Reading roundup: more Vlad Taltos + Sisters Red, finally
19. Jackson Pearce, Sisters Red -- this was a very interesting read. I liked the book, though I certainly didn't ~love~ it, and there was a lot about it that I thought was not as good as the central core. That central core being the relationship between Scarlett and Rosie, which was stellar. Major spoilers
There are not a lot of books about sisters fighting crime monsters together, while there are plenty about brothers, and it's really nice to have one, finally. I like the fact that their relationship is complicated and not exactly healthy at the beginning, even though they clearly love each other very much, and that the book does not shy away from the darker aspects of it. That Rosie feels that, because Scarlett saved her life back then, she basically owes Scarlett to spend her whole life doing what Scarlett wants, hunting Fenris, even when the hunt is not something that actually drives her. That Rosie is not sure that Scarlett will come to rescue her after the whole thing with Silas becomes known. That Scarlett, as much as she loves Rosie and is willing to give her life for her, does sort of resent the fact that Rosie is "half-Drgonfly" -- i.e. more like a normal, flighty girl that the Fenris prey on -- while being determined to keep the thing that happened to her from happening to Rosie. That Scarlett is jealous of Silas, is not above blaming him for Rosie being kidnapped and even considers that if he were to die, she would have Rosie to herself again -- she backs away from these darker thought, but I was impressed that the book had the guts to show them in the first place.
There is such a strong core there, between Rosie and Scarlett, and neat things the book does that I applauded, such as the fact that Rosie rescues herself (but by thinking she's thinking like Scarlett), and is the one to kill the Alpha, and the way Silas has to be protected in the final battle -- it's for a reason that makes sense and does not diminish him at all as a character, but a bit of a gender inversion which was neat -- and the way Silas puts himself in danger to save Scarlett rather than Rosie, and the way the sisters each take her own path but remain linked to each other.
And yet, there were enough things that this book was wobbly on that the overall package made a lot less of an impression on me than it could have, I think.
First off, the narration. It's just not very strong. I found it to be overly dramatic because of first person present tense and occasional epithet abuse. I didn't think Rosie and Scarlett's voices were distinct enough for alternating first-person narrators -- there were a couple of times when I accientally turned over more than one page and ended up in the other girl's section, and it took me a couple of paragraphs to realize this, until I hit a name or something like that. Neither voice was particularly interesting or unique, and then they just ran together. There was also a bit too much repetition of certain things, and not in a way that made the point stronger. Like all the stuff about Rosie and Scarlett sharing a single heart -- that was just melodramatic, sorry.
The other thing that bugged me was the worldbuilding. It seemed designed for convenience of the plot / storytelling rather than how it would "naturally" be. The Fenris were really, really flat. Soulless werewolf monsters who devour girls in gory ways -- but I never got a sense of WHY they were like this, how they came about, how much was really known about them. There was no depth or personality to them, and yet a fair bit of what they supposedly do is pass for human, and it just didn't make any sense to me. They were boring, and also, by being as flat as they were, I felt this aspect really undermined the complexity of the sibling relationship in the book. It was like a sketchy background with a very detailed foreground -- it made the book feel unfinished.
I did like the way Scarlett encounters a "bad guy" who turns out not to be a Fenris, just a human predator, but it didn't really address that gap, in my mind, just underlined it. If your book is all about hunting monsters, it would be nice if those monsters made sense on more than an aesthetic level. If you are retelling a fairy tale in a deeper, complex way -- go ahead and make all parts of it complex, not just the parts you're interested in, or the disinterest really shines through.
I've been thinking about my relationship with worldbuilding, and I tend to be fairly forgiving of flaws, I think. It can be subtle and complex and deep, or it can be broad strokes and kitchen sink of random magical races, it can be purely second world or different from reality in fairly minute ways, that doesn't matter. But the author has to care about the world-building in order for me to truly enjoy the book, and I didn't get that feeling here at all. She clearly cared about Rosie and Scarlett and Silas and telling the story of the three of them, but the worldbuilding felt sketchy and incidental. Pity.
The whole philosophical analogy cave didn't make much sense to me, except in the sense that Rosie thinks about it towards the end -- having tasted real life she can't go back to being nothing more than a hunter. In fact, the whole bit where Oma March loves philosophy and reads/tells these ideas to the girls felt really random and tacked on, and reading in the author bio that she was a philosophy major explained that to me. But "write what you know" doesn't mean putting random stuff you know in the books, and that's what it felt like to me with this one.
I guess it's one of those books that I wish had been written by the/a writer more in control of their craft, because I feel like the execution undermines the strengths of it some.
Right, plot. I actually guessed rather far ahead -- right when they read the newspaper article about the boy survived by a bunch of older siblings -- that Silas was the Potential. I figured there had been another child who died, but not that "Uncle" Jacob was the missing child who made Silas the seventh son. I did like the touch that the seventh son of a seventh son info was in the "useless" library books they'd gone through. And the way the penny finally drops on that one wasn't super-realistic, but it worked for me. I also didn't make the connection, until it was pointed out, that the Fenris who had killed Oma March and maimed Scarlett had been there hunting for Silas -- that was a nice touch. I do find it pretty unbelievable, though, that Pa Reynolds would not tell Silas about the curse -- that's just irresponsible however you slice it, and it taxed my suspension of disbelief a whole lot.
What else was there? The Rosie + Silas romance. It was cute, though not a particularly strong example. I did like the fact that Silas was encouraging Rosie to be herself and do things that made her happy. I'm not sure how I feel about the revelation that Silas had been in love with Scarlett first, before he noticed Rosie. On the one hand, it's nice to have the validation that Scarlett, scarred and marked by the Fenris, can be desirable. On the other hand, having her be uninterested in romance and only get a charge out of the thrill of the hunt is a really easy way not to have to take that line of reasoning any further. On the third hand, not every female character needs to be interested in romance, and I'm glad the book avoided a healing powers of love trope viz Silas and Scarlett.
None of the characters particularly stood out to me. I liked Rosie best, because she was the more relatable of the sisters. I didn't actually like Scarlett that much as a person, but I like that she exists as a character, difficult and damaged and not very nice but able to make the difficult right choices when it counts. (I'm not sure I fully buy the "passion not sickness" thing about her drive to hunt, but, OK, passion can grow out of trauma, and that's definitely fine.) Silas, well... I'm not sure there was a lot to Silas, but that's OK. (Amusingly enough, I was talking to L, who had also read the book, about who our respective favorite characters were, and I said mine was Rosie and L said she didn't really like any of them that much, though she had really liked the book -- her favorite character was Screwtape the cat. About right, really XD)
I did like that, as dark as a lot of this book was, there were still bits of humour, situational, such as when Rosie inadvertenly signs up for drawing a nude model, and among the characters, like Silas insisting he would look great in a dress (as bait).
Also, although it's very incidental to the main plot except in what Scarlett learns, I found the description of Scarlett visiting Pa Reynolds, who has Alzheimer's, poignant and depressing and well done.
Quotes:
"You have weird eyes." [...] "The better to see your lovely faces with, my dears."
"My sister knows I'll forgive her. I'll always forgive her. I have to. It's one of those things that's just necessary when someone has saved your life."
"I owe Scarlett my life, and if she wants to cash in by having me spend my life hunting beside her, so be it. It'd kill her if she ever thought I wanted to quit."
"I frown, but what can I say? [...] That I wanted to hunt to strengthen the bindings between Rosie and me, Silas and me?"
"Don't they care? [...] She's my sister -- how can she not care? I took on the wolves for her, I stood in front of her, and now in exchange I need her to care."
Scarlett to Silas: "Fine. Go to San Francisco and have a lovely time. [...] But it's their blood on your hands, Silas. All the girls whom you could save but won't. I hope their lives were worth a guitar lesson to you. I hope you think about how it would feel to be their mothers and fathers and sisters. I wonder if you could tell them that their little girls died because you wanted to learn how to fucking play 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.'"
"'Stop,' he says forcefully. I shake my head -- I can't stop. 'Come on, Rosie. you're in control here; you don't need to be rescued,' he says, reading my thoughts."
Scarlett, on the trade (Silas for Rosie) offerred by the Fenris: "I should be the one traded. I should be the one who can save her. I blink away the jealousy -- there's no place for it now."
