Book thoughts
Apr. 12th, 2006 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hawkwing_lbOkay. After the Exam of Doom on Tuesday (trust me, you don’t want to know), I needed to recover from the strain. I went to the bookshop. My collection proceeded to increase by two.
Fortunately books are not a controlled substance, or I suspect I’d be in rehab.
Below the cut: Engaging the Enemy, Elizabeth Moon; Deathstalker Coda, Simon R. Green.
Elizabeth Moon, Engaging the Enemy.
This is the third book in the Vatta’s War series, and it doesn’t bother to remind you a whole lot about What Has Gone Before. This is both a virtue and slightly annoying – it gets the momentum moving along, but it’s been over a year since I looked at Moving Targets, so I had some floundering to do before I caught up again.
It’s a very readable book. Ky Vatta is a reasonably engaging character, and there’s a reasonable amount of tension, although the balance among the points of view – Ky, her cousin Stella, and her great-aunt Grace – irritated me at times. It is, unfortunately, a series book, and not really meaty enough for me to read it with relish. Ultimately, resolutions and conclusions must wait on further instalments.
Simon R. Green, Deathstalker Coda.
Reading Coda immediately after Engaging provided an interesting contrast. The Deathstalker universe has eight novels and three novellas worth of growth behind it, as opposed to Vatta’s two, and Coda is the final denouement of the saga.
Green writes on a harsher, grittier, and ultimately broader canvas than does Moon. Because Deathstalker has mythic depth and resonance, which is something Vatta’s War lacks. They are both, in a sense, coming-of-age/coming-to-terms stories, but Coda, while it spreads its thematic and plot-tendrils over a more mythic scale, is also, ultimately, a more human story.
There’s never any doubt, in Engaging the Enemy, that Ky is fundamentally a good character. While she might make a mistake, she’s not going to make a morally wrong choice. She is, in fact, so upright, that it’s downright annoying.
Even the slightly-sociopathic Aunt Grace is on the side of the angels, defending her family.
In Coda, however... The antagonists are definitely antag-ing. The usurper Emperor Finn Durandel is a sociopath so evil he’s almost a caricature of Evil(™®). The Terror is an unstoppable hunger that eats worlds. The uber-espers just want to have fun killing everyone in horrendous ways. But even the heroes are tarnished. They’re not shining beacons of Good and Right. They have to win in spite of, not because of, themselves.
It’s an important distinction. And it’s in the nature of being human.
And, of course, I’ve always had a soft spot for Diana Vertue. AKA Jenny Psycho. Even though she’s at best a secondary character with a lot of stage time.
Hmm, I’ve just realised something else about the Deathstalker universe. You’ve got half a dozen main characters and lots of secondary characters in each book, each that could have pretty interesting stories themselves. They exist beyond the needs of the main characters. Whereas in Vatta’s, you’ve got one main character and a handful of secondaries.
Of course, Green can get away with this because he’s using the omniscient, and he’s pretty deft with it. Moon sticks with close limited third.
In Coda and its predecessors, Green is asking questions about the nature of being human that I don’t think Moon is asking. The nature of being human, the nature of power, and the effects that the one might have on the other.
Oh, alright, I admit it: I’m a sucker for books that recognise that ‘heroes die young, and bloody, and far from home’.
Ones that use those words, with the rhythm that Green managed to give them? I’m gone.
I note: I’ll recommend Green’s Deathstalker books to anyone in hearing distance, even those who prefer fantasy to SF, but I’ll say this: he writes science fiction with the sensibilities of a horror writer. The squeamish should perhaps enter cautiously.
But. This is what a horror version of Star Wars might look like, if you took out most of the wish-fulfilment Jedi* crap and the sheer impossibility of a raggle-taggle rebellion with no outside support taking down an empire with a couple well-placed missiles. And added lots more interesting stuff, including rather more engaging characters than a handful of archetypes.
(So I have a soft spot for Hazel d’Ark and Jenny Psycho and Owen Deathstalker and likewise broken-but-strong-at-the-broken-places, will-do-what-it-takes-to-survive characters, especially female ones. So sue me.)
