Is this Cullyn doing the right thing? Is this treating her as a possession? It's hard to say. Is this the action of a loving, dedicated father, or of a jealous possessive one? It pleases and terrifies Jill. We've seen her realise the tenuousness of her situation - but is her situation with Cullyn any better? Shouldn't he settle down with her somewhere safe rather than being a mercenary? Or is he right to take care of her, him her closest flesh and blood, and to risk his life to earn the coin to pay for a decent life for her? Kerr never really answers these questions, just simply raises them and leaves them be. But it's the first time we're asked to consider where true love stops and controlling obsession starts.
The following pages in which Cullyn and Jill ride around Deverry are some of my favourite in the book and reveal so much about about the characters. We see them coping with the Long Road, dealing with the disdain Cullyn faces as a Silver Dagger, fighting a tavern brawl, Cullyn facing Jill's belief she can see the Wildfolk, riding a war and simply getting to know each other. They know each other well enough to love each other but are still very much strangers, unused and unfitted to the roles they find themselves in.
Cullyn is, by and large, a decent man and decent father. He makes sure Jill is safe and fed. He indulges her curiousity with candour except when she wants to see the direct results of his trade, which is a fairly reasonable stance with a seven year old. He can protect her. He can love her. He knows how to do these things. But when it comes to the things he can't do, he struggles. His impatience in cutting her hair short because 'cursed if I'll spend all my time combing it for you like a nursemaid' is this trait encapsulated in neat storyteller's shorthand. He also resorts to physical discipline a number of times. Why? It is tempting to simply say it is the action of a violent man. There's truth to that.
But it's not the whole truth because as we get to see on numerous occasions, Cullyn avoids killing when he can. When challenged in a tavern he doesn't back down from the confrontation, but everything is instigated and escalated by the other man. Cullyn contents himself with breaking the man's wrist and riding on to avoid trouble. When fighting the war - a very little one, seven versus five until he gets there - he seeks peaceful resolution, derides his employer's bloodthirsty attitude, and mourns the man he kills. Cullyn can control his violence. But not always with Jill.
So why? He is not constantly violent with her. He is apologetic and seeks to make her understand what he didn't want her to do afterwards. The three occasions we see her slap her are when she's talking to the Wildfolk, a habit that'd lead people to regard her as a witch; when she volunteers to ride as a messenger in a war, putting herself into danger; and when she runs forwards to see a man he's just killed, something nobody wants their child to see. The consistent pattern is him using it as a form of discipline when he's scared for her and in his fear, he doesn't have a better way of reaching out to her. Does this make it fine? To many today, no, although I wonder what Katherine Kerr herself makes of it. But in any case, I do not seek to excuse him. I seek to explain. The picture I see of Cullyn is a product of his violent environment, woefully underequipped for being the active parent, but trying as best he can.
The other thing that comes across from Cullyn in this portion of the book is his concept of honour. To him, it is hugely important - "Never dishonour yourself, Jill... dishonour sticks closer to you than blood on your hands." Yet when Jill praises him for being honourable and letting a lord's son lives, he corrects her and points out that was done solely for the ransom. To Cullyn, honour doesn't seem anything that important. Its dishonour - revealed to be the reason for why every man becomes a Silver Dagger, for only a dishonoured man would fight for pay - that matters. And that opinion in the mouth of the pragmatic Cullyn acts as a key piece of worldbuilding; dishonour will have big real life consequences in Deverry.
And what of Jill? She is full of curiosity, a bit naive but not slow in learning. She's not afraid to answer back most of the time, or to punch a snot-nosed boy who calls Silver Daggers scum. It is quickly clear there's a lot of her father in her - 'stubborn just like you and every bit as nasty when I wanted to be' is the posthumous judgment of Seryan as relayed by Jill to Cullyn. There's a lot of love for him, a lot of hero worship: "Da, you're splendid, and this is splendid, too. When I grow up, I'll be a silver dagger like you."
There's also fear. She loves her da, but she's also scared. Why wouldn't she be? He's been out of her life more than in for all his influence, and is a physically imposing man who makes his living through bloody violence and imposes discipline with a slap. This truly comes home when she sees the man Cullyn kill and realises who her da truly is.
"He was still her da, her handsome wonderful da, but she had just seen him kill a man. When he laid his hand on her shoulder, she flinched."
