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.