*I happen to like Star Wars and wish-fulfilment Jedi crap. Most of the time.** Still. It is what it is.
**Don’t mention the bloody prequels. Just don’t.
Fortunately books are not a controlled substance, or I suspect I’d be in rehab.
Below the cut: Engaging the Enemy, Elizabeth Moon; Deathstalker Coda, Simon R. Green.
Elizabeth Moon, Engaging the Enemy.
This is the third book in the Vatta’s War series, and it doesn’t bother to remind you a whole lot about What Has Gone Before. This is both a virtue and slightly annoying – it gets the momentum moving along, but it’s been over a year since I looked at Moving Targets, so I had some floundering to do before I caught up again.
It’s a very readable book. Ky Vatta is a reasonably engaging character, and there’s a reasonable amount of tension, although the balance among the points of view – Ky, her cousin Stella, and her great-aunt Grace – irritated me at times. It is, unfortunately, a series book, and not really meaty enough for me to read it with relish. Ultimately, resolutions and conclusions must wait on further instalments.
Simon R. Green, Deathstalker Coda.
Reading Coda immediately after Engaging provided an interesting contrast. The Deathstalker universe has eight novels and three novellas worth of growth behind it, as opposed to Vatta’s two, and Coda is the final denouement of the saga.
Green writes on a harsher, grittier, and ultimately broader canvas than does Moon. Because Deathstalker has mythic depth and resonance, which is something Vatta’s War lacks. They are both, in a sense, coming-of-age/coming-to-terms stories, but Coda, while it spreads its thematic and plot-tendrils over a more mythic scale, is also, ultimately, a more human story.
There’s never any doubt, in Engaging the Enemy, that Ky is fundamentally a good character. While she might make a mistake, she’s not going to make a morally wrong choice. She is, in fact, so upright, that it’s downright annoying.
Even the slightly-sociopathic Aunt Grace is on the side of the angels, defending her family.
In Coda, however... The antagonists are definitely antag-ing. The usurper Emperor Finn Durandel is a sociopath so evil he’s almost a caricature of Evil(™®). The Terror is an unstoppable hunger that eats worlds. The uber-espers just want to have fun killing everyone in horrendous ways. But even the heroes are tarnished. They’re not shining beacons of Good and Right. They have to win in spite of, not because of, themselves.
It’s an important distinction. And it’s in the nature of being human.
And, of course, I’ve always had a soft spot for Diana Vertue. AKA Jenny Psycho. Even though she’s at best a secondary character with a lot of stage time.
Hmm, I’ve just realised something else about the Deathstalker universe. You’ve got half a dozen main characters and lots of secondary characters in each book, each that could have pretty interesting stories themselves. They exist beyond the needs of the main characters. Whereas in Vatta’s, you’ve got one main character and a handful of secondaries.
Of course, Green can get away with this because he’s using the omniscient, and he’s pretty deft with it. Moon sticks with close limited third.
In Coda and its predecessors, Green is asking questions about the nature of being human that I don’t think Moon is asking. The nature of being human, the nature of power, and the effects that the one might have on the other.
Oh, alright, I admit it: I’m a sucker for books that recognise that ‘heroes die young, and bloody, and far from home’.
Ones that use those words, with the rhythm that Green managed to give them? I’m gone.
I note: I’ll recommend Green’s Deathstalker books to anyone in hearing distance, even those who prefer fantasy to SF, but I’ll say this: he writes science fiction with the sensibilities of a horror writer. The squeamish should perhaps enter cautiously.
But. This is what a horror version of Star Wars might look like, if you took out most of the wish-fulfilment Jedi* crap and the sheer impossibility of a raggle-taggle rebellion with no outside support taking down an empire with a couple well-placed missiles. And added lots more interesting stuff, including rather more engaging characters than a handful of archetypes.
(So I have a soft spot for Hazel d’Ark and Jenny Psycho and Owen Deathstalker and likewise broken-but-strong-at-the-broken-places, will-do-what-it-takes-to-survive characters, especially female ones. So sue me.)
*I happen to like Star Wars and wish-fulfilment Jedi crap. Most of the time.** Still. It is what it is.
**Don’t mention the bloody prequels. Just don’t.