The hands that comb her hair kill men. Its the sort of thought most people would push aside, but she can't fully. Yet, having accepted that this is simply how Wyrd is in Deverry, she also comes to peace with this being Cullyn. He's all she has after all. And that night she has a dream where she sees the blood and dead rider all over again, and this time she watches and watches as the thick green grass grows over it. And the figure in her dream (a legendary woman warrior) smiles. This is Deverry. Blood and suffering are the order of the day. Yet neither Cullyn nor Jill fully accept it, even if they do not reject it.
There is a final coda to this section and that is back to Nevyn, the herbman of the prologue, riding along the road and despairing of ever finding the girl we know to be Jill. In his reverie he's about to ride into a warband - hard-edged fighting men like we've seen bickering and quarrelling all the way through Jill's narrative. Sure enough they shout for him to get off the road, but before he can comply they do that same thing. The reason for this is their lord - an eight year old child named Rhodry - has commanded them to do so. Rhodry is impossibly handsome, friendly and open, and with a very fine sense of honour as demonstrated by his decision that young men should cede the road to old men, regardless of rank. He is a young lord fit to have walked out of a fairytale. And sure enough, he's going back to his home in Eldidd (where Nevyn's story begins), and he's the reincarnated soul of someone who was part of Nevyn and Jill's tangled wyrd.
Honestly, this scene doesn't truly fit. It's a quick and well-written way to introduce Rhodry and segue into the first of the time jumps, but it is inelegant and feels forced to jump suddenly to this narrative at this moment. To me, it doesn't fit the cadence of the narrative. But that is a small gripe and as an introduction to Rhodry and a way to shed light on just how old and tired Nevyn is, it works.
Salient Points
I'm going to talk about Cullyn first, up to this point the most controversial character on page for most. I am, admittedly, a big fan of his. And something that I've only really recently realised to put into words is that for a character of his type - the veteran warrior - he is probably the most convincing to me in Fantasy outside of David Gemmell's books. He's wise, but not impossibly so. It is difficult to explain, but I think it's best to say is no matter how wise, how professional, it takes a certain amount of obstinate pride, numbed emotions, and capacity for hurting people to engage in violence regularly and willingly. And those things do not switch off when they're not wanted, even if a wise man can be a great deal more. Cullyn sells that.
That's not why I'm a big Cullyn fan though, although it helps. It's because he's honest, loves his daughter, and never stops trying to do the right thing. He sometimes gets very confused about it, because he's not perfect, but he tries to find his way there. We're all products of our environment and it leaves marks on us; people who try to overcome theirs, I like. Cullyn's one of them.
I'm a big Jill fan too. She's fun to read about and has so many enjoyable moments. She is, at this point, a lot less complicated than Cullyn, so I shan't go on too much, but what I really love is them together. They are a fantastic duo with so many character dynamics. It can be hard to make a character feel realistic when there's only really one person for them to interact with, but when done well it brings huge depth and life to a character. Kerr nails it. And she does it by a constant attention to what makes each of the characters brave and afraid, hopeful and heartbroken. There's little time wasted on minutiae here. It is bravura storytelling.
She is also quite the worldbuilder too. There's some flaws. A couple of awkward sections of omniscient infodump exist that surely wouldn't get past an agent today (but probably wouldn't actually affect anyone's enjoyment of a book). The use of the very Germanic-Nordic wyrd and dweomer in the otherwise completely Celtic milieu are bound to irritate a certain type of pedant and leave others a bit jarred from time to time. But Deverry's culture and societal norms are brought to life. I can't tell you all that much about what they wear, drink or eat (although some) but I know exactly how they act. And it makes sense, despite a level of violence and honour culture alien to most people in the modern western world. In fact, Deverry's one of the most macho cultures in Fantasy.
And the really neat trick - possibly the neatest of all - is that despite Kerr having clearly set this up so she can criticise the frequent carnage of such behaviour, as no point do I feel like it exists just to be slaughtered. It is given a full hearing and plenty of admiration - just ultimately, an exasperated judgement of "do grow up boys". Almost like the men of Deverry were two birds singing warcries of heartbreaking beauty, fighting over a prize that doesn't even exist for them and never should.
Friday, 17 January 2020
Quick five thoughts here tonight...
