Bear, Elizabeth: Grail
Grail (2011)
Written by: Elizabeth Bear
Genre: Science Fiction
Pages: 330 (Mass Market Paperback)
Series: Book Three (Jacob's Ladder)
Why I Read It: After finishing the second book, Chill, I looked forward to Grail just to see where, exactly, the author took us, and how on Earth she was going to wrap up this story. The trilogy's been rife with all kinds of complexities: themes, philosophies, region, and that's just the tip of the iceberg. Thanks to the Mount TBR challenge, I was able to finish this trilogy in a rather timely manner. And I'm glad I did: this is one trilogy where details are of the utmost importance!
The premise: ganked from BN.com: Rife with intrigue and betrayal, heroism and sacrifice, Grail brings Elizabeth Bear’s brilliant space opera to a triumphant conclusion.
At last the generation ship Jacob’s Ladder has arrived at its destination: the planet they have come to call Grail. But this habitable jewel just happens to be populated already: by humans who call their home Fortune. And they are wary of sharing Fortune-especially with people who have genetically engineered themselves to such an extent that it is a matter of debate whether they are even human anymore. To make matters worse, a shocking murder aboard the Jacob’s Ladder has alerted Captain Perceval and the angel Nova that formidable enemies remain hidden somewhere among the crew.
On Grail-or Fortune, rather-Premier Danilaw views the approach of the Jacob’s Ladder with dread. Behind the diplomatic niceties of first-contact protocol, he knows that the deadly game being played is likely to erupt into full-blown war-even civil war. For as he strives to chart a peaceful and prosperous path forward for his people, internal threats emerge to take control by any means necessary.
Spoilers, yay or nay?: Yay. Expect spoilers not only for this book, but the first two books well. I apologize, but it's really hard to talk about the last book in a trilogy without divulging SOME details. If you're trying to avoid spoilers, just skip to "My Rating" and you'll be just fine!
This is an oddly difficult book to review. That's due in part to the ending, which was just abstract enough to give me fuzzy visuals, and while I think I understood what was happening on an intellectual level, if hard-pressed, I wouldn't be able to explain exactly what happened in a way that made any sense. The whole, "and they all became angels!" answer would tell you nothing about the how and why, and while the why is pretty simple (Ariane Conn was back and better -- and by better, I mean worse -- than ever and was trying to take over the ship and destroy Nova), that transition between cause and effect is so fuzzy in my brain that it's hard to wrap my head around what I really think of the book.
So let's break it down by my notes. Some are quotes that stood out as being particularly lovely or poignant, and others are observations made during the text.
Page 9:
But there was only so long one could hold a grudge, and as the years passed, Perceval found it helped to think of Nova as the child, and of Rien and the others as her parents. Nova was not a shadow of them or something constructed of their remnants . . . but a new person derived from the old.
A child was not to blame for the death of a parent.
Page 14:
When we love, it is hard to forgive the beloved for not being the person we imagined them.
When Dust originally returned, I was rather disappointed. I mean, really, are we so dry on ideas that we have to resurrect characters from previous books? I felt the same way when I learned Ariane Conn had survived as well. Part of this, I got over, but only because Dust was in the adorable toolkit I loved so much in the second book. But seriously, for pretty much ALL of the book, I felt this insurrection on Jacob's Ladder was unnecessary, because the tension between the characters on Jacob's Ladder and those from Grail (or Fortune, as they call it themselves), was so strong that I felt the insurrection simply wasn't necessary. Until the very end, that is, but we'll talk about that then.
Because believe me, the physiological, mental, and emotional differences between the humanity on Grail versus the humanity on Jacob's Ladder was fascinating. That Grail humans have found a way to eradicate religion within humanity was amazing, and that they consider the Jacobeans barbarians for still having the old mindset was a wonderfully startling point, because up until this book in the trilogy, those barbarians have been our heroes, and now we're getting them from an alien, yet still human, mindset, and it makes sense.
