Penric and the Shaman

by on December 11, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The second Penric story feels a lot better developed than the first. It’s also about 60 pages longer, which for a novella is quite a difference. Things happen instead of merely happen to Penric.

Penric is not the only viewpoint character here, which is partially a device to keep you from immediately understanding everything he does. Or, maybe, it would be better to say that it’s used to show that the other characters don’t understand everything he does. Meanwhile, we get two new characters, that are central to the story, while Penric is more roped into it.

Penric has had four years to get used to his ‘passenger’, and go through a somewhat rushed education as a divine (it isn’t said, but it’s more likely that Penric hurried through on his own, rather than was pushed through), and has settled into the Martinsburg court before this adventure picks him up. Oswyl is a “Locator”, basically a marshal/detective, who shows very much as a dedicated career cop, and Penric starts mentally categorizing his frowns partway through.

The case he’s on seems clear enough, as it was fairly definitely the knife of the prime suspect who killed a minor noble, and it was obviously in his possession at the time. But motives are cloudy, and the action of the story gets tangled up in a completely different tragedy. Much of the theme here, as in the other Five Gods stories is in the realm of the gods work in mysterious ways. Of course, part of what makes the series work so well is that the gods’ aims are generally comprehensible, its just their side of the problem lies a bit outside the normal human world.

In all, it’s a solid sequel to Penric’s Demon, and better than that story. The expansion to three (okay, four) major characters helps, the tradeoffs in viewpoint are a little jarring at first, but serve the story structure, and the overall plot is in better shape; this ups my recommendation of the series as a whole, and I expect it will continue to get better.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Mistborn

by on December 3, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

I haven’t kept any sort of real eye on new releases in decades, so I’ve only been peripherally aware of Brian Sanderson and Mistborn. And it’s popular enough that I couldn’t not be aware of it.

Generally, it lives up to its reputation. This isn’t deathless prose, but that’s certainly not a defining element of genre fiction. But the plot is solid, the characters get your sympathy early, and the world….

A lot of the raves are about the “magic system”, and make no mistake, it is quite unique. Personally, I was more interested in what we see going on it this partially-broken world. The motto for this series is stated by one of the main characters early on, “there’s always another secret.” There’s things that do get explained, and a lot that doesn’t. A thousand years ago, the typical epic fantasy quest to save the world with the help of prophesy happened. We find out the main part of what went wrong with that, but… there’s a lot left unsaid too. Sanderson does a nice job setting mood early on with constant ashfalls, and while the characters shrug off where it comes from and goes (they, after all, have no way of looking into it), I’m fairly certain that the causes were all part of the initial worldbuilding (and have suspicion of how it fits in to other things).

Now, this is a trilogy, but unusually, it’s actually a pretty good standalone book as well, with just the unanswered questions demanding more (including an obvious thread to pick up in the second book). A main plot is set into motion, with two viewpoint characters, and finishes with the book; since I can take a while to get to further books, this was nice to see. Best of all, it avoids the normal epic fantasy disease of needing half of the first first book just to set things up so the plot can get going. So far, this is not a favorite of mine in the genre, but it is quite good.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

The Norman Conquest

by on November 17, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

Too often, brief looks at the Conquest start at Stamford Bridge and end at Hastings. Well, this isn’t a brief look. Morris starts with nearly a century’s worth of Anglo-Saxon politics, including the fact that much of Anglo-Saxon “England” had been under Danish rule for a while. That entire period is easily worth a longer treatment on its own, but Morris gives all the essentials in a nice readable format that leads into the twenty years or so before the central date of 1066.

This section is very informative, and demonstrates how much the British Isles had become attached to Scandinavia instead of Western Europe. But more importantly, we get a very fleshed out cast of characters around Edward the Confessor. The English court was something of an unstable place, thanks to the various transfers of power from one external faction to another, and the power of various magnates (notably the Godwinesons). Very interesting is Morris’ look at the story of Edward naming William of Normandy as his heir. It’s not nearly as unlikely nor coerced as it seems at first glance. Also, he takes a look at how English kingship operated, and especially how and when a new king was acknowledged.