1) Check out L Chan's To Build a Bridge Out of Song which is one of the better short stories I've read recently, with a really enthralling setting that I hope he's made use out of elsewhere.
2) It's not often to see out genre get some mainstream media attention, so it was nice to see this on the Guardian website - a top 10 roundup.
3) BBC America decided to release images from their adaption of Pratchett's City Watch. I use the word adaption for want of a better one; even after keeping up with the news, it was still like being told you're getting beer and instead getting a glass of water with some grain and hops on a plate next to it. I'm going to avoid giving into nerd rage here today, but I struggle to think of a Fantasy TV series that has made more of an attempt to alienate its pre-existing audience, and by now I'm happy to be alienated.
4) Seems everything's about new reader recs these days! After seeing the FF Facebook list (which caused us some puzzlement on the FF forum), it got me thinking about other ways to get more accurate recommendations. One idea I like is if you thought up a bunch of metrics on stuff that's important to readers - Type of Action, Scale, Setting, Grim or Not, Diversity, that sort of thing - then gave a value to each. So, say, Daggerspell would be Action/Magic/Drama, Kingdom sized over multiple centuries, Pseudo-Feudal Celtic, Kinda Grim, White with Prominent Ladies. And people could look at that and go "Eww" or "Cool" or "Hmm". I might start playing with the idea in future reviews
5) It's funny how as life goes we change as readers. And by funny I mean completely normal and not really that interesting to most people other than yourself (just like this blog boom boom), but it shakes you a little when you recognise it. I picked up some of Conn Iggulden's Ghengis Khan books and found myself a bit bleh'ed out by the general distance of the narrative tone. I'd have found it totally normal as a kid.
1) Check out L Chan's To Build a Bridge Out of Song which is one of the better short stories I've read recently, with a really enthralling setting that I hope he's made use out of elsewhere.
2) It's not often to see out genre get some mainstream media attention, so it was nice to see this on the Guardian website - a top 10 roundup.
3) BBC America decided to release images from their adaption of Pratchett's City Watch. I use the word adaption for want of a better one; even after keeping up with the news, it was still like being told you're getting beer and instead getting a glass of water with some grain and hops on a plate next to it. I'm going to avoid giving into nerd rage here today, but I struggle to think of a Fantasy TV series that has made more of an attempt to alienate its pre-existing audience, and by now I'm happy to be alienated.
4) Seems everything's about new reader recs these days! After seeing the FF Facebook list (which caused us some puzzlement on the FF forum), it got me thinking about other ways to get more accurate recommendations. One idea I like is if you thought up a bunch of metrics on stuff that's important to readers - Type of Action, Scale, Setting, Grim or Not, Diversity, that sort of thing - then gave a value to each. So, say, Daggerspell would be Action/Magic/Drama, Kingdom sized over multiple centuries, Pseudo-Feudal Celtic, Kinda Grim, White with Prominent Ladies. And people could look at that and go "Eww" or "Cool" or "Hmm". I might start playing with the idea in future reviews
5) It's funny how as life goes we change as readers. And by funny I mean completely normal and not really that interesting to most people other than yourself (just like this blog boom boom), but it shakes you a little when you recognise it. I picked up some of Conn Iggulden's Ghengis Khan books and found myself a bit bleh'ed out by the general distance of the narrative tone. I'd have found it totally normal as a kid.
Tuesday, 14 January 2020
My modern fantasy challenge update Part Two
Part one was the nine authors I picked, here's where I talk about the others I've read and some of the conclusions I came to.
The other three authors I finished books by were Mark Lawrence, Adrian Tchaikovsky and NK Jemisin.
Mark Lawrence's The Red Prince was a fun little number, very reminiscent of Flashman - possibly too much. If the book had a weakness, it was that it was very much of the quest travelogue style, and that the world didn't have much to make it stand out vs other fantasy books. Adrian Tchaikovsky's The Wolf and the Tiger hit a lot of my sweet spots - mythic and ancient feeling, interesting magic, plenty of mystery and a strong voice - but I think it maybe moved a little slow for me. NK Jemisin's Dreamblood moved a little fast, but otherwise hit the same sweet spots. In both cases, I expected to like both more than I did - see my recent review of Dreamblood to see exactly what I thought of it - but did like them a lot.
I also tried Staveley, Erikson, Wooding, Rothfuss, Abraham, Hurley, Julia Knight, Batchelder, Bakker and Elliott without finishing any of them. No bad authors there but for whatever reason, none of them kept my attention. Daniel Abraham came closest as I really like his prose but I read The Dragon's Path at a time when I was really over reading the PoVs of blind bigots and sociopaths. I might go back to him one day - hell, might go back to any of them. But between them, and those I read, and a past familiarity with Gaiman and Tad Williams, I've certainly read enough to make some conclusions.
Conclusion 1: I'm a fussy reader who's over completionism.
Some of you might be asking if this is really a revelation to me, but it was. Years of sticking with the same small group of authors, adding to them rarely, meant I stuck with things I really liked and completed and then re-completed. Now, maybe I've changed as well, grown more critical, but there definitely seems to be a correlation between me trying a new author every month and me putting down more books. And probably a causation too. And because I'm used to quitting, and because I'm constantly looking for new authors, finishing series has kinda gone too. I've finished one series since I first had the challenge idea.
I miss completing series. There's a great feeling to it. I deeply envy all the bloggers who seem to be finding books they love every other week. But at the same time, I'm okay with it - if only because not being okay with it would suck. I am what I am, and if I more easily offput by a book's flaws then others, it doesn't mean I love reading any less.
Note - this isn't just new books. I've made a concerted attempt to go back through the genre's history, and the same choosiness applies there. And most of the authors I grew up on, there's now books of theirs I haven't finished either.
Conclusion 2: Fantasy hasn't got that much darker.
When I started this, all the talk seemed to be about Grimdark. This is Grimdark, that is Grimdark, this is why Grimdark is superior, this is why it sucks, and so on. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about a diet of Grimdark. I had liked Abercrombie's The First Law but found it wore thin at the end. I am greatly intrigued by violence and have a disgusting sense of humour, but need something extra. But in the event, at the end of the challenge and everything else I'm read, I'm still not sure about how I'd feel about a diet of grimdark as I never had it. Given a list of what people saw as the genre's best, I didn't really have to try.
What I did read, both grimdark and non-grimdark, leads to me to believe that the genre's view of life isn't all that much changed from what was written in the 80s and 90s. Yes, it is darker, as is unsurprising in darker times, but by and large writers still believe in heroes defeating villains. The view of hero and villain is more nuanced, more blurred, but by and large they're still hero and villain. The amount of villains who win, and the amount of protagonists who are either villains or truly contemptible, have grown, but they're far from the majority of the genre. We show more pain, but I sometimes think people forgot how much pain was shown. I'd say that as a whole the genre has grown broader, rather than everything going to darkness; which means yes the genre has grown darker as a whole, but there's still plenty of inspirational and light-hearted stories out there.
Conclusion 3: Fantasy is changing but maybe the perception hasn't caught up yet
Speaking of the genre getting broader, I think it has done so in every conceivable way compared to what felt like the mainstream back when I was a boy. We integrate more genres, we plunder more mythologies and histories, we have a more diverse writer base than results in more diverse stories. When you consider the widest possible boundaries of the genre, then Fantasy has something for everyone (unless they absolutely hate all hints of the supernatural) and a lot of the biggest media properties on the planet. I will freely concede that my knowledge of Fantasy as a youngster wasn't as strong as it might be, and give all due praise to the many very different takes on Fantasy that exist in the genre's past, but still the kingdom grows greater.
Yet I arguably didn't get that from the list and judging from the many "It's all Tolkien!" takes I get, I don't always get it from other people. I've already commented on the gender bias I received last time; I feel pretty sure (or hope) that if I did it again I'd receive a wider net of ethnicity. Urban Fantasy was poorly represented on the list, as was YA. Maybe something about what I said and who I am led people to skew their recommendations away from that. But I believe that in some part, a lot of fantasy readers haven't really taken on board everything the genre is now offering yet. That's okay, lag is to be expected, but I'd like to believe that people will be getting more on board with the big offering soon - simply because they'll have more fun.
Conclusion 4: I've gone from all about the Epic Fantasy to all about anything but
Pretty much all of my childhood favourites had something of Epic Fantasy's DNA mixed in, if not wholly made of it. Pratchett, Gaiman and Rankin were the only real exceptions to that rule. Now - allowing for a wooliness about what Epic is - I'm reading a lot more things that are pretty off the beaten track there. More adventure stories, like Novik's Temeraire. More personal scale stories, like Wecker's The Golem and The Djinni or the various crime-fantasy books I've read.