"She will make it out alive. My sister is the priority. I will save Silas, I will fight for Silas, but if I must, I'll take my sister and go. [...] Yet some wicked part of me is still furious with him. If he didn't love her, they wouldn't have taken her. If she didn't love him, she might have been able to focus on stopping the wolves instead of pining for Silas. || If Rosie were like me, she would be safe. [...] Would Silas's death be the thing that makes Rosie focus? If they take him from her, would the hunt become her passion, the way it is mine? || Probably. For a glimmer of a moment, I allow myself to imagine Rosie and me hunting together without Silas. My sister and I, side by side, equally driven, undistracted and unrelenting. A flicker of wanting shoots through me. || I shake my head. Focus, Scarlett."
"But watching them kiss, I shift my anger to the pack of wolves in front of us. How dare they try to take him away from Rosie? How dare they try to turn her into something like me?"
"Something [in Rosie] that reminds me of me, standing in front of her, seven years ago. But I can't allow Rosie to become what I have become. Not Rosie -- they can't have her."
16. Steven Brust, Athyra -- Huh. Well, that was kind of depressing. I was skeptical about non-Vlad narration, and Savn was definitely a lot less fun as a narrator. Vlad's narration is darkly amusing even in the not-so-fun books like Phoenix and Teckla; Savn's not so much. But it was neat to see Vlad from an external POV, and also to see him dealing with someone who was less powerful and versed in the ways of the world when normally he is dealing with folks out of his league, Jhereg brass, high nobility, Sethra, gods. Spoilers from here
Savn's narration was fairly dull, and his out of body experiences were boring, but I did come to like Savn himself, and the state he is in at the end of the book is pretty horrible. I think I liked him especially when he was tending to Master Wag, and then when he kills the guard and makes sure he throws up in the chamber pot ("even then Savn was unable to move until his sense of cleanliness around a pteient overcame his shock and led his feet across the cell to the chamber pot before his stomach emptied itself"). I like Master Wag a lot, too. I think he might actually be my favorite character in this, his gruff demeanor that softens when he's with a patient, and the way he withstood torture until they were about to start on his hands ("They were about to start on my fingers. I couldn't let them--"). Rocza's POV was very, very odd. I found it jarring and kind of annoying to read, though I understand why Brust chose to do it that way and it could've been much, much worse. And, I guess, Loiosh is so human that it's interesting to see a wild jhereg's native thought patterns and how different they are. In theory, anyway. In practice, it was annoying. I did find it very interesting that at the end Vlad was trying to get Savn to leave but Loiosh was perfectly willing to let him take risks to protect Vlad.
It was also pretty interesting, in theory, to get a regular (non-revolutionary) Teckla POV, to see how small and circumscribed their lives are, how little they know of sorcery and the world in general. One detail I particularly liked was Savn telling Pollyi that Easterners mate for life. Also interesting to me was that Savn and Pollyi did not appear the least bit scandalized by the idea that Reins and Vlad might have been lovers (as a way of explaining to themselves why Vlad cared about his death enough to look into it/avenge it). So even in the boonies, apparently, homosexual and Dragaeran/Easterner relations don't appear to be a particularly big deal. Unless Savn and Polyi are too young to be properly scandalized? I also liked the framing song ("I will not marry a dung-footed peasant, etc."), and especially the detail that it can be sung by either gender with the respective pronounced reversed. It's certainly true that all of the roles mentioned can be occuppied by either gender as easily as the other. Oh, and the idea of "filling the bucket" as the way to determine apprenticeship.
Vlad was... Vlad. I most enjoyed seeing him in interaction with Loraan and Ishtvan the Jhereg assassin -- even after two years of wandering in the East, that is clearly still his element, even desperate and hurt. Vlad casting the spell on Savn's parents, setting out to use Savn (putting him to sleep to get rid of him) -- we've seen him do far worse things, certainly, but only from his own POV, and it really did feel quite different watching these actions from the outside, in an uneasy sort of way (in a good way). So, I guess, from that point of view the book worked for me quite well, even though I didn't enjoy it that much.
I do wonder what's up with Loraan being undead rather than not existing post encounter with Blackwand. We know that Blackwand doesn't *have to* consume someone's soul, but I don't see Morrolan being particularly positively inclined towards someone who a) kept Aliera essentially imprisoned, and b) (if he/Sethra know about this) collaborated with Kana against Zerika. So, huh?
Also, Sara the Issola bard... I wonder if she's the one Vlad thinks about in Iorich where it appears he'd had a fling with an Issola after separating from Cawti?
And then there were the puns, both the in-text ones like: "Can you recommend an inn?" "I don't understand." "A hostel?" "We're mostly pretty friendly here--"
and the random meta Shakespearean puns. Which I don't know what to do with, honestly. Apparently it is possible to take puns to a level of andomness and obscurity where even I will not be amused by them. :P
Definitely not my favorite Taltos book, but not bad, and I'm glad I read it finally.
17. Steven Brust, Orca -- now that's more like it! This one was fun. SPOILERS!
I'm still not a fan of the non-Vlad narration. The Vlad and Kiera narration was integrated far better than I'd expected, with them actually handing it off to each other in text, for in-text reasons, and each of them addressing a specific in-universe audience (Vlad talking to Kiera, Kiera talking to Cawti)... except not really, because they don't necessarily tell the person everything they tell the reader? I was not entirely clear on this point. But anyway, it was deftly done, with the Interludes as actual points of Cawti and Kiera interaction (as well as the Prologue and Epilogue letters). But my favorite bits were still those narrated by Vlad. Let's just stick to that.
The plot was... surprisingly exciting, considering what Vlad was actually trying to do was secure a deed for a tiny piece of land and the underlying machinations were a bank scam. (I kept having to remind myself that this book was fist published in like 1996, because it seemed like such a ripped-from-the-headlines plot.) And I was glad to see Savn starting to get better, especially when it's Loiosh's injury that gets him to take complex, independent action -- the physicker is clearly still in there. I do wish we'd gotten more closure for him, though... (Some interesting speculation regarding the narration of Athyra, on that note.)
I was, naturally, spoiled for the big twist/reveal of Kiera's identity, so it was fun to watch the little hints throughout, like Kiera knowing a whole lot about the Empire's secret taskforce groups and covert ops, not eating much, Buddy not being particularly friendly with her, etc. But I didn't spot the shifting speech patterns, and I didn't twig on to the fact that Vlad knew. I like that Vlad figures it out for himself but wasn't going to confront her about it.
I liked Loftis a lot, complete with his obscure little military history allusions, and was sad when he died. Also, I could not stop thinking of him as ImpSec as soon as Kiera had speculated that he had to have been serving in one of the divisions where normal rank was meaningless. I ended up liking Timmer a lot, too, once it's revealed that she was not just along for the ride and unaware of what Loftis and Domm were there for -- especially how she managed to track Vlad (via Loiosh), something Jhereg had not yet hit on. And her conversation with Vlad, setting up Domm with plausible deniability, was probably my favorite part of the book:
Then she said, "That's all you want?"
"What do you want, Ensign?"
She glared at me. "I want..." She stopped glaring, but continued staring, if you know what I mean.
"What do you want?" I repeated. "What would please you right now?"
"I..."
"Yes?" I said.
"Are you--?"
I looked away and waited.
Presently she said, "You used to be in the Jhereg?"
"Yes," I said.
"And what, exactly, did you do?"
I turned back to her. "You know what I did."
She nodded slowly.
Also, LOL at Khaavren being referred to as Papa-Cat XD
One thing I found interesting -- and it's actually something Vlad lampshades by saying outright, "I've been hanging around Orca quite a bit lately. Usually, when I get to know people I begin to be more sympathetic with them. You'd have thought that, now that I've gotten a chance to know these Orca, I'd have a little more understanding of them. But I don't. I hate them, Kiera. I hated them when I was a kid, and I hate them now, and I think I always will hate them." -- there don't seem to be any "good" Orca. (I guess we haven't really met any good Athyra either... except that Wellborn, Tortaalik's Discreet, was an Athyra, I guess? But other than that we've got crazy Court Wizard Nyleth in the battle against Adron in 500YA, scheming Seodra in TPG, traitor Loraan -- not a very nich bunch of people...) But other that that, we've met likeable Dragons and Phoenixes and Dzur and Hawks and Tiassa and Issolas and Iorichs and Jhereg and Teckla and Yendi and Lyorns (although, I guess, Vlad has actually not yet met likealbe Lyorns, Yendi, or Tiassas, that was all in the Paarfi books). But still, the Orca seem to be singled out as unpleasant through and through, which is kind of weird.
Continuity alert: when thinking about the special ops of the Imperial Army, Kiera says that the Surveillance Corps (which Domm is a part of) reports to the Prime Minister, except when there isn't one, in which case it reports to the Minister of the Houses. Since in this case they report to Lady Indus, the Minister of the Houses... there isn't a Prime Minister? I know this was written before Sethra Lavode, wherein Zerika names Pel to the position, but I wonder if there's an in-universe explanation for where he's gotten to between then and now.
It was interesting to get yet another external view of Vlad, including Kiera being weirded out by Vlad's chest hair when she tends to his wound. I especially liked these mini conversations between Hwdf'rjaanci and Kiera and Vlad and Kiera:
"They're disgusting," said Hwdf'rjaanci.
"Who?"
"Easterners," she said.
I said, "Ah. I'll tell him you said so, Mother."
"Oh don't," she said, looking suddenly distressed. "It would hurt his feelings."
and
"That was a short goodbye," I said.
"I don't think the old woman likes me," he said. But don't thell her I know. I think it would hurt her feelings."
There seems to be confirmation that Vlad had a thing for the Issola minstrel from Athyra, Sara, which does seem to imply she's the one he was thinking about in Iorich (and likely also the Dragaeran lover he mentions to Cawti?)
Also, love the quote about garlic: "I suggested to Vlad that if the Jhereg really wanted to find him, all they had to do was keep track of garlic consumption throughout the Empire. He suggested that I not spread the idea around, because he'd as soon let them find him as quit eating garlic."
And, of course, no Dragaera book write-up is complete without saying something about Morrolan. The fact that he does not actually appear in this book would not, of course, stop me. I was amused that when Vlad was going over what his various powerful friends could do to help Hwdf'rjaanci, he says "Or maybe you mean Morrolan. He could solve the whole thing by inviting our hostess to move into Castle Black, but I don't think she'll go for it." (while Aliera would charge in and start killing people, Norathar-when-Empress could just give an order, etc.) I'm just amused that he seems to think Morrolan would be most useful in this situation just by providing a place to crash. I was also curious to see Kiera say "I don't know anyone like Vlad: it's like his mind never shuts off. Even Morrolan relaxes from time to time, but I've never seen Vlad when he wasn't thinking" -- this is especially funny to me when reflecting that when Sethra first met him, Morrolan would tend to greet her with some question of natural philosophy/sorcery -- but I guess he's mellowed quite a bit with age :P. And finally, Kiera asks Vlad, "Been reading Paarfi again?" which, if he has actually read Paarfi, I can just imagine how much crap he gives Morrolan over all the stuff in viscount XD
18. Steven Brust, Jhereg (reread) -- just random observations, since I do actually remember the plot of this one more or less OK. Spoilers
Jhereg takes place 4 years after Taltos. I wish I remembered either how long after Taltos Yendi took place or the timespan between Yendi and Jhereg...
Vlad and Cawti -- Cawti taking Vlad's turn to cook was quite sweet, in a married people way. Although I'm not surprised it didn't take her long to get involved in something bigger than being a stay-at-home wife and emotional support for Vlad after her retirement as the Dagger. I've been poking around, not the fandom, as that doesn't seem to exist, but what people say about these books, and there seems to be a lot of dislike of Cawti. Not, like, rabid hate because they are shipping Vlad with someone else. As near as I can tell, the consensus is that she is insufficiently awesome. Not insufficiently awesome for Vlad, insufficiently awesome compared to, like, Sethra, Aliera, Tazendra. She doesn't do much in Jhereg, to be sure, beyond stroking Vlad's forehead, and I guess it's unfortunate that that's the first impression of her when reading the books in publication order. Not that I'm a huge fan of Cawti, but I don't get the dislike. Randomly, Vlad thinks, "if she'd been a Dragaeran, she might have been born into the House of the Issola, and taught them all something about 'courtliness.' And something about 'surprise,' as well." -- Vlad's got a type? ;)
Morrolan -- The various stand-offs and bickering between Morrolan and Aliera are quite amusing. And the difference in their perceptions of the situation is, too:
A: "And that doesn't bother you? He's dishonoring the entire House of the Dragon! How *dare* he use a Dragonlord?"
M: "Ha! [...] How dar he use *me*?"
Some more gratuitous Morrolan quotes:
"Morrolan sat at the other end of the couch from Aliera -- relaxed, and yet looking as if he were posing for a painting."
"I don't suppose," said Morrolan, "that it occurred to you to bring this information to me before you tried to do anything yourself?"
Fentor was silent for a moment, then he asked. "Would you have done it, my lord?"
"Most assuredly not," said Morrolan. "I would hardly submit to anyone's extortion." He lifted his chin slightly.
(Be still, my beating stomach.)
[Vlad is post multiple teleports at this point, thus the stomach thing, but heh.]
There's also the fact that Vlad thinks of the library at Castle Black as home: "More than our apartment, more that my office, the library at Castle Black has seemed like home base to me." (this is echoed in Iorich, too, I think).
Speaking of, Vlad remarks that the stiars at Castle Black are comfortable for an Easterner and shallow (and thereofore posh) for a Dragaeran. I wonder how much of that is Morrolan showing off and how much is that the Castle was built with his Circle of Easterner witches in mind. Kind of a win-win courtesy of the top-notch Vallista architects he hired?
Also, is this the only book where it's mentioned that Blackwand is Morrolan's familiar? Or at least that he considers it as such? I find it interesting that he doesn't seem to realize it in Viscount -- unless this is just an indication that Paarfi doesn't understand witchcraft and thus didn't think to make (up) the connection.
The Demon's guys' ability to take out Morrolan makes no sense to me, though... Of course he would've come charging in after Fentor, but he would've come charging in with Blackwand in hand... so why wouldn't the sword protect him? I can't believe even a capable sorceress of the Left Hand could've neutralized a Great Weapon that had once killed a god. And since Blackwand can apparently defend Morrolan when he's unconscious (in Sethra Lavode), why wouldn't it do so now? (Well, probably because SKZB hadn't come up with this ability yet, but it still makes no sense in continuity...)
Fentor (who Vlad still thinks is a Tsalmoth) -- I loved the way Morrolan acts with him after they're both revivified, pouring him wine, patting him on the shoulder, and wanting to reimburse him for spending his own money in a way Morrolan would not have approved of.
The version of Adron's Disaster and what led up to it that Aliera tells Vlad is rather different from what happened according to Paarfi. I'm going to guess Vlad misremembered because he didn't really care. After all, he was focusing on the relevant bits, and those were all in place.
I did wonder if Aliera's past life -- the sister of Kieron and Dollivar -- was Drien, since she remembers herself being a Shaman. (I'm not the only one to wonder that, apparently)
I think this was my first time in (re)reading Jhereg that the admiration Vlad feels for Mellar -- how he handles himself under pressure, his bravery, quick thinking, willingness to martyr himself. He has considerable admiration for the Demon, too -- so, both of his Jhereg antagonists.
I love that even in the middle of fighting, wounded, for his life, when Vlad finishes the spell to attract the wild jhereg ("Let our fates be intertwined"), he "wondered whether Loiosh would ever speak to [him] again." Actually, reading Jhereg right after Yendi made me think about the sort of parallel between Vlad and Cawti and Loiosh and Rocza, basically, antagonism when they first meet which quickly turns to pairing off. And I find it interesting that Loiosh is raised from an egg by a human, isn't really a very natural jhereg, while Rocza did grow up in her natural habitat, not that different from Vlad's upbringing among Dragaerans vs Cawti's much tighter connection to Easterners. And it's interesting -- female jhereg are supposed to be dominant, but Rocza cleaves to Loiosh, but Cawti strikes out on her own and the two of them fall apart. Not that it's an exact parallel or meant to be or anything, but I do find the two relationships interesting. Maybe it's was Morrolan's crack about both couples being domestic that started me thinking in this direction.
Random quote:
Morrolan: "Seriously, though, Vlad; have you ever thought about quitting the Jhereg? [...]"
Vlad: "Ha! I've thought about quitting the Jhereg a great deal, but so far I've always managed to be just a little bit quicker than whoever wanted me out."
*
There's a new Dragaera short story, "The Desecrator", non-Vlad narrated, up online.
