Reading roundup (with Seven Surrenders) and Infinity War
38. Jonathan Kellerman, Heartbreak Hotel -- another Alex Delaware novel. I enjoyed this one less than Motive, but it was still fun (I mean, this isn't Great Literature by any stretch, but I've read 36 of this man's books and keep reading, so he's doing something right). In this case, no particularly strong secondary characters stood out (one of the usual pleasures of a Kellerman book for me) -- they were either too unpleasant or too saintly for the most part -- and I didn't get as much of the fun relationship between Milo and Alex and Alex and Robin, either -- I think too much of the book was taken up by fruitless surveillance and other random cops. I did like Alicia Bogomil, the ex-cop turned private security who wants to apply to LAPD after finding how much she misses the job through this case, and I liked the SPOILERS! thing with the ruby -- it being hidden in plain sight on the not-Tiffany lamp, and that it wasn't a ruby at all, but a semiprecious stone. On another spoilery note, a thing I didn't like was the way the whodunit is resolved -- the ringleader being the descendent of a crooked cop was great, but I was annoyed that we really didn't get to meet any of the perps except the accessory cousin -- the associates kept turning up dead, and then the ringleader ended up getting shot during the standoff -- not very satisfying.
39. Jonathan Kellerman, Night Moves -- This book was a more fun read than the previous one, although it did feel rushed to print -- I caught several typos and some non sequiturs that I think were editing lapses. Anyway, despite all that, I really enjoyed this mystery -- there's a lot going on, but the pacing worked for me well, and I appreciated both the red herrings and the actual reveal of the whodunit. Spoilers from here! I also liked the fact that not all the victims and innocent bystanders were nice people (e.g. Felicia, Trevor, the lazy cop who ended up murdered), and that we got to meet the murderer early on, but there was a lot of doubt about how everything was connec who was calling the shots until the very end. And there's both an actual confrontation with the mastermind (unlike in the previous book) and some form of closure (for Cory) and possibility of some hope for the future, although not untainted (for Chelsea and Trevor, though he is likely to die soon; for Cory). We got to meet some interesting characters -- Trevor the artist, Felicia, the retired cop neighbor.) It just felt like a much more solid book, more in the classic Kellerman vein. Also, I probably would've long forgotten about her if I hadn't read the two books back to back, but I was sad to learn that in the aftermath of the shooting at the end of the last book, the rookie who'd shot the suspect quit the force, even though the shooting was ruled justified.
40. Ursula Vernon, The Frozen Menace (Dragonbreath #11) -- I think this is meant to be the last book in the series, judging by the ending? It wasn't as funny as some of the earlier books -- I do feel like the premise is wearing a bit thin after all this time, at least for an adult reader. But I still enjoyed hanging out with Danny and especially Wendell and Christiana, and seeing Danny's great-granddad again. The phoenix chick and the giant ice worms were not as fun as some critters from earlier books (especially the potato salad), and not as cute as the rodents, but it was still a fun adventure and had a couple of lines that made me chuckle or at least smile:
'"I don't believe in magic," said Christiana scowling.
"Very sensible," said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. "Believing in it only encourages it."'
and
Wendell: "Will we have to stay here forever? What will we eat?"
Christiana: "Each other. All good Arctic expeditions eventually devolve into cannibalism."
Danny: "We'll eat Wendell. His mom feeds him health food all day. He's gotta be, like, super-healthy."
Also, looks like we have skipped book 10 (Knight-Napped), which I do want to catch up on.
42. Ursula Vernon, Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible -- I mean, it's
ursulav, hamsters, and fairy tale subversion -- there is basically no universe in which I would not eventually read and enjoy this; really, the only surprise is that it took me so long to get around to these books (the series is up to five books now, with book 6 due out in September). It looks like all the books are subversions of individual fairy tales (Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Twelve Dancing Princesses, Little Red Riding hood for the forthcoming #6), and this first one is a subversion of Sleeping Beauty (Harriet is cursed to prick her finger on a hamster wheel, because of course XD). My favorite part of this story specifically came in at the end, spoilers! with Prince Wilbur the slightly useless but trying hard, who made friends with the hydra guarding him on the glass mountain and named it Heady, and whose contribution to the fight with the wicked rat fairy was tossing Harriet her sword using his paperboy skills. XD The art is adorable, the whimsy is very Vernon (Mumfrey the riding quail, Harriet's faithful steed! hunting newts!), and the characters too -- Harriet is fun but flawed (she kind of *is* a bit of a thug XP but in her defense, she likes fractions), parents are well-meaning but more quirky than useful. And the cover is pink and purple and silver glitter all over XD I feel like if my elementary school self had the skills to write a book or any art skills whatsoever (and a lot more self-awareness, OK), this is exactly the book I would have written at that age. It is still very much a book I enjoyed reading at 40, and L at 17. As L put it after just a couple of pages, "Harriet is a badass."
