Reading roundup
68. Lois McMaster Bujold, Borders of Infinity -- so, this is the book which is, essentially, a collection of the three Miles Vorkosigan novellas ("The Mountains of Mourning", "Labyrinth", and "The Borders of Infinity"), tied together by a sort of framing story where Miles recalls or tells Illyan about these three events.
I'd been hoping for more from the framing story, actually. I was looking forward to seeing more Illyan, but he struck me as a little bit off in some of his brief interactions with Miles, and as for the rest... well, the frame just wasn't much of a story -- it was barely there, in fact. So it was mostly just the three novellas themselves.
"The Mountains of Mourning" was mainly interesting to me as another look at very young Miles (it's set later than The Warrior's Apprentice) but at more or less the same stage in Miles's life) -- angry and prickly and not yet having found his place in the world. I found the scene where he is offering the burnt offering on General Piotr's grave particularly heartbreaking. What I really liked, though, is that LMB sort of subverts Miles's impassioned "I will show them all yet!" speeches -- I mean, they're clearly the sort of heartfelt speeches that heroes in difficult circumstances make, but then he is surprised by bystandars looking awdward or unimpressed, and you get both the pathos of the impassioned speech and the humor and realism of a believably unimpressed reaction. The story is a sort of a mystery, but I knew the whodunit part (because of the scene in Memory), but even without it I don't think it would've been much of a mystery. But, after A Civil Campaign, it was nice to see how Miles and Pym met.
Other neat things: the explanation Miles hears from Harra that his mutation came "from, um, corrupt practices in his [Aral's] youth among his brother-officers" (neat 'cos I wasn't sure before how widely Aral's homosexual exploits had been known; pretty widely, it appears).
Harra: "I couldn't go to college! I barely know... any of that stuff."
Miles: "Knowledge is what you're supposed to have coming out, not going in."
This is almost the same conversation that Miles and Ekaterin had in ACC. I wonder if it's an intentional echo or an unintentional one...
"Labyrinth" was the story I'd read before (I think it was part of my library book that had Cetaganda) -- it's the story of how Taura comes to join the Dendarii. And, eh. I hadn't been overly impressed the first time I'd read it, and it's still not a particular favorite. I liked Dr.Canaba ("I doubtlessly sound like a megalomaniac to you") (I didn't remember him when he appeared in Memory, alas), and I liked Bel ("You're so hopelessly monosexual, Miles." And: "You had to give the Betan credit for either optimism or obtuseness... or, Miles's honesty added, genuine feeling."), and the setting of Jackson's Whole in general, but I'm fairly indifferent to both Nicol the Quaddie and Taura herself. And as for Taura and Miles's relationship... I find it perfectly believable that Miles, crazy as he is, would sleep with Taura, but I still find her propositioning him (as a way to convince her that he does think she's human) really odd and past the limits of my suspension of disbelief, even if she is sixteen and miserable. I did think the scene where he encounters a huge rat in the vents and considers clubbing it and dragging it back to Taura both funny and oddly adorable.
There's a nice little bit of foreshadowing, too, in "He'd be dreadfully disappointed when my clone turned out to be six feet tall, I'm afraid." and "you should be free of pursuit from Baron Fell. He and his half-brother are going to be fully occuppied revenging themselves on each other for a while. Makes me glad I'm an only child."
"The Borders of Infinity" -- this story about how Miles rescues an entire POW camp from under the nose of the Cetagandans (the one that's referenced a bunch of times in other books, from Brothers in Arms, which takes place right after, to Komarr, where Miles, after his tumble into the creek after Ekaterin, has a belated epiphany about what would've happened if he'd grabbed onto the woman falling out of the shuttle) was the story I'd been most looking forward to reading, and it didn't disappoint. Miles, stripped (quite literally) of everything but his brains is fascinating to watch. The POW camp is suitably horrific, the secondary characters -- all non-recurring ones, until the Dendarii arrive at the very end -- are neat, and the scene with Miles's imaginary hat is priceless. It's a very neat authorial trick, too, because LMB writes about the hat as if it were real, and so as a reader I started believing in it perforce, too -- I thought that was a really cool demonstration of the kind of sleight of hand Miles's palpable belief and forward momentum has on people who have to deal with him. The scene where Miles has the bully guy branded as a Ceta spy... there are not very many scenes like this, but it's scary and refreshing to occasionally see what Miles is capable of -- he is not given to ruthlessness, but he is certainly capable of it, and then he becomes scary. And it's nice to see that Miles is almost always consistent in his reaction to redheads (and is aware of the Oedipalness of it, even). Reading this one was definitely worth the hassle of getting the whole book.
Quotes:
"She [POW doctor] paused, standing with folded arms and regarding Suegar with rancor, as if his injury was a personal affront. And so it was, for her: another load of grief and failure, grinding her hard-won healer's pride into the dirt."
Beatrice: "Mercenaries?"
Miles: "We're not something wriggling with too many legs that you found in your sleeping bag. The proper tone of voice is Mercenaries! -- with a glad cry."
