The Story of the Stone

by on March 2, 2023 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The real problem with any truly special story is that doing it again is difficult. Especially if you take the same characters and find a new story for them to fit into as well as they did the first. This a large part of the heart of “sequelitis”. I’d been warned that The Story of the Stone suffered from it.

Not so much. It is not as good as the original Bridge of Birds, but it is close, and a lot of what makes the original work is here. Overall, I’d say the plot here is more of a mess, which is where the book tends to fall short. But what makes Hugart’s writing work is his simultaneously a sympathetic deep-dive into Chinese myth, folklore, and history, and a satire of the same. There’s little details scattered all over, and I have to wonder how much is made up whole-cloth, and how much traces at least the seed of the idea to some actual folklore. Some of it is obviously based on real myths and tales, which makes me wonder about parts that seem to be there because of story demands.

But what makes all that work, and is carried over from the first book is an honest sense of wonder and joy in telling a tale. In Hugart’s hands even some thoroughly nasty people contribute to some very fun scenes. Really, that’s what these books are about, a bit of fun, a bit of whimsy. Anyone to takes Master Li seriously deserves to.

As would be expected from the first book, we go on the road again, and make quick visits to several locales. But the Valley of Sorrows dominates the book, as this time Li and Number Ten Ox are off to solve a mystery. As with anything Master Li touches, it turns out to be more than it first appears, and like any good classic mystery it is obvious from the start that something truly odd is going on, even if it does have a perfectly reasonable explanation.

In short, I’m sorry have taken so long to get around to continuing to read about these two mis-matched partners. It stands alone perfectly well, and you can easily start here. I recommend starting with Bridge of Birds anyway, because I found the conclusion to that book to really get into the sense of wonder I mentioned, and this one nearly matches it in several points, but never quite gets there.

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Behind Distant Stars

by on February 22, 2023 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The second book about the notorious Dr. Fid picks up a little while after the first.

Fid has had a good thing going: Super-smart, extremely genre-savvy, he has a host of technological toys that have made him one of, if not the, top supervillains of the world. And he has a driving passion to punish all the heroes that don’t measure up to his standards of heroism to push him into the villain side of things.

That last also caused him to deliberately send himself insane, something he has long since drawn back from, so that he can properly live his double-life as the CEO of a cutting edge tech firm that he uses to introduce some truly useful technologies. And that, you know, sort of led him into saving the world.

Public opinion is, naturally, mixed on this development. As is Fid. This is a deeply character-driven story, as Fid insists to himself, and everyone else, that he doesn’t deserve to be seen as anything but a monster, the monster he was quite happy to be a decade or so before. But there are people who, looking at his current actions, see someone deserving of a good measure of trust—and in spite of his internal protests, he lives up to these expectations.

Of course, there is plenty of purely external conflict to go around too, which forms the main skeleton of the story, while the character side provides the muscle. We get some more world building; its not as fundamental as in the first book, but certainly interesting, and plot-relevant. The stakes seem lower than the first book (where do you go after saving the world?), but—spoiler—not so much. As a needed warning, the last part changes tone noticeably, and gets… extremely violent. I’m glad it was in text, I don’t know if I could take much of it in a visual medium. But, again, it’s plot-relevant.

So, an extremely successful second book, that does not fall into sequelitis, and is just a bit better than the original. It does end on something of a cliffhanger however!

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The Captain’s Oath

by on February 14, 2023 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Many Star Trek novels are basically ‘just another episode’. An adventure happening alongside all the normal ones of the TV series. Some of them go after bigger subjects, like this one which presents Kirk’s evolution as a command officer into who we see during the first season of TOS. And it does it very well.

There’s a few problems. The novel is really two stories (with some connections) told in a jumbled-up fashion. This is generally well done, but the switching between various portions of five years can get dizzying, and while I was fine with it (at least once each section of plot got itself going, and I could orient myself), I wouldn’t blame anyone who found it too much to follow.

We get to see Kirk’s first encounter with Bones, how he gave him that nickname, and his first command of a smaller ship (USS Sacajawea), as well as his initial mission on the Enterprise.

