Histories true and false
I started to write "Gillian Bradshaw's Cleopatra's Heir is an historical novel," and thought better of it. Or didn't quite; I still tend to think of it as one, but if you get precise about your subgenres, you could call it a secret history, or even (though I believe it's deforming the term) an alternate history.
History: Cleopatra had four children, three by Marc Antony, one (she claimed, and Caeasar appeared to believe) by Julius Caesar. Roman citizens couldn't marry foreigners, and Julius's heir was his biological nephew and adopted son Octavian, who found it expedient (or maybe even really believed, who knows?) to deny that Cleopatra's oldest son was his cousin. Young Caesar Ptolemy, known as Caesarion, was killed during Octavian's conquest of Egypt, probably by Octavian's orders.
Historical novel: Caesarion escaped Octavian's troops and went into hiding; aided by an unknowing Egyptian merchant, he made his way back to Alexandria, planning to aid his imprisoned mother and confront his usurper.
(A confession: I discovered Caesarion in the Heroes in Hells shared-world series by Janet Morris, the conceit of which was that practically everyone ever born was in Hell. The Christian one, pretty much. Various writers chose various historical personages to write about; I suppose, though I didn't think of it then, that it was inspired by Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld. The metaphysics weren't well thought out, but I retain an embarrassed fondness for Nancy Asire's Wellington and Napoleon stories, and a guilty passion for C.J. Cherryh's various Romans-and-Alexander-the-Great stories. Cherryh, who was a high school Classics teacher, clearly knows her Roman history; I wish she'd write a straight Roman historical novel. I used to turn to her canny Caesar, cynical Caesarion, and passionate idealistic young Brutus for comfort reading.)
This isn't one of Bradshaw's best, and the afterword gives some clues why. She doesn't like Cleopatra, it transpires, and she doesn't think much of the person she considers Caesarion likely to be. To make him more sympathetic, she makes him a sufferer of epilepsy, based more on conjecture than evidence: Julius Caesar was epileptic, and it's just barely possible that Cleopatra would have considered the uncanny associations of the disease worse than its circumstantial support for Caesarion's heritage. In any case, Bradshaw's Caesarion is spoiled, selfish, short-sighted, and prideful; he survives because he's smart when his pride allows, and mostly because he's very lucky and rather pretty.
The book improves when we trade Caesarion's viewpoint for that of Ani, the Egyptian trader who rescues the lost and wounded boy on the road. Ani is canny, kind, and ambitious; he's taking advantage of the current unsettled political situation to try to advance in a society that priviliges its Greek aristocracy much over its native Egyptian serfs. He rescues the boy out of pity, but finds that someone with a knowledge of upper-class Greek customs may be useful to him.
Bradshaw is excellent on Egyptian society, though people seem rather too nice much of the time and the plot is forwarded by extreme coincidences at key points. She ends up with a kind of resolution that usually dismays me, but works well here. (I think it's obvious, but I'll refrain from spoiling it.) Everyone probably has her own template "aristocrat learns to be a better person through disenfranchisement" book; I thought of Cecelia Holland's Lords of Vaumartin, an altogether harsher, grittier, more convincing book than this. Cleopatra's Heir is pleasant, but that's only a recommendation in a certain mood.
I was terribly pleased to hear of Laurie J. Marks' Fire Logic. Marks published five fantasy novels come out in the early nineties, and then disappeared from sight; the best of these are probably Dancing Jack (post-holocaust riverboat fantasy which, as oracne has pointed out, would make a great paired reading with Caroline Stevermer's River Rats) and The Watcher's Mask (an assassin for the Emperor who conquered her homeland has deliberately induced multiple personalities), but I love best her first two novels, the more typical talented-youngster-comes-of-age fantasies Delan the Mislaid Mage and The Moonbane Mage. The final book in that first trilogy, Ara's Field, seems to me much weaker, diffused by the multiple points of view and a too-neat wrap-up; for an alternate view, see oracne's brief note.
Marks' books are notable for a concern with the aftereffects of wars and mass violence and the difficulty and necessity of the peacemaking process; thorough and intriguing world-building; a plain but beautiful style, with the occasional striking grace note; excellent and humane characterization; and fun with gender assumptions, starting off with the hermaphrodite species in the Children of the Triad trilogy, and continuing in later books with lesbian, gay, or bisexual protagonists.
Fire Logic starts slowly, but grabbed me after the first fifty pages. I liked this too much and am too tired to do a good job describing it. It's got moments of quiet emotion that I think I will remember for a long time. It uses typical genre materials to build something wonderful.