It's not that I've gone off Epic Fantasy as an idea. There's still been plenty of it in my choices. But either the blurb sounds boring, or I'm just not clicking with it while I'm reading it, or I'm getting distracted by other things I'm reading. Why? Has Epic Fantasy changed, or am I fooling myself about my tastes changing? I think that one big part of it is I was always very attracted to the element of myth in Epic Fantasy, and it feels like a lot of it is less about riffing on myth and more on history and D&D and maybe even superheroes. None of these are things I dislike, but maybe without seeing the missing element it doesn't come together for me.
Conclusion 5: My best in modern fantasy is different - what's yours?
If somebody were to ask me to recommend the best books of the last 10 years - or last 14 years to be like my original question - I would definitely have firm opinions by now in a way I didn't then. And quite a few of them would be recommending names that didn't make the list.
The first name that would spring to mind is Max Gladstone, whose Craft series represents to me the absolute finest in terms of the sort of invention we're seeing in Fantasy today. He didn't get a single vote when I asked, but everyone I knows who've read him enjoy his books immensely. Aliette De Bodard and Helene Wecker should have also been on the list.
Also on my recommendation list, albeit published after I started asking would be RJ Barker and Fonda Lee. I'm not sure if I'd recommend R.F. Kuang, whose work I still find very memorable for both good and bad, but I would at least think about it.
I'd probably also recommend a few small press and indie works. The Goddess Project and The Woven Ring were both written by guys I'd consider good friends in Bryan Wigmore and MD Presley respectively, but there's plenty of my good writer friends I didn't give such constant props to. They wrote really, really good fantasies. I also recall being impressed with Lindsay Buroker's The Emperor's Edge, which has remained in the memory for a long time for a casual read - impressed enough to buy a series anthology recently.
Conclusion 1: I'm a fussy reader who's over completionism.
Some of you might be asking if this is really a revelation to me, but it was. Years of sticking with the same small group of authors, adding to them rarely, meant I stuck with things I really liked and completed and then re-completed. Now, maybe I've changed as well, grown more critical, but there definitely seems to be a correlation between me trying a new author every month and me putting down more books. And probably a causation too. And because I'm used to quitting, and because I'm constantly looking for new authors, finishing series has kinda gone too. I've finished one series since I first had the challenge idea.
I miss completing series. There's a great feeling to it. I deeply envy all the bloggers who seem to be finding books they love every other week. But at the same time, I'm okay with it - if only because not being okay with it would suck. I am what I am, and if I more easily offput by a book's flaws then others, it doesn't mean I love reading any less.
Note - this isn't just new books. I've made a concerted attempt to go back through the genre's history, and the same choosiness applies there. And most of the authors I grew up on, there's now books of theirs I haven't finished either.
Conclusion 2: Fantasy hasn't got that much darker.
When I started this, all the talk seemed to be about Grimdark. This is Grimdark, that is Grimdark, this is why Grimdark is superior, this is why it sucks, and so on. I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about a diet of Grimdark. I had liked Abercrombie's The First Law but found it wore thin at the end. I am greatly intrigued by violence and have a disgusting sense of humour, but need something extra. But in the event, at the end of the challenge and everything else I'm read, I'm still not sure about how I'd feel about a diet of grimdark as I never had it. Given a list of what people saw as the genre's best, I didn't really have to try.
What I did read, both grimdark and non-grimdark, leads to me to believe that the genre's view of life isn't all that much changed from what was written in the 80s and 90s. Yes, it is darker, as is unsurprising in darker times, but by and large writers still believe in heroes defeating villains. The view of hero and villain is more nuanced, more blurred, but by and large they're still hero and villain. The amount of villains who win, and the amount of protagonists who are either villains or truly contemptible, have grown, but they're far from the majority of the genre. We show more pain, but I sometimes think people forgot how much pain was shown. I'd say that as a whole the genre has grown broader, rather than everything going to darkness; which means yes the genre has grown darker as a whole, but there's still plenty of inspirational and light-hearted stories out there.
