Closer to Home

I've been reading Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar books for about seven years or so; I was keeping my ex-wife company while she worked on her fish tanks, and picked up Magic's Pawn to read while we hung out. I jokingly refer to the series as "Pony Fiction", because it's pretty legitimate to describe the first book, Arrows of the Queen, as "A little girl, who nobody in her strict household likes, finds a magic horse that takes her to the queen! And the queen wants her to be the special babysitter to the princess! And she has a lot of friends, including the magic horse, and a boyfriend she never really does anything with but he's ok with that and she's special with rare magic powers!"

It sounds dire, I know, but they're entertainingly written, with Lackey taking a different tack on that basic theme in her several series set in and around the Kingdom of Valdemar. She does action well and, if the romance is a little bit predictable, it's seldom cloying and usually somewhat realistic (especially as she's somewhat leaned off the mystical Lifebond as a trope), with disagreements and miscommunications and actual communication solving more problems than it causes.

But, Closer to Home. Lackey usually gives us about 3 books before the character slips into the background or into legendary status (q.v. Vanyel or Lavan Firestorm), but Mags is now up to six, with a previous five-book series called the Collegium Chronicles. Mags is a former mine slave who was, true to form, rescued by a magic horse and taken to a place where he learned to use his special magical gifts to become a Herald, and to function as a spy... thus the series title, the Herald-Spy. Mags is a colleague of the King's Own (a Herald-advisor to the king, somewhat akin to the President's Chief of Staff), and affianced to the daughter of the King's Own.

In reading book, however, it slowly dawned on me that she was somewhat retelling Romeo and Juliet; two warring families, in the capitol city for the Winter Court (hoping to find spouses for daughters and a son, respectively), who simply cannot be in town without trouble starting. Mags, Amily, and the other Heralds do their best to keep things from going to pot, but humans are determined to be difficult, and a plot develops that could burst this feud into an all-out civil war. Things are a bit telegraphed, but I was thrown when she decided not to go the full Romeo and Juliet and more closely adhered to William Goldman's 'What happens when the most beautiful girl in the world marries the handsomest prince in the world - and he turns out to be a son of a bitch?'.

I enjoy the heck out of Mercedes Lackey books. They're fun, enjoyable reads that are nonetheless well put together and tend to somewhat meditate on the nature of power and its exercise. She's set herself a lovely world that she works with, finding new variations on similar themes, and expanding her own world, rather than breaking it, to introduce new things. If you'd like to start at the beginning of Mags' story, instead of here, start with Foundation; I don't think you'll miss anything major by starting here, but I've always been a fan of the apprenticeship tales that she spins.

The Dark Defiles

 Richard K. Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs Series (Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies) introduced me to his style; the Land Fit for Heroes series (The Steel Remains, The Cold Commands, and this book) represent his style growing in clarity and complexity. The Kovacs novels are linked stand-alones, like the noir fiction they emulate... you can read them in any order and not lose too much for it, whereas the "Land Fit for Heroes" series is a single story spread across three volumes. Morgan has a style I ascribe to modern cyberpunk, where things are simply mentioned, but not explained for some time, leaving you to build an image in your head of how the world works, and only gradually get those images filled in with how the author envisioned it. I find it leads to a very organic feel to the knowledge you gain, but it can also lead to some sharp disconnects.

The Dark Defiles is the final book in the series; Ringil Eskiath, disgraced scion of a noble house of the northern League, is working with his friends, the immortal half-Kiriath Archidi and the barbarian horseman Egar Dragonslayer, to attempt to stop the dwenda, ancient masters of his world, cast out several thousand years ago by Archidi's father and the rest of her people. To this end, they've enlisted the help of the southern Empire, but find themselves immersed in the politics of the day... a war between League and Empire, the return of the dwenda, and the machinations of demons bound by the Kiriath. Ringil's growing mastery of sorcery helps to drive the plot, setting him up as something of a demigod in a world somewhat similar in feel to Abercrombie's Circle of the World, seen in Red Country... a world where there is magic and abandoned super-science, but where both are rare and poorly understood.