"Murka's body crumpled. Miles dodged, paused to yank off Murka's comm headset. The head came too. Miles had to brace it with his numb hand to pull the headset free. The weight of the head, its density and roundness, hammered into his senses. The precise memory of it would surely be with him until his dying day. He let it fall by Murka's body."
Now if only I could get a hold of "Winterfair Gifts" somehow...
2. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior's Apprentice (reread) -- oh boy, I'd forgotten how miserable young Miles was, angrier even than in "The Mountains of Mourning". I think that's part of why I wasn't as fond of this book as the others, but reading it from the remove of the rest of the series, I like it better than before. I still love Miles's relationship with Elenna -- that will always be the most interesting of his loves, requited and not, to me. ("I saved you, Miles cried inwardly. It was me, it was me..." is one of my favorite lines). I liked Daum (whom I hadn't remembered from the first read), and was sad when he got killed (which I also hadn't remembered).
I'm not sure I quite believe Baz's transformation from cowardly deserter to war hero, even with the combined impetus of Miles's example/belief in him and wanting to show off in front of Elena. And looks like Baz was the first person to address Miles as "Admiral Naismith, albeit jokingly, and that's how it caught on. The other thing I don't quite believe is that Elena Visconti would go talk to Elena Bothari, even after talking to Miles. Finally, I sort of have a hard time believing Gregor would believe so easily slander against Aral (who was just about the only father figure he's known) and Miles, his foster-brother. Granted, Vor Game, not too much later, shows Gregor is not exactly well adjusted at this age, but I still have a hard time buying this plot point.
The scene where Bothari rips out the captured enemy pilot's neural implant, and aftermath of it, especially for Miles, was really powerful and sobering, and I especially liked this line, from later in the book: "The murdered pilot officer's ghost, perched on his shoulder like a pet crow, stirred and ruffled itself in silent witness." The other scene that struck me as particularly powerful was the one at the end, where Aral begs Count Vorhalas for Miles's life
Quotes:
"The affair had ended, for Miles, in a terrifying black depression that had deepened for weeks, culminating at last late one night in the third, and most secret, time the Sergeant had saved his life. He had cut Bothari twice, in their silent struggle for the knife, exerting hysterical strength against the Sergeant's frightened caution of breaking his bones."
"You don't have enough strength to break by grip," Bothari snarled out of the corner of his mouth.
"I have the strength to break my own fingers trying," Miles murmured back, and threw all his weight into the pull.
(I love how this encapsulates Miles and Bothari's relationship.)
"Miles blithely authorized anything put in front of him, earning a reputation for brilliant decisiveness."
"Tung snorted. [...] 'Who do you think you are? Lord Vorkosigan?'" (Heh.)
"Miles waited for the medtech, in deathwatch for his first liedgeman, afraid, and growing more so, unaccustomed. He'd always had the Sergeant to be afraid for him."
"Heroes. They sprang around him like weeds. A carrier, he was seemingly unable to catch the disease he spread."
"The urge to pick Ivan up and shake him, in the hope that all that information floating randomly around inside his head would start to polymerize into some chain of reason, was almost overwhelming."
"[T]hey began stuffing Calhoun's shirt and sarong rope with bundles of Betan dollars. [...] Ivan scratched his head. 'Y'know, there's something backwards about this...'"
"Count Vorhalas raised skeptical brows. 'What kind of ensign do you think he will make, Admiral Vorkosigan?'
'I think he will make a terribly ensign,' said Count Vorkosigan frankly. 'But if he can avoid being strangled by his harried superiors for--er--excessive initiative, I think he might be a fine General Staff officer someday.'"
From reading so much Vorkosigan Saga, I'm really starting to see the "don't pitch your weaknesses against your enemy's strengths" emerging as a sort of motto for the books. Not that I hadn't noticed it before, but even those very words seem to crop up in multiple books.
1. Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes (book 2 of the Mortal Instruments trilogy) -- I found this one less engaging than City of Bones, not really sure why. Actually, hm, maybe because it seemed more Jace-centric than Clary-centric, and I just don't like Jace that much? Also, I'm getting a little tired of the "are they siblings? and even if they are, should they still make our?" drama, 'cos, frankly, I just don't care. But the presumable-sibling-cest does squick me a bit, and I say this as someone who ships Jaime/Cersei. It's just that Clary clearly sees it as wrong, and so it is, which also makes it angsty and therefore boring.
My favorite character is Simon, and I thought his abortive relationship with Clary and his transformation into vampire very quite well done. The scene where he fledges, fighting his way out of the grave, and attacks Clary was pretty powerful, and then: "And Simon, who had been a vegetarian since he was ten years old, who wouldn't drink milk that wasn't organic, who fainted at the sight of needles -- Simon snatched the packet of blood out of Raphael's thin brown hand and tore into it with his teeth." As is the scene when Valentine slits Simon's throat -- that was pretty powerful, too. His relationship with Clary is the most interesting one in these books for me. And he is funny, and an unapologetic geek -- what's not to like. I continue to like Alec, too, and his unrequited thing for Jace, which Jace is totally oblivious to. And Maya, the new girl, seems like she has potential to be a pretty cool character, too.