More of SKZB's fancasting (featuring Summer Glau as Cawti, heh)
Heh, so, I'm finding I'm actually being led to a lot of comments/entries that mention Morrolan if I search by something other than his name (like Aliera), for the simple fact that a lot of people apparently can't spell Morrolan. I should've thought of that earlier XD
One of the things I found, indirectly, is this: Joe Abercrombie re: him writing "bankrupt nihilism". Heh. So, the bit of "if Abercrombie had written LotR" he quotes from the rant is actually pretty apt (so apt, in fact, that it's kind of spoilery for The First Law). And if you go in to read Abercrombie expecting Tolkien... well. But his rant-mocking/rebuttal is quite amusing, and, of course, it's possible to like both.
*
Book meme from gogoratchet:
1) What was the major theme from the last book you read?
The banking system is corrupt and easy to exploit, bankers are greedy bastards, and the guilty are never punished because they are too powerful to touch. No, the last book I read was not a non-fiction analysis of the recent economic downturn, it was Orca (Vlad Taltos #7, by Steven Brust).
2) Who was the best written character from the last five books you read?
I'm going to count the whole Dragaera retrospective as one book, because the last five books I've finished are all part of that pool. And I'm going to skip short story collections. The other four are thus Ascendant, Fat Vampire, Dead in the Family, and The Lies of Locke Lamora. Best written is a difficult term, too... I'm not even going to pretend to judge these things quantitatively or unbiasedly. Jean Tannen from Lies is maybe a contender, and Dragaera has a bunch of other interesting characters, but I think my recent obsession requires that I give this to Morrolan.
3) Is there a new genre/topic that you're really looking forward to getting better acquainted with?
Not new, but I've been meaning to get back into reading sci-fi. I have three sci-fi books sitting in my to read pile and I keep pushing them off.
4) Three things from recently read books that made you uncomfortable or nervous?
SPOILERS for Jhereg and Fat Vampire
1. Vlad trying to crack the sorceress who is preventing Morrolan's revivification in Jhereg. It's psychological torture and meant to be uncomfortable (to put it mildly), and Vlad himself is quite aware of it. But, yeah.
2. The way the recurrent theme of Side Jobs (the Dresden Files short story collection) seemed to be women as sexualized victims.
3. The homosexuality of the old vampire in Fat Vampire. I think the book handled it pretty well, actually, but the potential implications -- which are acknowledged and discussed -- did still make me uncomfortable.
5) Something you read recently that made you gleeful or overcome with admiration?
Gleeful: Adron e'Kieron, ladies and gentlemen. Also, Morrolan being a giant dork throughout most of Viscount of Adrilanka. I've just been rather squeeful about Dragaera lately.
6) Name a literary character you 'met' recently who you really liked?
Adron, definitely. He's got that brilliance and hubris that I invariably fall for (he actually quite reminds me of Feanor in some ways) and also these human touches that soften the BAMFness just enough.
But since I already mentioned Adron above, let me branch out. I also really liked a number of secondary characters from Locke Lamora -- Bug, Jean Tannen, Lorenzo and Sofia Salvara.
7) Name a doomed literary character whose death really made you miss them?
Most of the characters I like tend to be doomed, LOL. Let's go with Tywin Lannister, though. It was mostly after his dead, in AFfC, that I started realizing just how much I loved him as a character. Also, things were kind of lots better before Cersei got to have a free hand with Westeros, so.
8) If you could only have access to a dictionary or a thesaurus, which would you choose?
Dictionary. A thesaurus has its uses, but it's better to be repetitive than downright incorrect.
9) What's the most pointless book on your shelves? The one you blink at every time you notice its existence?
I have a couple of books of psychological type quizzes and what if questions. Basically, the printed equivalent of survey memes and quizzes, from before there were internet options. That's pretty damn pointless.
10) What's the best conversation you ever had about books or a particular book? Who was it with?
I think most of my favorite conversations were probably about books or a particular book XD Highlights include:
- The three-week-long conversation with Pippin and R and occasional random others about all things Lord of the Rings back when R and I were 14.
- Meeting _grayswandir_ in Arizona last year and talking, basically, about all books ever until 3 a.m. (And before that, the epic Lord of Light discussion on LJ)
- The massive comment exchange with axmxz which meandered from SHerlock Holmes and Snape to Monday Starts Saturday and the general nature of fantasy and sci-fi.
- The days of crack and meta in westerosorting chat back in the first couple of games.
**
Book meme from chisakami:
1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
Interesting question... Very few of my books accompanied me during emigration, because space was so limited, and a good chunk of the books we shipped ahead did not arrive.
I think the book that's still in the family that has been around the longest is the red-covered collection of Russian fairy tales, Afanasyev, but that one lives with my parents. They also have some books that belonged to my father and actually predate my birth, like the Wizard of Emerald City (Volkov's creative retelling of Wizard of Oz), a Dragunsky collection, a book of Chukovsky poems.
But a book that actually resides in my house -- that's got to be my copy of Monday Starts Saturday, which I got as a gift from my father's friend Shurik just before we emigrated. That one has been on my shelf for 20+ years.
2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
Current read: I'm almost done with Sisters Red, also in the middle of Cast in Silence, and, even though I promised myself I would take a break from Dragaera, just started Teckla this morning. Whyyyy? I don't even like Teckla!
Last read: Finished up Jhereg and Orca pretty much simultaneously.
Going to read next: I've decided it's likely going to be The Magicians. But I have, like, five other books I should really read already or return to the library.
3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Not everybody likes it, but, Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. Like, I actually like GGK, mostly, but this book just really did not agree with me.
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
James Joyce, Ulysses. Although maybe I'm saving it for "retirement" too :P
5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
If I'm saving anything for retirement, it's writing one, for my own amusement.
6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end? Wait till the end!
I don't read it first, but I do often peek at the last page, especially if action's getting tense and I'm concerned about my favorite characters making it out alive.
7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
I like reading acknowledgements, especially if it's an author whom I know to be part of a group of authors, like on LJ.
8. Which book character would you switch places with?
Only someone who had very little responsibility and a quiet life, but those types of characters don't appear in books much. Or, hm, being Nanny Ogg might be fun, though I definitely don't have the personality for it.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
Not super-strongly, because books, essentially, are their own markers for me. But LotR always has a background association with R, because of the hours and years we spent talking about it and Mary-Sueing ourselves into it. The Kellerman mysteries are associated with my mother, because it's one of the few series we read together. That sort of thing.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
I found my copy of War for the Oaks on MUNI. I guess I should've turned it into the Lost and Found, but I've been meaning to read the book for ages, and decided this must've been fate. It was a brand new copy, clearly unread, so I figured it's not like it had any sentimental value, and who is likely to bother with Lost and Found for a paperback?
I also rescued a copy of Julius Caesar from a rainpuddle and carried it home under my jacket and tried to dry it out. It will never look pristine, but I saved it, and also now have a copy of Julius Caesar for some reason... I don't even like Julius Caesar...
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
Given away my own book? Not intentionally. Though I've lent books to friends who never returned them, but that's not the same thing.
12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
Probably the books I took with me on sabbatical -- Swordspoint, Dragon, and Jingo. Tthey went with me to Amsterdam, Norway, Israel, and Belgium.
13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
I liked most of my required reading in high school, but I'm not sure I reread any of it. Well, I had to read Romeo and Juliet again in the summer program in Oxford (the summer between HS and college), but I didn't like it any better then than sophomore year.
14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
I've found random bookmarks, receipts, maybe even a photograph (from which it was impossible to tell what it was a photograph of) in library books, but nothing super-strange. Squished earwigs, maybe?
15. Used or brand new?
I'm fine with either as long as the books are in good condition. I would rather buy used because new books are ridiculously expensive in this country, I feel, and because I find browsing used book stores more fun. But if I'm buying online, as I mostly do these days, and have no opportunity to actually look at what I'm buying, then I will go with new.
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
LOL. I've actually only read some short stories, and began a couple of books because they were lying around while I was at my parents' but did not feel super-compelled to finish them. They were OK?
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
Stardust. I think Gaiman's book is just OK, but loved the movie.
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Eh. I don't think the existence of a crappy movie does any harm to the book, honestly. Like, the Percy Jackson adaptation was... not good. But it got L to read the books after I'd been encouraging her for quite a while, so who am I to complain?
Although I have heard really dispiriting things about the renamed The Dark is Rising movie, which I consequently never watched.
19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
Ahaha, Dzur. I think it was basically written with this purpose in mind.
Also, reading Thud! (I think it was Thud!? One of the Watch books, anyway) made me crave bacon something terrible. Mmmm, bacon.