(My especial thanks to oracne for loaning me her copy.)
History: Cleopatra had four children, three by Marc Antony, one (she claimed, and Caeasar appeared to believe) by Julius Caesar. Roman citizens couldn't marry foreigners, and Julius's heir was his biological nephew and adopted son Octavian, who found it expedient (or maybe even really believed, who knows?) to deny that Cleopatra's oldest son was his cousin. Young Caesar Ptolemy, known as Caesarion, was killed during Octavian's conquest of Egypt, probably by Octavian's orders.
Historical novel: Caesarion escaped Octavian's troops and went into hiding; aided by an unknowing Egyptian merchant, he made his way back to Alexandria, planning to aid his imprisoned mother and confront his usurper.
(A confession: I discovered Caesarion in the Heroes in Hells shared-world series by Janet Morris, the conceit of which was that practically everyone ever born was in Hell. The Christian one, pretty much. Various writers chose various historical personages to write about; I suppose, though I didn't think of it then, that it was inspired by Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld. The metaphysics weren't well thought out, but I retain an embarrassed fondness for Nancy Asire's Wellington and Napoleon stories, and a guilty passion for C.J. Cherryh's various Romans-and-Alexander-the-Great stories. Cherryh, who was a high school Classics teacher, clearly knows her Roman history; I wish she'd write a straight Roman historical novel. I used to turn to her canny Caesar, cynical Caesarion, and passionate idealistic young Brutus for comfort reading.)
This isn't one of Bradshaw's best, and the afterword gives some clues why. She doesn't like Cleopatra, it transpires, and she doesn't think much of the person she considers Caesarion likely to be. To make him more sympathetic, she makes him a sufferer of epilepsy, based more on conjecture than evidence: Julius Caesar was epileptic, and it's just barely possible that Cleopatra would have considered the uncanny associations of the disease worse than its circumstantial support for Caesarion's heritage. In any case, Bradshaw's Caesarion is spoiled, selfish, short-sighted, and prideful; he survives because he's smart when his pride allows, and mostly because he's very lucky and rather pretty.
The book improves when we trade Caesarion's viewpoint for that of Ani, the Egyptian trader who rescues the lost and wounded boy on the road. Ani is canny, kind, and ambitious; he's taking advantage of the current unsettled political situation to try to advance in a society that priviliges its Greek aristocracy much over its native Egyptian serfs. He rescues the boy out of pity, but finds that someone with a knowledge of upper-class Greek customs may be useful to him.
Bradshaw is excellent on Egyptian society, though people seem rather too nice much of the time and the plot is forwarded by extreme coincidences at key points. She ends up with a kind of resolution that usually dismays me, but works well here. (I think it's obvious, but I'll refrain from spoiling it.) Everyone probably has her own template "aristocrat learns to be a better person through disenfranchisement" book; I thought of Cecelia Holland's Lords of Vaumartin, an altogether harsher, grittier, more convincing book than this. Cleopatra's Heir is pleasant, but that's only a recommendation in a certain mood.
I was terribly pleased to hear of Laurie J. Marks' Fire Logic. Marks published five fantasy novels come out in the early nineties, and then disappeared from sight; the best of these are probably Dancing Jack (post-holocaust riverboat fantasy which, as oracne has pointed out, would make a great paired reading with Caroline Stevermer's River Rats) and The Watcher's Mask (an assassin for the Emperor who conquered her homeland has deliberately induced multiple personalities), but I love best her first two novels, the more typical talented-youngster-comes-of-age fantasies Delan the Mislaid Mage and The Moonbane Mage. The final book in that first trilogy, Ara's Field, seems to me much weaker, diffused by the multiple points of view and a too-neat wrap-up; for an alternate view, see oracne's brief note.
Marks' books are notable for a concern with the aftereffects of wars and mass violence and the difficulty and necessity of the peacemaking process; thorough and intriguing world-building; a plain but beautiful style, with the occasional striking grace note; excellent and humane characterization; and fun with gender assumptions, starting off with the hermaphrodite species in the Children of the Triad trilogy, and continuing in later books with lesbian, gay, or bisexual protagonists.
Fire Logic starts slowly, but grabbed me after the first fifty pages. I liked this too much and am too tired to do a good job describing it. It's got moments of quiet emotion that I think I will remember for a long time. It uses typical genre materials to build something wonderful.
(My especial thanks to oracne for loaning me her copy.)