I liked the visit to the Faerie queen. The descriptions are lovely: "His hair fell in blue-black sheets around a cool, sharp, lovely face; his eyes were green as vines or moss and there was the shape of a leaf, either a birthmark or tattoo, across one of his cheekbones. He wore an armor of a silvery brown like the bark of trees in winter, and when he moved, the armor flashed a multitude of colors: peat black, moss green, ash gray, sky blue."
As far as the great mystery of who Jace and Clary actually are... it would appear that the Inquisitor must have thought that Jace was somehow related to Stephen, her dead son, which would explain why she chose to sacrifice her life for him (and the 8-months-pregnant woman who died is sort of suspicious, too -- she could have easily had the baby before then). But I actually don't terribly care.
There's still some fun snappy dialogue, which I enjoyed. Like:
Jace raised his eyebrows. "I knew it," he said. "You want to kiss me, don't you?"
Simon threw up his hands in exasperation. "Of course not. But if--"
"I guess it's true what they say," observed Jace. "There are no straight men in the trenches."
"That's atheists, jackass," said Simon furiously. "There are no atheists in the trenches."
And little inside-jokey things like werewolves "arguing about who would win in a fight: Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books or Magnus Bane."
Speaking of Harry Potter, actually -- this book felt rather Harry-ish. I think a lot of it came from Jace feeling he'd been abandoned by the Lightwoods when they were just trying to protect him (maybe not in the best way, but for his own good) -- that is sort of a Harry and Dumbledore set-up there. And it also came from the Inquisitor, who felt part Dolores Umbridge part Crouch Sr. I'll always have the HP books in the back of my mind when reading cassandraclare's books, I think -- but with this one it was really at the forefront.
I'll read the third book when it comes out, eventually, I'm sure, and maybe will even check out the other trilogy when it's written. But I can't unequivocally say that I'm a fan.
3. Guy Gavriel Kay, The Darkest Road (Fionavar Tapestry, book 3) -- So, I finally finished this book. It took me over three months and a lot of willpower, but it's done now. This one went a lot slower for me because the "outsider" character I liked the most, Kevin, was no longer in it, and there was not that much of my second-favorite, Dave, either. And not that much Diarmuid (who is my favorite character overall), alas. Instead, everything was focused on Kim and Paul and the whole thing with Guinevere and company, and on Darien, whom I never found particularly interesting or even particularly sympathetic. I did like the resolution of his arc -- that his choice ends up being self-sacrifice, and that the dagger he stole ends up playing a vital role. But I think I would've liked it more if it didn't seem that self-sacrifice was the only path to victory -- Kevin in the previous book, Imrais-Nimphaith, and Diarmuid, and Finn (whose self-sacrifice was not totally intentional at least, but still). It would be nice to have someone triumph without dying, for a change... And I say this even though Diarmuid and Kevin were the only ones of the lot that I cared about.
I liked Galadan... but I don't think I like the ending he gets, with the tears and the odd sort of redemption. It feels, I don't know, unworthy of him, oddly enough. Not that I wanted him to triumph and unmake the world, but I didn't buy him just giving up meekly, either. Just... no. Speaking of all that, I'm still not sure what the whole deal with the Paraiko was... I know Ruatha bound Owein again and thus prevented the wholesale slaughter of everyone... but he didn't seem to be motivated by hate of Maugrim at that point, so I'm not even sure what that whole thing with Kim awakening them with the Balerath or whatever was supposed to be about -- it's not like the Paraiko took part in the war. It felt a bit like a loose end, honestly.
This book was chock-full of Arthuriana and adoration of Lancelot, even more so than the previous one, and as someone who finds Arthuriana boring, I was, well, bored by it. And also couldn't quite believe in Lancelot's degree of prowess.
I knew that Paul/Jaelle was coming, but I kind of expected more of it. Not sure what, but more. Maybe the resolution seemed too easy, for what had been a difficult, fraught relationship of two very inward people?
I must admit, I did snicker at Matt Soren's terrible pun about keeping an eye on the Baelrath (when he hid it under his eyepatch).
Quote: "So passed Diarmuid dan Ailell. So did his untamed brightness come in the end to flame, and then ash, and, at the very last, in the clear voices of the lios alfar, into song under the stars." See, GGK can do this well, and I like it, so long as the melodrama is actually justified and not happening in every frickin' paragraph...
So, with that, I think I won't read any more GGK for a while, since finishing the last couple of books of his has felt like a chore. I think I've read all the good ones, anyway... :P
4. Евгений Лукин, Юность Кудесника [Yevgeny Lukin, Yunostj Kudesnkika (The Sorcerer's Youth)] -- my mother rec'd this book, after she and my father both read it. She herself doesn't typically read fantasy, but some guy she corresponds with on Odnoklassniki (Russian Facebook, more or less) recommended it to her. He also rec'd her Pratchett, which she tried reading in Russian (god, WHY?!), and was underwhelmed, probably because it was a) in Russian, and b) Equal Rites, which isn't one of his best by far. I quickly explained that she ought to be reading him in English and, probably, Wyrd Sisters, Jingo/Fifth Elephant, Small Gods, Going Postal, etc. But, anyway, back to our rams, as they say. I checked out Lukin, after not having read anything serious in Russian for over a year, and I loved it.