This last is trouble, since we already have novel about that, Enterprise: The First Adventure. This novel doesn’t even give a nod to that one. Overwriting portions of it would be one thing (like the background of Kirk’s previous mission to getting promoted to starship command), it wouldn’t have taken much to step around the time frame of that novel and leave interested readers to do whatever they must to reconcile the bits around them. Instead we get completely conflicting versions. Its more of a shame since the two books have very different aims. TFA features the entire main cast, most of which have their own troubles at the start of the famous five-year mission. That is, it’s focused on the crew coming together as a whole, while Bennett’s book is focused on Kirk and how he became the commander we see on screen. This is well done, and he points out that the Kirk we get in first season is more driven and less relaxed than what we see later, and what we generally think of with the character, and the novel even points up that arc.

USS Sacajawea is from the listing of scouts in the old Star Fleet Technical Manual. It doesn’t really indicate what a “scout” is; the class is externally identical to a destroyer, but with only a fraction of its armament. Star Fleet Battles decided it was packed with extra electronics so it could detect things like fleet movements at a greater range. That would have been handy in the course of the novel, as unknown alien vessels are managing to get through the Federation’s outer sensor net undetected. I can’t blame Bennett for not going with that idea, but on the other hand, he never really gives an idea what a scout’s role is as a ship. The best guess from what’s given is that it’s simply a cheaper, lighter-duty version of a destroyer, meant for use along the unknown reaches of the frontier.

Those “gripes” aside (that’s dignifying these comments with more force than I really intend), the plot is well done. We have some truly alien aliens, with some interestingly different technology, that makes for a good sense of mystery and suspense. We have some action, we have some very good characterization, and the overall plot (once you sort it out) is good. In a way, my real complaint is that it’s better than The First Adventure, which is an old favorite of mine, which it sort of replaces.

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1809: Thunder on the Danube – Part 1

by on February 6, 2023 at 12:00 pm
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I really have to wonder at the level of obsession that makes someone write so many words on one campaign, and so few on anything else. But, Gill’s obsession is our gain, as his books are worthwhile additions to the studies of Napoleon’s campaigns.

This first volume covers up up through 23rd April 1809, and the aftermath of the Battle of Eggmühl. Before that, we of course get the general build up, and the political pressures that caused Austria to go to war with France, again.

That first part is very informative, as we are treated to the crosscurrents operating in Austria, and how a commander who didn’t feel the Austrian army was ready got swept up in tide anyway. After that we get a nicely detailed account of the initial Austrian offensive, and all the problems that slowed what was supposed to be a sudden, daring, lunge over the border into a fairly slow march.

After this, things break up a bit, as the maps in the book just can’t handle the job of backing up the narrative. There’s a good number of maps, but they are not horribly well-done, and often don’t make things much clearer, as it’s often impossible to find the places being referenced in the text.

That is by far the worst problem here though. The text and descriptions are great, the narrative is a bit slow, thanks to the fine level of detail being presented, but it does not lose coherence in spite of that. I will note that he also stays focused on the main theater; I thought he might borrow some from his earlier With Eagles to Glory to fill in what was going on away from the main armies and at least present the Tyrolean revolt in its bigger chronological context, but no. Obviously, it would have expanded an overstuffed series even further, but I could do with the further context. Even so, this is not to be missed by anyone with a real interest in the Napoleonic Wars.

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No Quarter

by on January 29, 2023 at 12:00 pm
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The third “Quarters” novel is a direct sequel to Fifth Quarter, picking up all the unfinished business left behind last time. I certainly wouldn’t recommending starting here as we’re in the middle of a mess of unlikely proportions.

The good news is it is about as good as the previous book. The action starts in Schkoder, and largely happens there, so it also ties into the first book much more solidly, and we see a lot more bardic magic this time. The second book could largely be read on its own, but this one would certainly benefit more from having read both of the first two, even though plot-wise it’s just a follow on to the second book.

The plot is only a bit trimmed down from Fifth Quarter‘s fairly complicated one, with three major elements that all come together for the ending climax. The pacing also holds up, along with characters with complex motivations. Together, these two books make for a very solid reason to get into the series, and Tanya Huff’s writing.

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