20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
Well, there's no-one whose advice I always take, but etrangere has read so much of the same sort of stuff I like to read that I find it likely that a book she enjoyed reading I would also enjoy.
There are not a lot of books about sisters fighting crime monsters together, while there are plenty about brothers, and it's really nice to have one, finally. I like the fact that their relationship is complicated and not exactly healthy at the beginning, even though they clearly love each other very much, and that the book does not shy away from the darker aspects of it. That Rosie feels that, because Scarlett saved her life back then, she basically owes Scarlett to spend her whole life doing what Scarlett wants, hunting Fenris, even when the hunt is not something that actually drives her. That Rosie is not sure that Scarlett will come to rescue her after the whole thing with Silas becomes known. That Scarlett, as much as she loves Rosie and is willing to give her life for her, does sort of resent the fact that Rosie is "half-Drgonfly" -- i.e. more like a normal, flighty girl that the Fenris prey on -- while being determined to keep the thing that happened to her from happening to Rosie. That Scarlett is jealous of Silas, is not above blaming him for Rosie being kidnapped and even considers that if he were to die, she would have Rosie to herself again -- she backs away from these darker thought, but I was impressed that the book had the guts to show them in the first place.
There is such a strong core there, between Rosie and Scarlett, and neat things the book does that I applauded, such as the fact that Rosie rescues herself (but by thinking she's thinking like Scarlett), and is the one to kill the Alpha, and the way Silas has to be protected in the final battle -- it's for a reason that makes sense and does not diminish him at all as a character, but a bit of a gender inversion which was neat -- and the way Silas puts himself in danger to save Scarlett rather than Rosie, and the way the sisters each take her own path but remain linked to each other.
And yet, there were enough things that this book was wobbly on that the overall package made a lot less of an impression on me than it could have, I think.
First off, the narration. It's just not very strong. I found it to be overly dramatic because of first person present tense and occasional epithet abuse. I didn't think Rosie and Scarlett's voices were distinct enough for alternating first-person narrators -- there were a couple of times when I accientally turned over more than one page and ended up in the other girl's section, and it took me a couple of paragraphs to realize this, until I hit a name or something like that. Neither voice was particularly interesting or unique, and then they just ran together. There was also a bit too much repetition of certain things, and not in a way that made the point stronger. Like all the stuff about Rosie and Scarlett sharing a single heart -- that was just melodramatic, sorry.
The other thing that bugged me was the worldbuilding. It seemed designed for convenience of the plot / storytelling rather than how it would "naturally" be. The Fenris were really, really flat. Soulless werewolf monsters who devour girls in gory ways -- but I never got a sense of WHY they were like this, how they came about, how much was really known about them. There was no depth or personality to them, and yet a fair bit of what they supposedly do is pass for human, and it just didn't make any sense to me. They were boring, and also, by being as flat as they were, I felt this aspect really undermined the complexity of the sibling relationship in the book. It was like a sketchy background with a very detailed foreground -- it made the book feel unfinished.
I did like the way Scarlett encounters a "bad guy" who turns out not to be a Fenris, just a human predator, but it didn't really address that gap, in my mind, just underlined it. If your book is all about hunting monsters, it would be nice if those monsters made sense on more than an aesthetic level. If you are retelling a fairy tale in a deeper, complex way -- go ahead and make all parts of it complex, not just the parts you're interested in, or the disinterest really shines through.
I've been thinking about my relationship with worldbuilding, and I tend to be fairly forgiving of flaws, I think. It can be subtle and complex and deep, or it can be broad strokes and kitchen sink of random magical races, it can be purely second world or different from reality in fairly minute ways, that doesn't matter. But the author has to care about the world-building in order for me to truly enjoy the book, and I didn't get that feeling here at all. She clearly cared about Rosie and Scarlett and Silas and telling the story of the three of them, but the worldbuilding felt sketchy and incidental. Pity.
The whole philosophical analogy cave didn't make much sense to me, except in the sense that Rosie thinks about it towards the end -- having tasted real life she can't go back to being nothing more than a hunter. In fact, the whole bit where Oma March loves philosophy and reads/tells these ideas to the girls felt really random and tacked on, and reading in the author bio that she was a philosophy major explained that to me. But "write what you know" doesn't mean putting random stuff you know in the books, and that's what it felt like to me with this one.
I guess it's one of those books that I wish had been written by the/a writer more in control of their craft, because I feel like the execution undermines the strengths of it some.
Right, plot. I actually guessed rather far ahead -- right when they read the newspaper article about the boy survived by a bunch of older siblings -- that Silas was the Potential. I figured there had been another child who died, but not that "Uncle" Jacob was the missing child who made Silas the seventh son. I did like the touch that the seventh son of a seventh son info was in the "useless" library books they'd gone through. And the way the penny finally drops on that one wasn't super-realistic, but it worked for me. I also didn't make the connection, until it was pointed out, that the Fenris who had killed Oma March and maimed Scarlett had been there hunting for Silas -- that was a nice touch. I do find it pretty unbelievable, though, that Pa Reynolds would not tell Silas about the curse -- that's just irresponsible however you slice it, and it taxed my suspension of disbelief a whole lot.
What else was there? The Rosie + Silas romance. It was cute, though not a particularly strong example. I did like the fact that Silas was encouraging Rosie to be herself and do things that made her happy. I'm not sure how I feel about the revelation that Silas had been in love with Scarlett first, before he noticed Rosie. On the one hand, it's nice to have the validation that Scarlett, scarred and marked by the Fenris, can be desirable. On the other hand, having her be uninterested in romance and only get a charge out of the thrill of the hunt is a really easy way not to have to take that line of reasoning any further. On the third hand, not every female character needs to be interested in romance, and I'm glad the book avoided a healing powers of love trope viz Silas and Scarlett.
None of the characters particularly stood out to me. I liked Rosie best, because she was the more relatable of the sisters. I didn't actually like Scarlett that much as a person, but I like that she exists as a character, difficult and damaged and not very nice but able to make the difficult right choices when it counts. (I'm not sure I fully buy the "passion not sickness" thing about her drive to hunt, but, OK, passion can grow out of trauma, and that's definitely fine.) Silas, well... I'm not sure there was a lot to Silas, but that's OK. (Amusingly enough, I was talking to L, who had also read the book, about who our respective favorite characters were, and I said mine was Rosie and L said she didn't really like any of them that much, though she had really liked the book -- her favorite character was Screwtape the cat. About right, really XD)
I did like that, as dark as a lot of this book was, there were still bits of humour, situational, such as when Rosie inadvertenly signs up for drawing a nude model, and among the characters, like Silas insisting he would look great in a dress (as bait).
Also, although it's very incidental to the main plot except in what Scarlett learns, I found the description of Scarlett visiting Pa Reynolds, who has Alzheimer's, poignant and depressing and well done.
Quotes:
"You have weird eyes." [...] "The better to see your lovely faces with, my dears."
"My sister knows I'll forgive her. I'll always forgive her. I have to. It's one of those things that's just necessary when someone has saved your life."
"I owe Scarlett my life, and if she wants to cash in by having me spend my life hunting beside her, so be it. It'd kill her if she ever thought I wanted to quit."
"I frown, but what can I say? [...] That I wanted to hunt to strengthen the bindings between Rosie and me, Silas and me?"
"Don't they care? [...] She's my sister -- how can she not care? I took on the wolves for her, I stood in front of her, and now in exchange I need her to care."
Scarlett to Silas: "Fine. Go to San Francisco and have a lovely time. [...] But it's their blood on your hands, Silas. All the girls whom you could save but won't. I hope their lives were worth a guitar lesson to you. I hope you think about how it would feel to be their mothers and fathers and sisters. I wonder if you could tell them that their little girls died because you wanted to learn how to fucking play 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.'"
"'Stop,' he says forcefully. I shake my head -- I can't stop. 'Come on, Rosie. you're in control here; you don't need to be rescued,' he says, reading my thoughts."
Scarlett, on the trade (Silas for Rosie) offerred by the Fenris: "I should be the one traded. I should be the one who can save her. I blink away the jealousy -- there's no place for it now."
"She will make it out alive. My sister is the priority. I will save Silas, I will fight for Silas, but if I must, I'll take my sister and go. [...] Yet some wicked part of me is still furious with him. If he didn't love her, they wouldn't have taken her. If she didn't love him, she might have been able to focus on stopping the wolves instead of pining for Silas. || If Rosie were like me, she would be safe. [...] Would Silas's death be the thing that makes Rosie focus? If they take him from her, would the hunt become her passion, the way it is mine? || Probably. For a glimmer of a moment, I allow myself to imagine Rosie and me hunting together without Silas. My sister and I, side by side, equally driven, undistracted and unrelenting. A flicker of wanting shoots through me. || I shake my head. Focus, Scarlett."