This book is a collection of linked short stories about an old sorcerer, Efrem Nehoroshev, and his new student, Gleb Portnyagin. The book is nominally urban fantasy, I suppose, but what it is even more is satire of post-Soviet Russia. It reminded me quite a lot of Ponedelnik nachinaetsya v subbotu (although it's considerably more cynical than it, as one might expect), and of Pelevin's more fantastical, less zaumnyj stuff, and a little bit of Pratchett, even. The stories take place (although this is not immediately evident; in fact, it is not explicitly mentioned until a story towards the end of the book) in a not-too-distant, possibly AU future (mid-late 21st century) where Suslovo (whatever that is) has gained independence from Russia, and its suburb/village/something Bakluzhino is a glubinka famed for its sorcerers.
It took me exactly two stories to become inordinately fond of both the crusty old sorcerer Efrem and his resourceful and indomitable student, and three stories (oh, god, fandom really has rotted my brain) to start shipping them on the astral plane. No, seriously! When they're on the astral plane, the teacher appears as a 22-year-old bloke, and even on the physical plane Gleb and Efrem's relationship is an interesting and not entirely mentorly one -- Efrem keeps being gleeful at Gleb's mess-ups while being protective of him when it comes to serious things, and may or may not be tricking him into reading the Russian classics, and Gleb keeps trying to get Efrem to quit drinking. Anyway, it's oddly sweet, and there's even a line like: "Героя он передо мной корчить будет! Девка я тебе, что-ли?.." So, you know, don't judge me! Also, this book made me want to own both a barabashka and especially an "ученая хыка" -- and I don't even know what that last one is! But it sounds cute, in a sort of ferretty way!
Anyway. The short stories can be read as stand-alone, and Gleb and Efrem (and their various pet nechistj) are the main recurring characters, but there are little bits of recurrence that are mostly not advertized but that give the stories taken together a sort of cozy, small-world feel, like the fact that pretty much all the young folks from Bakluzheno know Gleb and usually went to school with him, and occasionally Efrem's past clients show up again. Or things like the accidental gimmick from the first story becoming a national sensation, apparently, by the time a story later in the book happens. I like those little touches. The various clients and other bit players afford room for some neat, though frequently caricature-broad, character sketches. I didn't particularly like the way the book ended, i.e. the last story, but I was wondering whether Lukin was going to wrap it up in some way, and if so, how, so I probably would've been disappointed in any case. As it is, it's not like the last story, which feels like it jumps, well, not genres, but tones, diminishes my enjoyment of the rest of the book, so, not a big deal.
It took me a while to get into the language of this book, because it's so slang-rich, on top of the various occult terms that I'm not really used to in Russian. But after a couple of stories I got into it, and was able to enjoy some neat narration, like:
Что собеседник каким-то образом проник в его мысли, Залуженцева скорее ужаснуло, чем удивило: молодой человек наверняка имел отношение к органам, а от них, как известно, всего можно ждать. Подобно многим культурным людям Аркадий с негодованием отвергал бытовые суеверия, но в инфернальную сущность спецслужб верил истово и безоглядно.
*
-- Мало ли извращенцев... -- проворчал [Ефрем] -- Есенина взять. Тоже ведь: "Я люблю Родину. Я очень люблю Родину..." Хотя етот-то на все кидался: что шевелится, что не шевелится. Дерева стоячего не пропускал: "Так и хочется к сердцу прижать обнаженные груди берез..."
-- Ну, к сердцу же... -- вступился за любимого поэта отбывавший срок Портнягин.
-- А дальше-то? -- огрызнулся колдун. -- "Так и хочется руки сомкнуть над древесными бедрами ив..." Это уже не к сердцу, это к чему другому. Ежели по науке: дендрофил, выходит.
*
-- В самом деле ей хочешь память вернуть?
Колдун даже приостановился. Не ожидал он такой наивности от воспитанника.
-- Угорел? -- с любопытством осведомился он. -- А ну как клиент ненароком государственную тайну вспомнит! Нет, Глебушка, память вернуть -- это не к нам. Это в прокуратуру.
*
Миновав длинное шестиэтажное здание цвета удавленника, свернул во двор и направился к шестиэтажке из белого кирпича, на стенах которой проступали влажные пятна неуловимо географических очертаний.
*
Пресс-центр МВД Суслова решительно эти слухи опроверг, что тоже настораживало. Молва может и соврать, но государство-то не соврать не может!
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Или об удивительном рае обувных шнурков, имеющем всего одно измерение. Да им в общем-то больше и не надо, шнуркам.