I noted above that the series represents a growth in Morgan's clarity; with earlier books, I felt most comfortable with them on a second read... where I knew what was going to happen, and could sink myself into the details that Morgan packs the book with. This held true even with The Steel Remains, though I made it through Cold Commands without too much trouble. I didn't feel that with Dark Defiles; I devoured the book, with it's alternating chapters of Gil on the one hand and Egar and Archidi on the other, moving through the world and towards an end that felt like a frustrating cliffhanger... while the dwenda plot is resolved, some secondary machinations are set in motion and enough is revealed in an epilogue to make you say "I want to see that story, too, dammit."

Hawk

Hawk, by Steven Brust
 


 I got this on Tuesday, and it slowly ate at me how little time I had to sit down and read it. Steven Brust's Dragaera novels have been around since Jhereg in 1983 (that's a link to the later collection of several of them), but I got involved in them due to a bad heat regulator in my old '94 Ford pickup truck, a 40 mile commute, and my first wife. She left it in the car, my car broke down in the middle of nowhere, and I had a bit of a wait, so I started in on Jhereg. Hawk is the 20th novel in that universe, and 14th in the series (Brokedown Palace is a stand-alone, and the Khavreen Romances, starting with The Phoenix Guards, is a stylistically different series, though still wonderful.)

Vlad Taltos is a human assassin in an empire of "elves" (a term seldom used in the series, but evocative). Part of the House Jhereg, which handles organized crime within the empire, he did both freelance assassinations, troubleshooting, and ran an area for the organization, making his profit and passing a fair amount up the chain. But Vlad made some mistakes (that seemed like a good idea at the time) and, in the book Phoenix, had to start running for his life from the Organization. But, one day, he has a plan. A plan that can make the Organization a lot of money... maybe so much as to get the price off his head. The story of him trying to get the price off his head is Hawk.

Brust's style in Vlad draws a lot from crime novels; having read them recently, I can see the influences of Raymond Chandler, but there's also a lot of modern television banter in the dialog; the back and forth between people, sometimes leaving the occurrences that prompt statements to be explained after the explanation happens, as if you're sitting in a room watching, and only become aware of them when someone comments upon them. While Brust spends a lot of time on action, he doesn't revel in the violence quite like Abercrombie does (for better or for worse), and he likes to give you some surprises; while we see a lot of what Vlad is setting up, and get some hints as to what's going on, we don't really get the full understanding of it until everything unfolds. It's enjoyable to reconnect how everything has worked out, frequently more or less as Vlad planned, but usually with a few monkey wrenches thrown in just to prove that Vlad isn't all-knowing, merely that combination of talented, skilled, ballsy and lucky that makes him so much fun to read.

In other books, Brust has said he's got the phrase "And now I'm going to tell you something really cool" in his workspace, and he does just that; he tells cool stories. Sometimes, you're a step or two ahead of Vlad; sometimes, Vlad assumes you're a step or two ahead of him and tells you that it's not that easy. And, sometimes, everyone is lost together. But the books consistently enjoyable, and frequent rereads on my shelves.

Soon: Richard K. Morgan's The Dark Defiles. Preordered them, got them together, and went with Hawk first, since I knew Brust to be a faster read that Morgan, who likes to drag you through the dirt a little.

The Red Country

The Red Country by Joe Abercrombie



I got into Joe Abercrombie through his second foray into the world, Best Served Cold, a novel of revenge. The Heroes , which I read last summer, was a war novel; the Battle of the Bulge with swords and armor instead of M1s and uniforms. The Red Country, though, is a western, close kin to John Wayne's The Searchers. A young woman named Shy South returns to her home with her stepfather to find it burned, their farmhand killed, and her brother and sister stolen. She and her stepfather, a man she always took for a coward and named "Lamb", set across the great expanse to the Far Country, a lawless land sprung up around rumors of gold. They cross the expanse, facing Ghosts who take ears as trophies, hoping to find the children and bring them home. As they journey, some truths about Lamb's dark and bloody past are hinted, but never quite stated, left instead to the informed reader to make their conclusions. They're followed by Nicomo Cosca, famed degenerate and mercenary general, who has a commission from His Majesty's Inquisition, and hopes to use it to wring every bit of gold out of the Far Country he can manage.