"But watching them kiss, I shift my anger to the pack of wolves in front of us. How dare they try to take him away from Rosie? How dare they try to turn her into something like me?"
"Something [in Rosie] that reminds me of me, standing in front of her, seven years ago. But I can't allow Rosie to become what I have become. Not Rosie -- they can't have her."
16. Steven Brust, Athyra -- Huh. Well, that was kind of depressing. I was skeptical about non-Vlad narration, and Savn was definitely a lot less fun as a narrator. Vlad's narration is darkly amusing even in the not-so-fun books like Phoenix and Teckla; Savn's not so much. But it was neat to see Vlad from an external POV, and also to see him dealing with someone who was less powerful and versed in the ways of the world when normally he is dealing with folks out of his league, Jhereg brass, high nobility, Sethra, gods. Spoilers from here
Savn's narration was fairly dull, and his out of body experiences were boring, but I did come to like Savn himself, and the state he is in at the end of the book is pretty horrible. I think I liked him especially when he was tending to Master Wag, and then when he kills the guard and makes sure he throws up in the chamber pot ("even then Savn was unable to move until his sense of cleanliness around a pteient overcame his shock and led his feet across the cell to the chamber pot before his stomach emptied itself"). I like Master Wag a lot, too. I think he might actually be my favorite character in this, his gruff demeanor that softens when he's with a patient, and the way he withstood torture until they were about to start on his hands ("They were about to start on my fingers. I couldn't let them--"). Rocza's POV was very, very odd. I found it jarring and kind of annoying to read, though I understand why Brust chose to do it that way and it could've been much, much worse. And, I guess, Loiosh is so human that it's interesting to see a wild jhereg's native thought patterns and how different they are. In theory, anyway. In practice, it was annoying. I did find it very interesting that at the end Vlad was trying to get Savn to leave but Loiosh was perfectly willing to let him take risks to protect Vlad.
It was also pretty interesting, in theory, to get a regular (non-revolutionary) Teckla POV, to see how small and circumscribed their lives are, how little they know of sorcery and the world in general. One detail I particularly liked was Savn telling Pollyi that Easterners mate for life. Also interesting to me was that Savn and Pollyi did not appear the least bit scandalized by the idea that Reins and Vlad might have been lovers (as a way of explaining to themselves why Vlad cared about his death enough to look into it/avenge it). So even in the boonies, apparently, homosexual and Dragaeran/Easterner relations don't appear to be a particularly big deal. Unless Savn and Polyi are too young to be properly scandalized? I also liked the framing song ("I will not marry a dung-footed peasant, etc."), and especially the detail that it can be sung by either gender with the respective pronounced reversed. It's certainly true that all of the roles mentioned can be occuppied by either gender as easily as the other. Oh, and the idea of "filling the bucket" as the way to determine apprenticeship.
Vlad was... Vlad. I most enjoyed seeing him in interaction with Loraan and Ishtvan the Jhereg assassin -- even after two years of wandering in the East, that is clearly still his element, even desperate and hurt. Vlad casting the spell on Savn's parents, setting out to use Savn (putting him to sleep to get rid of him) -- we've seen him do far worse things, certainly, but only from his own POV, and it really did feel quite different watching these actions from the outside, in an uneasy sort of way (in a good way). So, I guess, from that point of view the book worked for me quite well, even though I didn't enjoy it that much.
I do wonder what's up with Loraan being undead rather than not existing post encounter with Blackwand. We know that Blackwand doesn't *have to* consume someone's soul, but I don't see Morrolan being particularly positively inclined towards someone who a) kept Aliera essentially imprisoned, and b) (if he/Sethra know about this) collaborated with Kana against Zerika. So, huh?
Also, Sara the Issola bard... I wonder if she's the one Vlad thinks about in Iorich where it appears he'd had a fling with an Issola after separating from Cawti?
And then there were the puns, both the in-text ones like: "Can you recommend an inn?" "I don't understand." "A hostel?" "We're mostly pretty friendly here--"
and the random meta Shakespearean puns. Which I don't know what to do with, honestly. Apparently it is possible to take puns to a level of andomness and obscurity where even I will not be amused by them. :P
Definitely not my favorite Taltos book, but not bad, and I'm glad I read it finally.
17. Steven Brust, Orca -- now that's more like it! This one was fun. SPOILERS!
I'm still not a fan of the non-Vlad narration. The Vlad and Kiera narration was integrated far better than I'd expected, with them actually handing it off to each other in text, for in-text reasons, and each of them addressing a specific in-universe audience (Vlad talking to Kiera, Kiera talking to Cawti)... except not really, because they don't necessarily tell the person everything they tell the reader? I was not entirely clear on this point. But anyway, it was deftly done, with the Interludes as actual points of Cawti and Kiera interaction (as well as the Prologue and Epilogue letters). But my favorite bits were still those narrated by Vlad. Let's just stick to that.
The plot was... surprisingly exciting, considering what Vlad was actually trying to do was secure a deed for a tiny piece of land and the underlying machinations were a bank scam. (I kept having to remind myself that this book was fist published in like 1996, because it seemed like such a ripped-from-the-headlines plot.) And I was glad to see Savn starting to get better, especially when it's Loiosh's injury that gets him to take complex, independent action -- the physicker is clearly still in there. I do wish we'd gotten more closure for him, though... (Some interesting speculation regarding the narration of Athyra, on that note.)
I was, naturally, spoiled for the big twist/reveal of Kiera's identity, so it was fun to watch the little hints throughout, like Kiera knowing a whole lot about the Empire's secret taskforce groups and covert ops, not eating much, Buddy not being particularly friendly with her, etc. But I didn't spot the shifting speech patterns, and I didn't twig on to the fact that Vlad knew. I like that Vlad figures it out for himself but wasn't going to confront her about it.
I liked Loftis a lot, complete with his obscure little military history allusions, and was sad when he died. Also, I could not stop thinking of him as ImpSec as soon as Kiera had speculated that he had to have been serving in one of the divisions where normal rank was meaningless. I ended up liking Timmer a lot, too, once it's revealed that she was not just along for the ride and unaware of what Loftis and Domm were there for -- especially how she managed to track Vlad (via Loiosh), something Jhereg had not yet hit on. And her conversation with Vlad, setting up Domm with plausible deniability, was probably my favorite part of the book:
Then she said, "That's all you want?"
"What do you want, Ensign?"
She glared at me. "I want..." She stopped glaring, but continued staring, if you know what I mean.
"What do you want?" I repeated. "What would please you right now?"
"I..."
"Yes?" I said.
"Are you--?"
I looked away and waited.
Presently she said, "You used to be in the Jhereg?"
"Yes," I said.
"And what, exactly, did you do?"
I turned back to her. "You know what I did."
She nodded slowly.
Also, LOL at Khaavren being referred to as Papa-Cat XD
One thing I found interesting -- and it's actually something Vlad lampshades by saying outright, "I've been hanging around Orca quite a bit lately. Usually, when I get to know people I begin to be more sympathetic with them. You'd have thought that, now that I've gotten a chance to know these Orca, I'd have a little more understanding of them. But I don't. I hate them, Kiera. I hated them when I was a kid, and I hate them now, and I think I always will hate them." -- there don't seem to be any "good" Orca. (I guess we haven't really met any good Athyra either... except that Wellborn, Tortaalik's Discreet, was an Athyra, I guess? But other than that we've got crazy Court Wizard Nyleth in the battle against Adron in 500YA, scheming Seodra in TPG, traitor Loraan -- not a very nich bunch of people...) But other that that, we've met likeable Dragons and Phoenixes and Dzur and Hawks and Tiassa and Issolas and Iorichs and Jhereg and Teckla and Yendi and Lyorns (although, I guess, Vlad has actually not yet met likealbe Lyorns, Yendi, or Tiassas, that was all in the Paarfi books). But still, the Orca seem to be singled out as unpleasant through and through, which is kind of weird.
Continuity alert: when thinking about the special ops of the Imperial Army, Kiera says that the Surveillance Corps (which Domm is a part of) reports to the Prime Minister, except when there isn't one, in which case it reports to the Minister of the Houses. Since in this case they report to Lady Indus, the Minister of the Houses... there isn't a Prime Minister? I know this was written before Sethra Lavode, wherein Zerika names Pel to the position, but I wonder if there's an in-universe explanation for where he's gotten to between then and now.