Okay, "making sense" will vary with the reader. But the start of that argument was utterly fascinating to me. Even seeing Perceval and Tristen and everyone from the point of view of the rightminded humans was awesome, because other than Tristen (kind of), I never really saw them as non-human looking, as non-"normal." Seeing the ship itself from an outsider's POV was awesome, because for the first time, the reader could fully appreciate just how strange Jacob's Ladder really was.
But just when I was ready to accept rightminded humanity as the superior way of thinking and living, we start to see cracks in the armor. For starters, Danilaw's own people sabotages his ship, something that shouldn't happen if there are no zealots in the population. Also a lovely crack came with Cynric's quote on page 205:
"Isn't that," Cynric said, "condescending? Doesn't that set humankind in a kind of stewardship over every other species? Doesn't that make us the colonialists, responsible for the well-being of primitives?"
And here, the back-and-forth on page 207:
"When you assume stewardship for everything, you domesticate everything," Tristen said.
Out of the corner of his eyes, Danilaw saw Amanda nodding, though he kept his attention firmly on Perceval and her crew. "And if we do not assume stewardship, we exploit everything."
And isn't that just the conundrum? On one hand, if one wants to live as survival of the fittest, things will die out. The strong survive, the weak perish, and that's true of man, animal, plant, and even the planet Earth.
Yet by stunting that evolution, is that any more natural? Not letting life live out its cycle as it wants? Not saying that life (if life were something akin to god or some higher power) really means for humanity to take over like parasites and destroy its host, but still, it's a fascinating argument, and every time it came up in the narrative, Bear had my attention. She really crystalizes the point on page 212:
"The Fisher King's folk. We are their worst nightmare," she said. "We are the thing they changed themselves utterly to escape from."
"And they are the thing we changed ourselves utterly to avoid becoming."
The whole notion of rightminding cracks even more when we learn that creative impulse has unintentionally been stifled. Oh sure, people play music, but it seems no one creates anything new. They're playing everything old, and then wonder why that has such appeal for them.
And the final blow, arguement-wise, before the book starts wrapping up and getting fuzzy in my brain, page 281:
"If you won't share your world," Cynric said, "what about that one?"
Jesse's gaze followed her own. "Everything on that one is poison."
"Too poison for us?"
"It's a hydrogen sulfide based biosphere," he said. He glanced at her sideways, eye corners crinkling. "And yet perhaps you are too poison for it."
Cynric laughed. "You lot make so much of your mental stability. But you're xenophobes, neophobes, the lot of you. You've wired a lack of diversity into your souls."
He rubbed his chin and frowned, but he did not seem offended. "And you do better?"
She shrugged. "We get along with carnivorous plants and talking screwdrivers. I don't know what should be so hard about getting along with you."
Had to love Cynric in this book. :)
Other thematic concepts in this book were also interesting, yet tantalizing. The latter because I was reading to consume, not to ponder, so I suspect I'd get more out of this sucker upon a second read. That said, looking at the treatment of angels and considering them slaves? I can't believe I didn't see that before.
Not much else to say. By the end, I understood the point of all those seemingly pointless resurrections, as it figured well into the climax of the book. But more important, it allowed for the resurrection of Rien, which I never expected, not after Chill was over. So that was a nice surprise.
My Rating: Worth Reading, with Reservations
It's very close to a "Good Read," but the ending was just abstract enough that I had trouble following the why of what was actually happening. I get what caused it, and I get the end result. It's the in-between that gives me issues. No matter, I've said it before and I'll say it again: this book (and trilogy) is so rich in ideas and themes that a single read does not do the book (nor trilogy) justice. I can see myself coming back to this sometime in the future and peeling back more layers and understanding more than I ever did before. The fact I kind of want to do that is promising, because these books have an above-average rating, they have the kind of staying power that's well worth noting. It may not be an addictive read, but it is most certainly a challenging, thought-provoking one, and I'm glad I finished the trilogy.
Cover Commentary: My least favorite. While the font choice has been relatively consistent through the trilogy, the style of art of this cover doesn't match up with the first two covers at all, and that's disappointing. And I don't know who the model on the cover is supposed to represent this go around. It looks more like Memoirs of a Geisha wrapped in a bungie chord. Meh, not my favorite cover.
Next up: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater