The Tyrants of Syracuse: Part 1

by on November 20, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

It often seems to me like Sicily doesn’t get a lot of attention, now or in the ancient world, even though it’s a very prominent land-mass that dominates the middle of the Mediterranean. This is more an accident of our fascination with Athens (whose worries were often more eastern than Mediterranean) and Rome (who made the Mediterranean a peaceful backwater for centuries), than a lack of importance. Both Athens and Rome actually spent a great deal of time and military effort to get control of Sicily, though their efforts tend to get lost in the tale of fighting closer to home.

But of course, Sicily had a population of its own, and the Greek colonies there tended to be quite wealthy. Of these, Syracuse was the most prominent and powerful, and so it is there that Jeff Champion focuses on, in what naturally extends to be something of a history of the island. While the title of this book indicates that it’s about the period from Gelon to Dionysius (Vol 1: 480-367 BC), he does give a good background of Greek settlement of the island, beginning in the 8th Century BC. This introduces the troubles with the native population of Sicily (which I would like to know more about) as well as the general character of Greek government.

From there, Champion spends a chapter on the earlier tyrants of Sicilian cities other than Syracuse, before launching into Gelon’s rule of Syracuse. After Gelon’s short (and popular) reign, Syracuse returns to democracy for a few years before coming under control of Dionysius, one of the more infamous tyrants of the Classical period. Much time is spent with the Athenian siege of Syracuse, and the back-and-forth of Syracuse’s efforts to dominate its neighbors, and its struggles with Carthage.

This is distinctly a ‘popular’ history book, aimed at laying the course of events out in a clear fashion by integrating the main ancient sources. As such, there’s no real thesis here, or ‘point’ being made. But, it does a great job at untangling a history that is often only presented with Sicily as a side show, when it was center of its own tumultuous events.

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In the Ruins

by on November 8, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

In origin, this is half a book. Each volume of the Crown of Stars series was longer than the last, and here at the end it finally got too long to put under one cover.

It’s also hard to figure out how to treat this section of the series. The major world-changing event was the return of the Ashoi (or not, with the potential of destroying the planet in the process), at the end of the fifth book. Is this this just a denouement? As usual, the entire, by now very large, cast of characters show up with their individual threads running forward. While things happen with all of them, most of them don’t get any kind of recognizable arc in this book, which shows its ‘part one of two’ nature.

But… one of the major themes of the series brings it over to what I call “dynastic fantasy”. One of the major concerns has been control of the conjoined kingdom of Wendar and Varre, and with the last couple of books, Aosta as well. With the death of King Henry at the end of book five, this is now a major question as none of the obvious heirs are in a good position. This shows better development, with power struggles in Wendar, Aosta, and among the Ashoi all being much of the focus of the action, and the end promises a better focus on Wendar itself for the end of the series.

What actually holds this book together, however, is the weather. Between the giant storm and volcanism caused by the return to earth of missing pieces, and spells to keep the skies clear at important positions, much of the continent is under a perpetual cloud cover for the several months of the book, with signs that it might change only coming at the very end. Concerns and reactions to this are one of the constants through the majority of the different threads.

Overall, this book reshuffles the furniture a bit to cover several now-dead characters, but continues reaching for some form of final climax. Frankly, there’s so much up in the air, I’m not sure how it can be wrapped up in one book.

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The Gathering Storm

by on October 11, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

As the Crown of Stars series nears its end, this book loses its individual identity. There’s no real ‘spine’ overtly holding this book together as a unit. No new characters to speak of.

As a result, The Gathering Storm does feel ‘looser’ in the plot department.

On the other hand, the cataclysm that the series is centered around is drawing close. One of the more prominent subplots here are the Seven Sleepers’ quest to take control of the Crown so they can cast the spell to keep the exiled bit of Earth from returning. Unfortunately, this is undermined by much of it being in the hands of tertiary characters and away from all the viewpoint characters, so it’s hard to tell how well its going much of the time.

The fact that time is pressing is also undermined by the fact that it is always hard to grasp how much time is passing in this series. With multiple separate groups to switch between the series naturally hops back and forth a bit in time, so figuring out just when everything is in relation to each other is difficult, and is made even more so by the fact that traveling through standing stones takes a variable amount of time. I think being a bit more rigorous about keeping track of the progress of time in the book would have helped ratchet up the tension.

While the book in one sense feels like a ‘holding pattern’ while we chew up time to the cataclysm, there’s plenty to hold attention too. Alain and several other characters spend a lot of the book battered by outside forces without any real time being proactive. On the other hand, Liath and Sanglant finally get (briefly) reunited, get a chance to work out some of their troubles, and they provide much of the forward momentum for the book.

It’s not a place to start reading (hey, book 5!), but it seems to have set everyone up for the final act quite well. It’s hard to judge on it’s own merits because of this, and my opinion wavers between ‘took too long for what it did’, and ‘kept me engaged the whole way’.

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To Honor You Call Us

by on October 3, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

The cover of H. Paul Honsinger’s first book promises grand old-fashioned military SF. And he delivers on this.

The general setup is familiar: officer with his first command of a warship gets a ship with a troubled, low-morale, crew and has to turn it around to do great things with it. Also, the ship’s doctor is the secondary character in a parallel with the Aubrey–Maturin series.

There are some problems. There’s some decent explanations for certain things, like why ships don’t self-destruct in the face of boarding. But ships have a ‘top speed’, and there’s a couple cases where acceleration and speed seem a bit confused (though it’s still much better than some popular franchises…). Considering that the main ships decidedly don’t have reactionless drives, they’re going up to high percentages of c awfully easily. The series follows its Age of Sail antecedents in a way that feels natural, but when you think about it, there’s some problems: There’s no sign of computer expert systems or other modern computer technologies, much less any sort of remote-operated or computer-controlled drone/secondary vehicles.  Having 8 to 10-year-old boys on board as part of early training is handled well in the novel, but I still wonder what’s happened to child labor laws in the next three centuries.

On the other hand, the writing is very good, and provides for the characters to contemplate larger questions and show some humor in turns. It kind of ticks through several minor tropes in turn, which lends some predictability, but they’re well handled. Best of all, the military elements feel right, with a great combination of hierarchy, tradition, and pragmatism.

It’s kind of “80s” military SF, done well, and despite the quibbles is a really fun read; I poured through this faster than most anything else I’ve read lately. It’s a good action-adventure story, and as such succeeds very well.

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The Winter Prince

by on September 25, 2016 at 12:00 pm
Posted In: Books

This isn’t quite an Arthurian book in the usual sense. Set in post-Roman Britain, The Winter Prince adapts from the Welsh versions of Arthurian legend, taking the general situation to tell its own story.

The entire story is told by Medraut in first person to his mother Morgause, though exactly when and where is unclear, as she doesn’t seem to be present (and a novel makes for a very long letter); perhaps it is really just an inner monologue of Medraut’s as part of coming to terms with his mother. But the novel centers around Medraut’s relationship with Lleu, the heir of King Artos. Medraut is his older half-brother, and in many ways a better candidate for kingship. Lleu is young, inexperienced, and sickly, and has a certain amount of arrogance, while Medraut is experienced, well-traveled, and competent in a number of fields. But it is not to be, kingship is forbidden to Medraut.

The plot of the novel just kind of wanders about through a number of different incidents. But the real purpose of the book is the complicated relationship between Medraut and Lleu. This is well handled, and comes to a good ending. I generally recommend this as a YA book, though it never got me especially involved.

My Kindle edition has a full page illustration by the author at the start of every chapter, so that is also recommended, even if the cover came straight from the stock-photo department.

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