Conclusion 3: Fantasy is changing but maybe the perception hasn't caught up yet
Speaking of the genre getting broader, I think it has done so in every conceivable way compared to what felt like the mainstream back when I was a boy. We integrate more genres, we plunder more mythologies and histories, we have a more diverse writer base than results in more diverse stories. When you consider the widest possible boundaries of the genre, then Fantasy has something for everyone (unless they absolutely hate all hints of the supernatural) and a lot of the biggest media properties on the planet. I will freely concede that my knowledge of Fantasy as a youngster wasn't as strong as it might be, and give all due praise to the many very different takes on Fantasy that exist in the genre's past, but still the kingdom grows greater.
Yet I arguably didn't get that from the list and judging from the many "It's all Tolkien!" takes I get, I don't always get it from other people. I've already commented on the gender bias I received last time; I feel pretty sure (or hope) that if I did it again I'd receive a wider net of ethnicity. Urban Fantasy was poorly represented on the list, as was YA. Maybe something about what I said and who I am led people to skew their recommendations away from that. But I believe that in some part, a lot of fantasy readers haven't really taken on board everything the genre is now offering yet. That's okay, lag is to be expected, but I'd like to believe that people will be getting more on board with the big offering soon - simply because they'll have more fun.
Conclusion 4: I've gone from all about the Epic Fantasy to all about anything but
Pretty much all of my childhood favourites had something of Epic Fantasy's DNA mixed in, if not wholly made of it. Pratchett, Gaiman and Rankin were the only real exceptions to that rule. Now - allowing for a wooliness about what Epic is - I'm reading a lot more things that are pretty off the beaten track there. More adventure stories, like Novik's Temeraire. More personal scale stories, like Wecker's The Golem and The Djinni or the various crime-fantasy books I've read.
It's not that I've gone off Epic Fantasy as an idea. There's still been plenty of it in my choices. But either the blurb sounds boring, or I'm just not clicking with it while I'm reading it, or I'm getting distracted by other things I'm reading. Why? Has Epic Fantasy changed, or am I fooling myself about my tastes changing? I think that one big part of it is I was always very attracted to the element of myth in Epic Fantasy, and it feels like a lot of it is less about riffing on myth and more on history and D&D and maybe even superheroes. None of these are things I dislike, but maybe without seeing the missing element it doesn't come together for me.
Conclusion 5: My best in modern fantasy is different - what's yours?
If somebody were to ask me to recommend the best books of the last 10 years - or last 14 years to be like my original question - I would definitely have firm opinions by now in a way I didn't then. And quite a few of them would be recommending names that didn't make the list.
The first name that would spring to mind is Max Gladstone, whose Craft series represents to me the absolute finest in terms of the sort of invention we're seeing in Fantasy today. He didn't get a single vote when I asked, but everyone I knows who've read him enjoy his books immensely. Aliette De Bodard and Helene Wecker should have also been on the list.
Also on my recommendation list, albeit published after I started asking would be RJ Barker and Fonda Lee. I'm not sure if I'd recommend R.F. Kuang, whose work I still find very memorable for both good and bad, but I would at least think about it.
I'd probably also recommend a few small press and indie works. The Goddess Project and The Woven Ring were both written by guys I'd consider good friends in Bryan Wigmore and MD Presley respectively, but there's plenty of my good writer friends I didn't give such constant props to. They wrote really, really good fantasies. I also recall being impressed with Lindsay Buroker's The Emperor's Edge, which has remained in the memory for a long time for a casual read - impressed enough to buy a series anthology recently.
Saturday, 11 January 2020
Top 10 Books of 2019
I was feeling kinda down about my reading this year until I started to do this - I read a lot of good books, and will be leaving a lot of good books off. And because I read some really good books, I've decided to dispense with 1 to 10 and go with some ties, because three books were the best books I've read this year and I don't want to choose. But I've also decided to count down from 10 this year, so you'll just have to scroll down to see those 3... or, you know, read the other items. Or read the tweet that totally gives it away.
HMs: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare, The Killing Moon by NK Jemisin, The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Bone Ships by RJ Barker, The Deep by John Crowley - All good books, but just one step off to my taste compared to the rest listed here
8. A Hero Born by Jin Yong - People call this China's LotR but it seemed to me to have more of a Conan vibe, full of boisterous energy and larger than life heroics. That's the sort of fanbase I'd recommend it to anyway - fantasy readers craving adventures into the strange. The plot is labyrinthine and I can't remember the full details now, but that just added to the fun of reading it. I should check to see whether the same translator has done any of the sequels yet.