After Edward’s death, and the very confused year that follows, the book takes an extensive look at the approximately twenty years after 1066 as well. In many ways this isn’t as detailed or as coherent as the the first parts of the book, but the actors on the stage are a bit more fractured. This part is a story of repeated rebellions, and repeated voyages by William across the Channel in both directions. It’s also the story of how much of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy got replaced by a largely Norman one. Not all in one big transfer right after William is crowned King of England, but in a series of large grants and appropriations, and on a smaller scale by various Norman lords grabbing whatever they can get away with.

The book largely ends with the Domesday Book, or more properly the Survey which ended up by producing the two books (Great and Little). Morris has some interesting things to say here as well, and wraps things up with a bit on the eventual Anglicizing of the Norman conquerors. From start to finish, he does a great job presenting the history, all the various problems with the sources, and talks extensively about the major sources for any section. This is on the ‘popular history’ side of things, and is extremely readable, but it also has high-level discussion of just how we know what we know.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Scions’ Flight

by on November 9, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The second half of Lisinthir’s Heirs is just that, the second half of the story begun in Dragon’s Fealty.

It does have an interesting way to to begin, with two characters waking up and recovering from the trauma at the end of the previous book. As they need a bit of time and calm to get going again, so does this novel.

Interestingly, while it’s all one story, and basically the same cast of characters, there is some real shuffling on who is prominent in this one. A set of Eldritch who were returning from the Chatcaavan Empire were briefly introduced in the first book, but we get a few well-developed scenes with them here, where their personalities and friendship really come out.

I will say my biggest problem is with the ending, where a couple things drop out of the ether as a deus ex machina. However, there is a bit mentioned just before that which shows we’re dealing with yet another character who has prior existence, but hasn’t been mentioned before. And who he is and what he’s doing answer’s question that should growing in the reader for the entire duology. However, motivations here are entirely opaque, but that’s probably intentional.

Having just seen the entire list of characters for the books, I can’t blame myself for having trouble keeping them all straight; this is way too short a space to be introduced to that many characters without prior reading, which again is no surprise; go read some of the other books in this universe first. Despite the trouble, it’s still well put together, and a satisfying story, even if we are left with a major dun dun dun! and “to be continued” tag right at the end.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment 

Dragon’s Fealty

by on October 20, 2021 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

About the time I finished reading Dreamhearth, I happened on a giveaway for a couple of Hogarth’s other books, and got them. It turned out that they’re very late on in things, and there is a warning up front about other books to read first. I spent a couple days deciding if I was going to leap into things here, and eventually did.

I was a bit surprised to find Jahir and Vasiht’h here, and in much changed circumstances. I figure Dreamstorm would help explain a lot of that, but….

In fact, it’s obvious the galaxy in general has been a fairly busy place over the last several years. It takes some digging to find out that it’s been about a dozen years since the last I’ve seen the duo, and while Jahir is fairly important, there’s plenty of other characters that are more central to the plot, including some obviously returning villains.

So, I had a fair amount of figuring out to do, and I certainly don’t recommend starting here. Hogarth recommends Healer’s Wedding as the start point in the note at the beginning of the book, though that one mentions it’s bringing together characters from Her Instruments and Princes’ Game as well as the Dreamhealers series, so getting into everything could be quite an undertaking, and cutting the Gordian Knot here might not be an entirely bad answer (…though I think I’d probably still recommend cutting it a bit earlier than this).

At any rate, here is where I did start, and things did largely make sense, though with a lot of backfill to be done, and in many cases only a sketchy idea of the large cast of characters. So if you want to start here as I did, go ahead, it will work out.

Overall, the flow was good, and I picked up momentum after a rocky start to a nicely dramatic ending. I’ve gotten very used to trilogies over the decades, and it is very nice to see Hogarth do duologies that split very well, with a very natural stopping point for the first book.

└ Tags: , , ,
 Comment