I would gladly read more by this author if our library had something. axmxz, have you read anything by this fellow? If not, I think you might enjoy his stuff, or at least this particular book.
I'd been hoping for more from the framing story, actually. I was looking forward to seeing more Illyan, but he struck me as a little bit off in some of his brief interactions with Miles, and as for the rest... well, the frame just wasn't much of a story -- it was barely there, in fact. So it was mostly just the three novellas themselves.
"The Mountains of Mourning" was mainly interesting to me as another look at very young Miles (it's set later than The Warrior's Apprentice) but at more or less the same stage in Miles's life) -- angry and prickly and not yet having found his place in the world. I found the scene where he is offering the burnt offering on General Piotr's grave particularly heartbreaking. What I really liked, though, is that LMB sort of subverts Miles's impassioned "I will show them all yet!" speeches -- I mean, they're clearly the sort of heartfelt speeches that heroes in difficult circumstances make, but then he is surprised by bystandars looking awdward or unimpressed, and you get both the pathos of the impassioned speech and the humor and realism of a believably unimpressed reaction. The story is a sort of a mystery, but I knew the whodunit part (because of the scene in Memory), but even without it I don't think it would've been much of a mystery. But, after A Civil Campaign, it was nice to see how Miles and Pym met.
Other neat things: the explanation Miles hears from Harra that his mutation came "from, um, corrupt practices in his [Aral's] youth among his brother-officers" (neat 'cos I wasn't sure before how widely Aral's homosexual exploits had been known; pretty widely, it appears).
Harra: "I couldn't go to college! I barely know... any of that stuff."
Miles: "Knowledge is what you're supposed to have coming out, not going in."
This is almost the same conversation that Miles and Ekaterin had in ACC. I wonder if it's an intentional echo or an unintentional one...
"Labyrinth" was the story I'd read before (I think it was part of my library book that had Cetaganda) -- it's the story of how Taura comes to join the Dendarii. And, eh. I hadn't been overly impressed the first time I'd read it, and it's still not a particular favorite. I liked Dr.Canaba ("I doubtlessly sound like a megalomaniac to you") (I didn't remember him when he appeared in Memory, alas), and I liked Bel ("You're so hopelessly monosexual, Miles." And: "You had to give the Betan credit for either optimism or obtuseness... or, Miles's honesty added, genuine feeling."), and the setting of Jackson's Whole in general, but I'm fairly indifferent to both Nicol the Quaddie and Taura herself. And as for Taura and Miles's relationship... I find it perfectly believable that Miles, crazy as he is, would sleep with Taura, but I still find her propositioning him (as a way to convince her that he does think she's human) really odd and past the limits of my suspension of disbelief, even if she is sixteen and miserable. I did think the scene where he encounters a huge rat in the vents and considers clubbing it and dragging it back to Taura both funny and oddly adorable.
There's a nice little bit of foreshadowing, too, in "He'd be dreadfully disappointed when my clone turned out to be six feet tall, I'm afraid." and "you should be free of pursuit from Baron Fell. He and his half-brother are going to be fully occuppied revenging themselves on each other for a while. Makes me glad I'm an only child."
"The Borders of Infinity" -- this story about how Miles rescues an entire POW camp from under the nose of the Cetagandans (the one that's referenced a bunch of times in other books, from Brothers in Arms, which takes place right after, to Komarr, where Miles, after his tumble into the creek after Ekaterin, has a belated epiphany about what would've happened if he'd grabbed onto the woman falling out of the shuttle) was the story I'd been most looking forward to reading, and it didn't disappoint. Miles, stripped (quite literally) of everything but his brains is fascinating to watch. The POW camp is suitably horrific, the secondary characters -- all non-recurring ones, until the Dendarii arrive at the very end -- are neat, and the scene with Miles's imaginary hat is priceless. It's a very neat authorial trick, too, because LMB writes about the hat as if it were real, and so as a reader I started believing in it perforce, too -- I thought that was a really cool demonstration of the kind of sleight of hand Miles's palpable belief and forward momentum has on people who have to deal with him. The scene where Miles has the bully guy branded as a Ceta spy... there are not very many scenes like this, but it's scary and refreshing to occasionally see what Miles is capable of -- he is not given to ruthlessness, but he is certainly capable of it, and then he becomes scary. And it's nice to see that Miles is almost always consistent in his reaction to redheads (and is aware of the Oedipalness of it, even). Reading this one was definitely worth the hassle of getting the whole book.
Quotes:
"She [POW doctor] paused, standing with folded arms and regarding Suegar with rancor, as if his injury was a personal affront. And so it was, for her: another load of grief and failure, grinding her hard-won healer's pride into the dirt."
Beatrice: "Mercenaries?"
Miles: "We're not something wriggling with too many legs that you found in your sleeping bag. The proper tone of voice is Mercenaries! -- with a glad cry."
"Murka's body crumpled. Miles dodged, paused to yank off Murka's comm headset. The head came too. Miles had to brace it with his numb hand to pull the headset free. The weight of the head, its density and roundness, hammered into his senses. The precise memory of it would surely be with him until his dying day. He let it fall by Murka's body."