8. Distaff by Various - This anthology would get into the top 10 for Rosie Oliver's The Ice Man alone but the whole volume is good value. There's no bad stories and despite the frequent tone shifts that are part and parcel of the anthology, nothing feels out of place. If anything, the variety makes it a more enjoyable reading experience, as I never get bored of the same thing again and again.
Plus it still contains a story that made me miss my train stop, and it's not even the best story in there.
8. House of Broken Wings by Aliette de Bodard - Reading back my review for this almost made me switch it to HMs and put something else here, but I'm sticking with my initial instincts. Something about this story and De Bodard's writing leaves a crack in my memory in which deep emotions grow; something about the world grips my imagination. She puts the characters through just the right amount of pain and joy. But maybe this book is here because of the sequel which convinced me that Madeleine is a rock star. In any case, the why is less important than the result.
6. The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg - A slight step up in tier here compared to the others as Silverberg's effortless mastery of voice, moreish writing style, and portrayal of dark comedy and thought provoking horror made this an outstanding read. I wish it had contained more of a fantasy edge but for what it is, its note perfect. And I've already lent it to one person.
6. Turning Darkness Into Light by Marie Brennan - I've reviewed this very recently so feel like I have little to say, but have to note this tier consists mainly of stories with outstanding style, stone cold perfect execution of a concept even if I wished the concept had been a little bigger, and which I have already forced onto other people because they're awesome.
4. The Story of the Stone by Barry Hughart - I fucking love Barry Hughart's books. Everything feels like it's turned up to 11 and over the top; the characters, the convoluted plots, the humour, everything. At times it overwhelmed me but I always got sucked in by the next piece of nonsense or drama. Or both. The two go hand in hand. There's a satirical edge to this book that's easier to discern that it was in Bridge of Birds. That Hughart only wrote three books is borderline crime by the powers that be.
4. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker - A lovely, entrancing book, full of a sense of place and with some of the best mini character portraits around. It doesn't quite reach my joint top spot due to not completely selling me on the main plot and characters, but I don't really care as everything else was fantastic and as such, I'll still read her next book anyway. Even if its just a travel guide to Birmingham.
1. King of Assassins by RJ Barker - Onto my borderline perfect books. I criticised Age of Assassins for maybe being a bit cliche and light. King of Assassins takes all the exuberant fun of that book, packages it in a story that's heavy as a wrecking ball with dark secrets and redemption, and gives us a fantastic MC in grumpy old Girton and surrounds him with an outstanding case, headlined by Merela and Aydor, who'd get best supporting character if there was fantasy authors. I wonder if its entirely a coincidence that his name sounds like Arthur and he's described as bearlike given some of the Arthurian inspirations behind the series. Oh and the cliche world? It grows and mutates and takes on its own dark character. There must be a way to convince RJ Barker to write more in the Wounded Kingdoms. I kinda want to re-read it now.
1. House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard - Another book where earlier books by the author left me a tad unfulfilled and I then got everything I wanted and more. The alchemist Madeleine bears a fantastic weight of responsibility with brittle humanity, bleak humour, and brilliant heroism. Her relationship with the magnificent bastard that is Asmodeus is probably the best thing in this book, but it's a big call. The plot is gripping and perfectly timed after a slow start; the worldbuilding thicker and more compelling without getting obtrusive. House of Sundering Flames is now looming big on my TBR pile.
1. A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay - I had unshed tears in my eyes in the ending. And it's not like anything that bad happens (well, it does a little before, but not right at the ending). It's simply the window into another human's wistfulness and regret and contentment provided. The ability to observe and communicate basic human drives in such a way is a big part of what gives GGK a strong claim to be the greatest fantasy author alive. There's also the meticulous research, the poetry of the prose, and the leisurely grand sweep of his plots - all of which are on full display here. I don't want to re-read A Brightness Long Ago right now - I'm not ready for it - but scenes from it live forever in my head.