I really enjoyed this book. Abercrombie's writing drags you along... frequently through the mud and the shit and all of the squalor of the world, but there's enough good and decent in his protagonists that you don't feel dirty empathizing with them, but rather feel the filth that they're stuck in. It's a fantasy novel, but the fantastic elements tend to take a back seat to real human stories that happen to be set in a fantasy world. There's no exotic races of demi-humans (save the Shanka, mentioned perhaps twice in this book); there's little grand magic, and only a grasping at machines, slowing coming into play as the world develops over the course of the six books so far (three in the First Law trilogy, and three stand-alones). But there's humor, and humanity. The action scenes are exciting, and a leavening of sex that varies according to the books. Characters from the past reappear, on their own terms, and adds to the fullness of the series.

That said, I would not start here. The hints as to Lamb's nature will be missed by those not familiar with earlier books, and I think that will rob it some of its impact. I came at the series somewhat inside out, and don't think it's a horrible way to do it, but start with The First Law trilogy; The Blade Itself , Before They Are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings. The slow building of the world, and the weaving of the stories, makes it a worthwhile task, and Abercrombie is greatly enjoyable to read, to boot.

This Common Secret

I've been wanting to write for some time now, but I broke my leg a few days after writing the welcome post and it's resulted in me spending a lot of time at home, playing video games, occasionally catching up on TV series. Throw in some momentous personal events, and I've skipped a few books I read since I decided I needed to do some blogging to keep my sanity.

This Common Secret: My Journey as an Abortion Doctor is much like as it is named; Susan Wicklund's story of being an abortion doctor in the 90s and early aughts, dealing with the growing violence of the "pro-life" and her on-going compassion for the women she helps. It is a chilling, powerful read. She was inspired to enter medicine by a family friend, and inspired to enter women's health, and abortion services, by a legal-but-impersonal abortion she had when younger. Galvanized by her own grandmother's tale of a botched abortion, she waded amidst the sea of crazy that makes up the anti-abortion movement, providing help to women who needed it.

Since I could articulate it, I have maintained that I am pro-choice because my mother. She has three sons, one a year earlier than they planned. But she was also in college from 1967-1972, getting her Masters in Education (and meeting my Dad). While there, she saw the lengths that some women went to in order to end pregnancies. Bathing or douching with lye, coathanger abortions... the violence and pain they endured because they could not be pregnant. Wicklund relates this on every page; stories of women whose pregnancies must end, stories of women who don't want them to end but can't say it, and women who have scrabbled to make their one day off count... only to be told that the law requires them to wait 24 hours to have an abortion after being told a legally-mandated collection of half-truths.

Wicklund talks of the terror of anti-choice zealots barricading her and her family in their homes. About her decision to carry a gun after the "pro-life" assassinated people. Of being followed and harruanged by those who view women as incubators more valuable than a few ounces of tissue they host in the first trimester. Because the "pro-life" movement isn't about life. They don't want every child to be loved and wanted. They just want to control women, and ensure that their lives are circumscribed by their capacity to bear children, regardless of their own desires for life.

Welcome!

Greetings!

I am a librarian (for most purposes) from Houston, Texas. I recently switched jobs, and had to leave behind a book review blog I'd maintained for many years. While I still read a lot, I've lost the outlet of book blogging, and plan to use this blog, the Library Ogre, to get back to that.

I read a lot of fantasy and science fiction, and recently have been reading a lot of books about secularism, and make occasional forays into history and science. I have a deep love of comic books, so if I ever catch up with my read stack (which is now a shortbox of comics to read), there'll likely be more than a few reviews.

I try to refer back to previous posts, and I'm open to suggestions of what to read, so if you've got a book I need to read (whether it's yours or someone else's), shoot me a line; if I can get it from the library (or it intrigues me enough to buy), I'll add it to the list.

-The Library Ogre