Now if only I could get a hold of "Winterfair Gifts" somehow...
2. Lois McMaster Bujold, The Warrior's Apprentice (reread) -- oh boy, I'd forgotten how miserable young Miles was, angrier even than in "The Mountains of Mourning". I think that's part of why I wasn't as fond of this book as the others, but reading it from the remove of the rest of the series, I like it better than before. I still love Miles's relationship with Elenna -- that will always be the most interesting of his loves, requited and not, to me. ("I saved you, Miles cried inwardly. It was me, it was me..." is one of my favorite lines). I liked Daum (whom I hadn't remembered from the first read), and was sad when he got killed (which I also hadn't remembered).
I'm not sure I quite believe Baz's transformation from cowardly deserter to war hero, even with the combined impetus of Miles's example/belief in him and wanting to show off in front of Elena. And looks like Baz was the first person to address Miles as "Admiral Naismith, albeit jokingly, and that's how it caught on. The other thing I don't quite believe is that Elena Visconti would go talk to Elena Bothari, even after talking to Miles. Finally, I sort of have a hard time believing Gregor would believe so easily slander against Aral (who was just about the only father figure he's known) and Miles, his foster-brother. Granted, Vor Game, not too much later, shows Gregor is not exactly well adjusted at this age, but I still have a hard time buying this plot point.
The scene where Bothari rips out the captured enemy pilot's neural implant, and aftermath of it, especially for Miles, was really powerful and sobering, and I especially liked this line, from later in the book: "The murdered pilot officer's ghost, perched on his shoulder like a pet crow, stirred and ruffled itself in silent witness." The other scene that struck me as particularly powerful was the one at the end, where Aral begs Count Vorhalas for Miles's life
Quotes:
"The affair had ended, for Miles, in a terrifying black depression that had deepened for weeks, culminating at last late one night in the third, and most secret, time the Sergeant had saved his life. He had cut Bothari twice, in their silent struggle for the knife, exerting hysterical strength against the Sergeant's frightened caution of breaking his bones."
"You don't have enough strength to break by grip," Bothari snarled out of the corner of his mouth.
"I have the strength to break my own fingers trying," Miles murmured back, and threw all his weight into the pull.
(I love how this encapsulates Miles and Bothari's relationship.)
"Miles blithely authorized anything put in front of him, earning a reputation for brilliant decisiveness."
"Tung snorted. [...] 'Who do you think you are? Lord Vorkosigan?'" (Heh.)
"Miles waited for the medtech, in deathwatch for his first liedgeman, afraid, and growing more so, unaccustomed. He'd always had the Sergeant to be afraid for him."
"Heroes. They sprang around him like weeds. A carrier, he was seemingly unable to catch the disease he spread."
"The urge to pick Ivan up and shake him, in the hope that all that information floating randomly around inside his head would start to polymerize into some chain of reason, was almost overwhelming."
"[T]hey began stuffing Calhoun's shirt and sarong rope with bundles of Betan dollars. [...] Ivan scratched his head. 'Y'know, there's something backwards about this...'"
"Count Vorhalas raised skeptical brows. 'What kind of ensign do you think he will make, Admiral Vorkosigan?'
'I think he will make a terribly ensign,' said Count Vorkosigan frankly. 'But if he can avoid being strangled by his harried superiors for--er--excessive initiative, I think he might be a fine General Staff officer someday.'"
From reading so much Vorkosigan Saga, I'm really starting to see the "don't pitch your weaknesses against your enemy's strengths" emerging as a sort of motto for the books. Not that I hadn't noticed it before, but even those very words seem to crop up in multiple books.
1. Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes (book 2 of the Mortal Instruments trilogy) -- I found this one less engaging than City of Bones, not really sure why. Actually, hm, maybe because it seemed more Jace-centric than Clary-centric, and I just don't like Jace that much? Also, I'm getting a little tired of the "are they siblings? and even if they are, should they still make our?" drama, 'cos, frankly, I just don't care. But the presumable-sibling-cest does squick me a bit, and I say this as someone who ships Jaime/Cersei. It's just that Clary clearly sees it as wrong, and so it is, which also makes it angsty and therefore boring.
My favorite character is Simon, and I thought his abortive relationship with Clary and his transformation into vampire very quite well done. The scene where he fledges, fighting his way out of the grave, and attacks Clary was pretty powerful, and then: "And Simon, who had been a vegetarian since he was ten years old, who wouldn't drink milk that wasn't organic, who fainted at the sight of needles -- Simon snatched the packet of blood out of Raphael's thin brown hand and tore into it with his teeth." As is the scene when Valentine slits Simon's throat -- that was pretty powerful, too. His relationship with Clary is the most interesting one in these books for me. And he is funny, and an unapologetic geek -- what's not to like. I continue to like Alec, too, and his unrequited thing for Jace, which Jace is totally oblivious to. And Maya, the new girl, seems like she has potential to be a pretty cool character, too.