It was interesting to get yet another external view of Vlad, including Kiera being weirded out by Vlad's chest hair when she tends to his wound. I especially liked these mini conversations between Hwdf'rjaanci and Kiera and Vlad and Kiera:
"They're disgusting," said Hwdf'rjaanci.
"Who?"
"Easterners," she said.
I said, "Ah. I'll tell him you said so, Mother."
"Oh don't," she said, looking suddenly distressed. "It would hurt his feelings."
and
"That was a short goodbye," I said.
"I don't think the old woman likes me," he said. But don't thell her I know. I think it would hurt her feelings."
There seems to be confirmation that Vlad had a thing for the Issola minstrel from Athyra, Sara, which does seem to imply she's the one he was thinking about in Iorich (and likely also the Dragaeran lover he mentions to Cawti?)
Also, love the quote about garlic: "I suggested to Vlad that if the Jhereg really wanted to find him, all they had to do was keep track of garlic consumption throughout the Empire. He suggested that I not spread the idea around, because he'd as soon let them find him as quit eating garlic."
And, of course, no Dragaera book write-up is complete without saying something about Morrolan. The fact that he does not actually appear in this book would not, of course, stop me. I was amused that when Vlad was going over what his various powerful friends could do to help Hwdf'rjaanci, he says "Or maybe you mean Morrolan. He could solve the whole thing by inviting our hostess to move into Castle Black, but I don't think she'll go for it." (while Aliera would charge in and start killing people, Norathar-when-Empress could just give an order, etc.) I'm just amused that he seems to think Morrolan would be most useful in this situation just by providing a place to crash. I was also curious to see Kiera say "I don't know anyone like Vlad: it's like his mind never shuts off. Even Morrolan relaxes from time to time, but I've never seen Vlad when he wasn't thinking" -- this is especially funny to me when reflecting that when Sethra first met him, Morrolan would tend to greet her with some question of natural philosophy/sorcery -- but I guess he's mellowed quite a bit with age :P. And finally, Kiera asks Vlad, "Been reading Paarfi again?" which, if he has actually read Paarfi, I can just imagine how much crap he gives Morrolan over all the stuff in viscount XD
18. Steven Brust, Jhereg (reread) -- just random observations, since I do actually remember the plot of this one more or less OK. Spoilers
Jhereg takes place 4 years after Taltos. I wish I remembered either how long after Taltos Yendi took place or the timespan between Yendi and Jhereg...
Vlad and Cawti -- Cawti taking Vlad's turn to cook was quite sweet, in a married people way. Although I'm not surprised it didn't take her long to get involved in something bigger than being a stay-at-home wife and emotional support for Vlad after her retirement as the Dagger. I've been poking around, not the fandom, as that doesn't seem to exist, but what people say about these books, and there seems to be a lot of dislike of Cawti. Not, like, rabid hate because they are shipping Vlad with someone else. As near as I can tell, the consensus is that she is insufficiently awesome. Not insufficiently awesome for Vlad, insufficiently awesome compared to, like, Sethra, Aliera, Tazendra. She doesn't do much in Jhereg, to be sure, beyond stroking Vlad's forehead, and I guess it's unfortunate that that's the first impression of her when reading the books in publication order. Not that I'm a huge fan of Cawti, but I don't get the dislike. Randomly, Vlad thinks, "if she'd been a Dragaeran, she might have been born into the House of the Issola, and taught them all something about 'courtliness.' And something about 'surprise,' as well." -- Vlad's got a type? ;)
Morrolan -- The various stand-offs and bickering between Morrolan and Aliera are quite amusing. And the difference in their perceptions of the situation is, too:
A: "And that doesn't bother you? He's dishonoring the entire House of the Dragon! How *dare* he use a Dragonlord?"
M: "Ha! [...] How dar he use *me*?"
Some more gratuitous Morrolan quotes:
"Morrolan sat at the other end of the couch from Aliera -- relaxed, and yet looking as if he were posing for a painting."
"I don't suppose," said Morrolan, "that it occurred to you to bring this information to me before you tried to do anything yourself?"
Fentor was silent for a moment, then he asked. "Would you have done it, my lord?"
"Most assuredly not," said Morrolan. "I would hardly submit to anyone's extortion." He lifted his chin slightly.
(Be still, my beating stomach.)
[Vlad is post multiple teleports at this point, thus the stomach thing, but heh.]
There's also the fact that Vlad thinks of the library at Castle Black as home: "More than our apartment, more that my office, the library at Castle Black has seemed like home base to me." (this is echoed in Iorich, too, I think).
Speaking of, Vlad remarks that the stiars at Castle Black are comfortable for an Easterner and shallow (and thereofore posh) for a Dragaeran. I wonder how much of that is Morrolan showing off and how much is that the Castle was built with his Circle of Easterner witches in mind. Kind of a win-win courtesy of the top-notch Vallista architects he hired?
Also, is this the only book where it's mentioned that Blackwand is Morrolan's familiar? Or at least that he considers it as such? I find it interesting that he doesn't seem to realize it in Viscount -- unless this is just an indication that Paarfi doesn't understand witchcraft and thus didn't think to make (up) the connection.
The Demon's guys' ability to take out Morrolan makes no sense to me, though... Of course he would've come charging in after Fentor, but he would've come charging in with Blackwand in hand... so why wouldn't the sword protect him? I can't believe even a capable sorceress of the Left Hand could've neutralized a Great Weapon that had once killed a god. And since Blackwand can apparently defend Morrolan when he's unconscious (in Sethra Lavode), why wouldn't it do so now? (Well, probably because SKZB hadn't come up with this ability yet, but it still makes no sense in continuity...)
Fentor (who Vlad still thinks is a Tsalmoth) -- I loved the way Morrolan acts with him after they're both revivified, pouring him wine, patting him on the shoulder, and wanting to reimburse him for spending his own money in a way Morrolan would not have approved of.
The version of Adron's Disaster and what led up to it that Aliera tells Vlad is rather different from what happened according to Paarfi. I'm going to guess Vlad misremembered because he didn't really care. After all, he was focusing on the relevant bits, and those were all in place.
I did wonder if Aliera's past life -- the sister of Kieron and Dollivar -- was Drien, since she remembers herself being a Shaman. (I'm not the only one to wonder that, apparently)
I think this was my first time in (re)reading Jhereg that the admiration Vlad feels for Mellar -- how he handles himself under pressure, his bravery, quick thinking, willingness to martyr himself. He has considerable admiration for the Demon, too -- so, both of his Jhereg antagonists.
I love that even in the middle of fighting, wounded, for his life, when Vlad finishes the spell to attract the wild jhereg ("Let our fates be intertwined"), he "wondered whether Loiosh would ever speak to [him] again." Actually, reading Jhereg right after Yendi made me think about the sort of parallel between Vlad and Cawti and Loiosh and Rocza, basically, antagonism when they first meet which quickly turns to pairing off. And I find it interesting that Loiosh is raised from an egg by a human, isn't really a very natural jhereg, while Rocza did grow up in her natural habitat, not that different from Vlad's upbringing among Dragaerans vs Cawti's much tighter connection to Easterners. And it's interesting -- female jhereg are supposed to be dominant, but Rocza cleaves to Loiosh, but Cawti strikes out on her own and the two of them fall apart. Not that it's an exact parallel or meant to be or anything, but I do find the two relationships interesting. Maybe it's was Morrolan's crack about both couples being domestic that started me thinking in this direction.
Random quote:
Morrolan: "Seriously, though, Vlad; have you ever thought about quitting the Jhereg? [...]"
Vlad: "Ha! I've thought about quitting the Jhereg a great deal, but so far I've always managed to be just a little bit quicker than whoever wanted me out."
*
There's a new Dragaera short story, "The Desecrator", non-Vlad narrated, up online.
More of SKZB's fancasting (featuring Summer Glau as Cawti, heh)
Heh, so, I'm finding I'm actually being led to a lot of comments/entries that mention Morrolan if I search by something other than his name (like Aliera), for the simple fact that a lot of people apparently can't spell Morrolan. I should've thought of that earlier XD
One of the things I found, indirectly, is this: Joe Abercrombie re: him writing "bankrupt nihilism". Heh. So, the bit of "if Abercrombie had written LotR" he quotes from the rant is actually pretty apt (so apt, in fact, that it's kind of spoilery for The First Law). And if you go in to read Abercrombie expecting Tolkien... well. But his rant-mocking/rebuttal is quite amusing, and, of course, it's possible to like both.