HMs: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare, The Killing Moon by NK Jemisin, The Tiger and the Wolf by Adrian Tchaikovsky, The Bone Ships by RJ Barker, The Deep by John Crowley - All good books, but just one step off to my taste compared to the rest listed here
8. A Hero Born by Jin Yong - People call this China's LotR but it seemed to me to have more of a Conan vibe, full of boisterous energy and larger than life heroics. That's the sort of fanbase I'd recommend it to anyway - fantasy readers craving adventures into the strange. The plot is labyrinthine and I can't remember the full details now, but that just added to the fun of reading it. I should check to see whether the same translator has done any of the sequels yet.
8. Distaff by Various - This anthology would get into the top 10 for Rosie Oliver's The Ice Man alone but the whole volume is good value. There's no bad stories and despite the frequent tone shifts that are part and parcel of the anthology, nothing feels out of place. If anything, the variety makes it a more enjoyable reading experience, as I never get bored of the same thing again and again.
Plus it still contains a story that made me miss my train stop, and it's not even the best story in there.
8. House of Broken Wings by Aliette de Bodard - Reading back my review for this almost made me switch it to HMs and put something else here, but I'm sticking with my initial instincts. Something about this story and De Bodard's writing leaves a crack in my memory in which deep emotions grow; something about the world grips my imagination. She puts the characters through just the right amount of pain and joy. But maybe this book is here because of the sequel which convinced me that Madeleine is a rock star. In any case, the why is less important than the result.
6. The Book of Skulls by Robert Silverberg - A slight step up in tier here compared to the others as Silverberg's effortless mastery of voice, moreish writing style, and portrayal of dark comedy and thought provoking horror made this an outstanding read. I wish it had contained more of a fantasy edge but for what it is, its note perfect. And I've already lent it to one person.
6. Turning Darkness Into Light by Marie Brennan - I've reviewed this very recently so feel like I have little to say, but have to note this tier consists mainly of stories with outstanding style, stone cold perfect execution of a concept even if I wished the concept had been a little bigger, and which I have already forced onto other people because they're awesome.
4. The Story of the Stone by Barry Hughart - I fucking love Barry Hughart's books. Everything feels like it's turned up to 11 and over the top; the characters, the convoluted plots, the humour, everything. At times it overwhelmed me but I always got sucked in by the next piece of nonsense or drama. Or both. The two go hand in hand. There's a satirical edge to this book that's easier to discern that it was in Bridge of Birds. That Hughart only wrote three books is borderline crime by the powers that be.
4. The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker - A lovely, entrancing book, full of a sense of place and with some of the best mini character portraits around. It doesn't quite reach my joint top spot due to not completely selling me on the main plot and characters, but I don't really care as everything else was fantastic and as such, I'll still read her next book anyway. Even if its just a travel guide to Birmingham.
1. King of Assassins by RJ Barker - Onto my borderline perfect books. I criticised Age of Assassins for maybe being a bit cliche and light. King of Assassins takes all the exuberant fun of that book, packages it in a story that's heavy as a wrecking ball with dark secrets and redemption, and gives us a fantastic MC in grumpy old Girton and surrounds him with an outstanding case, headlined by Merela and Aydor, who'd get best supporting character if there was fantasy authors. I wonder if its entirely a coincidence that his name sounds like Arthur and he's described as bearlike given some of the Arthurian inspirations behind the series. Oh and the cliche world? It grows and mutates and takes on its own dark character. There must be a way to convince RJ Barker to write more in the Wounded Kingdoms. I kinda want to re-read it now.
1. House of Binding Thorns by Aliette de Bodard - Another book where earlier books by the author left me a tad unfulfilled and I then got everything I wanted and more. The alchemist Madeleine bears a fantastic weight of responsibility with brittle humanity, bleak humour, and brilliant heroism. Her relationship with the magnificent bastard that is Asmodeus is probably the best thing in this book, but it's a big call. The plot is gripping and perfectly timed after a slow start; the worldbuilding thicker and more compelling without getting obtrusive. House of Sundering Flames is now looming big on my TBR pile.
1. A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay - I had unshed tears in my eyes in the ending. And it's not like anything that bad happens (well, it does a little before, but not right at the ending). It's simply the window into another human's wistfulness and regret and contentment provided. The ability to observe and communicate basic human drives in such a way is a big part of what gives GGK a strong claim to be the greatest fantasy author alive. There's also the meticulous research, the poetry of the prose, and the leisurely grand sweep of his plots - all of which are on full display here. I don't want to re-read A Brightness Long Ago right now - I'm not ready for it - but scenes from it live forever in my head.
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