I liked the visit to the Faerie queen. The descriptions are lovely: "His hair fell in blue-black sheets around a cool, sharp, lovely face; his eyes were green as vines or moss and there was the shape of a leaf, either a birthmark or tattoo, across one of his cheekbones. He wore an armor of a silvery brown like the bark of trees in winter, and when he moved, the armor flashed a multitude of colors: peat black, moss green, ash gray, sky blue."
As far as the great mystery of who Jace and Clary actually are... it would appear that the Inquisitor must have thought that Jace was somehow related to Stephen, her dead son, which would explain why she chose to sacrifice her life for him (and the 8-months-pregnant woman who died is sort of suspicious, too -- she could have easily had the baby before then). But I actually don't terribly care.
There's still some fun snappy dialogue, which I enjoyed. Like:
Jace raised his eyebrows. "I knew it," he said. "You want to kiss me, don't you?"
Simon threw up his hands in exasperation. "Of course not. But if--"
"I guess it's true what they say," observed Jace. "There are no straight men in the trenches."
"That's atheists, jackass," said Simon furiously. "There are no atheists in the trenches."
And little inside-jokey things like werewolves "arguing about who would win in a fight: Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books or Magnus Bane."
Speaking of Harry Potter, actually -- this book felt rather Harry-ish. I think a lot of it came from Jace feeling he'd been abandoned by the Lightwoods when they were just trying to protect him (maybe not in the best way, but for his own good) -- that is sort of a Harry and Dumbledore set-up there. And it also came from the Inquisitor, who felt part Dolores Umbridge part Crouch Sr. I'll always have the HP books in the back of my mind when reading cassandraclare's books, I think -- but with this one it was really at the forefront.
I'll read the third book when it comes out, eventually, I'm sure, and maybe will even check out the other trilogy when it's written. But I can't unequivocally say that I'm a fan.
3. Guy Gavriel Kay, The Darkest Road (Fionavar Tapestry, book 3) -- So, I finally finished this book. It took me over three months and a lot of willpower, but it's done now. This one went a lot slower for me because the "outsider" character I liked the most, Kevin, was no longer in it, and there was not that much of my second-favorite, Dave, either. And not that much Diarmuid (who is my favorite character overall), alas. Instead, everything was focused on Kim and Paul and the whole thing with Guinevere and company, and on Darien, whom I never found particularly interesting or even particularly sympathetic. I did like the resolution of his arc -- that his choice ends up being self-sacrifice, and that the dagger he stole ends up playing a vital role. But I think I would've liked it more if it didn't seem that self-sacrifice was the only path to victory -- Kevin in the previous book, Imrais-Nimphaith, and Diarmuid, and Finn (whose self-sacrifice was not totally intentional at least, but still). It would be nice to have someone triumph without dying, for a change... And I say this even though Diarmuid and Kevin were the only ones of the lot that I cared about.
I liked Galadan... but I don't think I like the ending he gets, with the tears and the odd sort of redemption. It feels, I don't know, unworthy of him, oddly enough. Not that I wanted him to triumph and unmake the world, but I didn't buy him just giving up meekly, either. Just... no. Speaking of all that, I'm still not sure what the whole deal with the Paraiko was... I know Ruatha bound Owein again and thus prevented the wholesale slaughter of everyone... but he didn't seem to be motivated by hate of Maugrim at that point, so I'm not even sure what that whole thing with Kim awakening them with the Balerath or whatever was supposed to be about -- it's not like the Paraiko took part in the war. It felt a bit like a loose end, honestly.
This book was chock-full of Arthuriana and adoration of Lancelot, even more so than the previous one, and as someone who finds Arthuriana boring, I was, well, bored by it. And also couldn't quite believe in Lancelot's degree of prowess.
I knew that Paul/Jaelle was coming, but I kind of expected more of it. Not sure what, but more. Maybe the resolution seemed too easy, for what had been a difficult, fraught relationship of two very inward people?
I must admit, I did snicker at Matt Soren's terrible pun about keeping an eye on the Baelrath (when he hid it under his eyepatch).
Quote: "So passed Diarmuid dan Ailell. So did his untamed brightness come in the end to flame, and then ash, and, at the very last, in the clear voices of the lios alfar, into song under the stars." See, GGK can do this well, and I like it, so long as the melodrama is actually justified and not happening in every frickin' paragraph...
So, with that, I think I won't read any more GGK for a while, since finishing the last couple of books of his has felt like a chore. I think I've read all the good ones, anyway... :P
4. Евгений Лукин, Юность Кудесника [Yevgeny Lukin, Yunostj Kudesnkika (The Sorcerer's Youth)] -- my mother rec'd this book, after she and my father both read it. She herself doesn't typically read fantasy, but some guy she corresponds with on Odnoklassniki (Russian Facebook, more or less) recommended it to her. He also rec'd her Pratchett, which she tried reading in Russian (god, WHY?!), and was underwhelmed, probably because it was a) in Russian, and b) Equal Rites, which isn't one of his best by far. I quickly explained that she ought to be reading him in English and, probably, Wyrd Sisters, Jingo/Fifth Elephant, Small Gods, Going Postal, etc. But, anyway, back to our rams, as they say. I checked out Lukin, after not having read anything serious in Russian for over a year, and I loved it.