*
Book meme from gogoratchet:
1) What was the major theme from the last book you read?
The banking system is corrupt and easy to exploit, bankers are greedy bastards, and the guilty are never punished because they are too powerful to touch. No, the last book I read was not a non-fiction analysis of the recent economic downturn, it was Orca (Vlad Taltos #7, by Steven Brust).
2) Who was the best written character from the last five books you read?
I'm going to count the whole Dragaera retrospective as one book, because the last five books I've finished are all part of that pool. And I'm going to skip short story collections. The other four are thus Ascendant, Fat Vampire, Dead in the Family, and The Lies of Locke Lamora. Best written is a difficult term, too... I'm not even going to pretend to judge these things quantitatively or unbiasedly. Jean Tannen from Lies is maybe a contender, and Dragaera has a bunch of other interesting characters, but I think my recent obsession requires that I give this to Morrolan.
3) Is there a new genre/topic that you're really looking forward to getting better acquainted with?
Not new, but I've been meaning to get back into reading sci-fi. I have three sci-fi books sitting in my to read pile and I keep pushing them off.
4) Three things from recently read books that made you uncomfortable or nervous?
SPOILERS for Jhereg and Fat Vampire
1. Vlad trying to crack the sorceress who is preventing Morrolan's revivification in Jhereg. It's psychological torture and meant to be uncomfortable (to put it mildly), and Vlad himself is quite aware of it. But, yeah.
2. The way the recurrent theme of Side Jobs (the Dresden Files short story collection) seemed to be women as sexualized victims.
3. The homosexuality of the old vampire in Fat Vampire. I think the book handled it pretty well, actually, but the potential implications -- which are acknowledged and discussed -- did still make me uncomfortable.
5) Something you read recently that made you gleeful or overcome with admiration?
Gleeful: Adron e'Kieron, ladies and gentlemen. Also, Morrolan being a giant dork throughout most of Viscount of Adrilanka. I've just been rather squeeful about Dragaera lately.
6) Name a literary character you 'met' recently who you really liked?
Adron, definitely. He's got that brilliance and hubris that I invariably fall for (he actually quite reminds me of Feanor in some ways) and also these human touches that soften the BAMFness just enough.
But since I already mentioned Adron above, let me branch out. I also really liked a number of secondary characters from Locke Lamora -- Bug, Jean Tannen, Lorenzo and Sofia Salvara.
7) Name a doomed literary character whose death really made you miss them?
Most of the characters I like tend to be doomed, LOL. Let's go with Tywin Lannister, though. It was mostly after his dead, in AFfC, that I started realizing just how much I loved him as a character. Also, things were kind of lots better before Cersei got to have a free hand with Westeros, so.
8) If you could only have access to a dictionary or a thesaurus, which would you choose?
Dictionary. A thesaurus has its uses, but it's better to be repetitive than downright incorrect.
9) What's the most pointless book on your shelves? The one you blink at every time you notice its existence?
I have a couple of books of psychological type quizzes and what if questions. Basically, the printed equivalent of survey memes and quizzes, from before there were internet options. That's pretty damn pointless.
10) What's the best conversation you ever had about books or a particular book? Who was it with?
I think most of my favorite conversations were probably about books or a particular book XD Highlights include:
- The three-week-long conversation with Pippin and R and occasional random others about all things Lord of the Rings back when R and I were 14.
- Meeting _grayswandir_ in Arizona last year and talking, basically, about all books ever until 3 a.m. (And before that, the epic Lord of Light discussion on LJ)
- The massive comment exchange with axmxz which meandered from SHerlock Holmes and Snape to Monday Starts Saturday and the general nature of fantasy and sci-fi.
- The days of crack and meta in westerosorting chat back in the first couple of games.
**
Book meme from chisakami:
1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?
Interesting question... Very few of my books accompanied me during emigration, because space was so limited, and a good chunk of the books we shipped ahead did not arrive.
I think the book that's still in the family that has been around the longest is the red-covered collection of Russian fairy tales, Afanasyev, but that one lives with my parents. They also have some books that belonged to my father and actually predate my birth, like the Wizard of Emerald City (Volkov's creative retelling of Wizard of Oz), a Dragunsky collection, a book of Chukovsky poems.
But a book that actually resides in my house -- that's got to be my copy of Monday Starts Saturday, which I got as a gift from my father's friend Shurik just before we emigrated. That one has been on my shelf for 20+ years.
2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?
Current read: I'm almost done with Sisters Red, also in the middle of Cast in Silence, and, even though I promised myself I would take a break from Dragaera, just started Teckla this morning. Whyyyy? I don't even like Teckla!
Last read: Finished up Jhereg and Orca pretty much simultaneously.
Going to read next: I've decided it's likely going to be The Magicians. But I have, like, five other books I should really read already or return to the library.
3. What book did everyone like and you hated?
Not everybody likes it, but, Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay. Like, I actually like GGK, mostly, but this book just really did not agree with me.
4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?
James Joyce, Ulysses. Although maybe I'm saving it for "retirement" too :P
5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”
If I'm saving anything for retirement, it's writing one, for my own amusement.
6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end? Wait till the end!
I don't read it first, but I do often peek at the last page, especially if action's getting tense and I'm concerned about my favorite characters making it out alive.
7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?
I like reading acknowledgements, especially if it's an author whom I know to be part of a group of authors, like on LJ.
8. Which book character would you switch places with?
Only someone who had very little responsibility and a quiet life, but those types of characters don't appear in books much. Or, hm, being Nanny Ogg might be fun, though I definitely don't have the personality for it.
9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?
Not super-strongly, because books, essentially, are their own markers for me. But LotR always has a background association with R, because of the hours and years we spent talking about it and Mary-Sueing ourselves into it. The Kellerman mysteries are associated with my mother, because it's one of the few series we read together. That sort of thing.
10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.
I found my copy of War for the Oaks on MUNI. I guess I should've turned it into the Lost and Found, but I've been meaning to read the book for ages, and decided this must've been fate. It was a brand new copy, clearly unread, so I figured it's not like it had any sentimental value, and who is likely to bother with Lost and Found for a paperback?
I also rescued a copy of Julius Caesar from a rainpuddle and carried it home under my jacket and tried to dry it out. It will never look pristine, but I saved it, and also now have a copy of Julius Caesar for some reason... I don't even like Julius Caesar...
11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?
Given away my own book? Not intentionally. Though I've lent books to friends who never returned them, but that's not the same thing.
12. Which book has been with you to the most places?
Probably the books I took with me on sabbatical -- Swordspoint, Dragon, and Jingo. Tthey went with me to Amsterdam, Norway, Israel, and Belgium.
13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?
I liked most of my required reading in high school, but I'm not sure I reread any of it. Well, I had to read Romeo and Juliet again in the summer program in Oxford (the summer between HS and college), but I didn't like it any better then than sophomore year.
14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?
I've found random bookmarks, receipts, maybe even a photograph (from which it was impossible to tell what it was a photograph of) in library books, but nothing super-strange. Squished earwigs, maybe?
15. Used or brand new?
I'm fine with either as long as the books are in good condition. I would rather buy used because new books are ridiculously expensive in this country, I feel, and because I find browsing used book stores more fun. But if I'm buying online, as I mostly do these days, and have no opportunity to actually look at what I'm buying, then I will go with new.
16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?
LOL. I've actually only read some short stories, and began a couple of books because they were lying around while I was at my parents' but did not feel super-compelled to finish them. They were OK?
17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?
Stardust. I think Gaiman's book is just OK, but loved the movie.
18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?
Eh. I don't think the existence of a crappy movie does any harm to the book, honestly. Like, the Percy Jackson adaptation was... not good. But it got L to read the books after I'd been encouraging her for quite a while, so who am I to complain?
Although I have heard really dispiriting things about the renamed The Dark is Rising movie, which I consequently never watched.
19. Have you ever read a book that's made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?
Ahaha, Dzur. I think it was basically written with this purpose in mind.
Also, reading Thud! (I think it was Thud!? One of the Watch books, anyway) made me crave bacon something terrible. Mmmm, bacon.
20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?
Well, there's no-one whose advice I always take, but etrangere has read so much of the same sort of stuff I like to read that I find it likely that a book she enjoyed reading I would also enjoy.