This book is a collection of linked short stories about an old sorcerer, Efrem Nehoroshev, and his new student, Gleb Portnyagin. The book is nominally urban fantasy, I suppose, but what it is even more is satire of post-Soviet Russia. It reminded me quite a lot of Ponedelnik nachinaetsya v subbotu (although it's considerably more cynical than it, as one might expect), and of Pelevin's more fantastical, less zaumnyj stuff, and a little bit of Pratchett, even. The stories take place (although this is not immediately evident; in fact, it is not explicitly mentioned until a story towards the end of the book) in a not-too-distant, possibly AU future (mid-late 21st century) where Suslovo (whatever that is) has gained independence from Russia, and its suburb/village/something Bakluzhino is a glubinka famed for its sorcerers.
It took me exactly two stories to become inordinately fond of both the crusty old sorcerer Efrem and his resourceful and indomitable student, and three stories (oh, god, fandom really has rotted my brain) to start shipping them on the astral plane. No, seriously! When they're on the astral plane, the teacher appears as a 22-year-old bloke, and even on the physical plane Gleb and Efrem's relationship is an interesting and not entirely mentorly one -- Efrem keeps being gleeful at Gleb's mess-ups while being protective of him when it comes to serious things, and may or may not be tricking him into reading the Russian classics, and Gleb keeps trying to get Efrem to quit drinking. Anyway, it's oddly sweet, and there's even a line like: "Героя он передо мной корчить будет! Девка я тебе, что-ли?.." So, you know, don't judge me! Also, this book made me want to own both a barabashka and especially an "ученая хыка" -- and I don't even know what that last one is! But it sounds cute, in a sort of ferretty way!
Anyway. The short stories can be read as stand-alone, and Gleb and Efrem (and their various pet nechistj) are the main recurring characters, but there are little bits of recurrence that are mostly not advertized but that give the stories taken together a sort of cozy, small-world feel, like the fact that pretty much all the young folks from Bakluzheno know Gleb and usually went to school with him, and occasionally Efrem's past clients show up again. Or things like the accidental gimmick from the first story becoming a national sensation, apparently, by the time a story later in the book happens. I like those little touches. The various clients and other bit players afford room for some neat, though frequently caricature-broad, character sketches. I didn't particularly like the way the book ended, i.e. the last story, but I was wondering whether Lukin was going to wrap it up in some way, and if so, how, so I probably would've been disappointed in any case. As it is, it's not like the last story, which feels like it jumps, well, not genres, but tones, diminishes my enjoyment of the rest of the book, so, not a big deal.
It took me a while to get into the language of this book, because it's so slang-rich, on top of the various occult terms that I'm not really used to in Russian. But after a couple of stories I got into it, and was able to enjoy some neat narration, like:
Что собеседник каким-то образом проник в его мысли, Залуженцева скорее ужаснуло, чем удивило: молодой человек наверняка имел отношение к органам, а от них, как известно, всего можно ждать. Подобно многим культурным людям Аркадий с негодованием отвергал бытовые суеверия, но в инфернальную сущность спецслужб верил истово и безоглядно.
*
-- Мало ли извращенцев... -- проворчал [Ефрем] -- Есенина взять. Тоже ведь: "Я люблю Родину. Я очень люблю Родину..." Хотя етот-то на все кидался: что шевелится, что не шевелится. Дерева стоячего не пропускал: "Так и хочется к сердцу прижать обнаженные груди берез..."
-- Ну, к сердцу же... -- вступился за любимого поэта отбывавший срок Портнягин.
-- А дальше-то? -- огрызнулся колдун. -- "Так и хочется руки сомкнуть над древесными бедрами ив..." Это уже не к сердцу, это к чему другому. Ежели по науке: дендрофил, выходит.
*
-- В самом деле ей хочешь память вернуть?
Колдун даже приостановился. Не ожидал он такой наивности от воспитанника.
-- Угорел? -- с любопытством осведомился он. -- А ну как клиент ненароком государственную тайну вспомнит! Нет, Глебушка, память вернуть -- это не к нам. Это в прокуратуру.
*
Миновав длинное шестиэтажное здание цвета удавленника, свернул во двор и направился к шестиэтажке из белого кирпича, на стенах которой проступали влажные пятна неуловимо географических очертаний.
*
Пресс-центр МВД Суслова решительно эти слухи опроверг, что тоже настораживало. Молва может и соврать, но государство-то не соврать не может!
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Или об удивительном рае обувных шнурков, имеющем всего одно измерение. Да им в общем-то больше и не надо, шнуркам.
I would gladly read more by this author if our library had something. axmxz, have you read anything by this fellow? If not, I think you might enjoy his stuff, or at least this particular book.