41. Ada Palmer, Seven Surrenders (Terra Ignota 2) -- when my hold on this came in (in a format where I could highlight stuff to my heart's content and easily go back and forth), I dropped three SFF books I was in the middle of which I was enjoying and read this one pretty much straight through, with brief interruptions for Kellerman and kidlit to let my brain rest a bit from this universe. For the last couple of chapters, I hid in the bathroom for an hour to finish reading. And oh man, I just continue to be so impressed with the density and scope and ambition of this work, the layers of worldbuilding and the willingness to take this painstakingly constructed edifice and just kick everything over. MASSIVE SPOILERS from here!
The first thing that comes to mind about this book is just how TALKY it is. I don't mean that as a bad thing, actually -- this did not detract from its excitement or tension for me at all, but, like, if you consider objectively, I think there's only two actual "action" scenes in the whole thing (Jehovah's assassination and resurrection and Mycroft's fight with the Sniper doll, and the action parts are both over super quickly -- Jehovah dead in seconds, the Sniper doll de-animated as soon as Mycroft yells for help), and everything else is characters delivering speeches, characters having debates or conversations or arguments or letting each other in on secrets, or flashbacks to things happening in the past, or references to things that have happened offscreen while dealing with their aftermath. (I think book 1 was like this a lot, too, but I do feel like there were more things actually happening real-time... but maybe I was just overwhelmed trying to figure out the world and not paying as much attention. But I did feel like Mycroft being attacked had some real-time action, and there were the standoffs between the Servicers (plus Carlyle) and the would-be attackers, and Saladin finding Bridger. Anyway. So much talking, but the talking scenes were as fraught with action and suspense as anything more cinematic -- I was very impressed with how well this was done, partly through the impact of what was being discussed, partly through the speeches themselves, and partly through Mycroft's framing narration ratcheting up the tension -- I noticed this the most in the scene where Dominic and Carlyle meet, which is framed as a build up to rape, basically, and does end up being a kind of psychological rape, considering the taboos that Carlyle grew up with, religious rather than sexual violation. The other thing about the talkiness is that ideally I would not only try to stay afloat in the sea of expressed philosophy and worldbuilding and plot, but also keep track of who is telling things to whom, and whether they are likely to be lying (Yes), and who else among the characters knows or doesn't know about this.
I might as well talk about the gender stuff at this point. It didn't do much for me in the first book. I think it might be paying off more for me here, although I'm still not sure what exactly it's doing for me. There's two notable things that happen with gender here (or at least two things that I noticed) -- the pronoun switch for Carlyle and for Sniper. The Carlyle one just never stopped being jarring to me -- Carlyle was always 'he' in the back of my mind, so even after Mycroft went on his thing about how clearly Carlyle is a delicate innocent stumbling into Dominic's dark den and therefore, biology be damned, Carlyle should be referred to as "she", I kept thinking of them by the old pronoun, and doing a double-take every time I encountered "she" -- kind of like with the Radch books, actually, so at least the gender tricks were doing something. Sniper... I can absolutely see why so many readers were hurt and pissed off by the choice of "it" for Sniper, although I agree with those defenders who say that in-universe that's got more to do with their "living doll" aspirations than with the fact that (however they got there) Sniper is intersex. And I think on the writing level, "it" worked to help conflate the actual Sniper with the Sniper dolls brought to life by Bridger -- some narrative sleight of hand from Mycroft to keep the reader guessing (which sounds like a very Mycroft thing to do). But, man, the pronoun never stopped being incredibly jarring to me when I encountered it -- and I suspect that's actually part of the authorial intent? In the sense that I do think to the actual modern reader, "it" is almost inevitably jarring when used for a person (it trips me up when reading about Bel in Vorkosiverse ALL the time), so it's much closer to the effect of "he" and "she" on Mycroft's contemporaries than the "thee" stuff, which just feels quaint and dated. So I'm guessing "it" is there to give a flavor of the transgressive nature of Mycroft and Madame's pronoun use. Buuut. Narrative sleight of hand, in-character for Mycroft, transgressive flavor for the modern reader -- I'm not sure all of those outweigh the potential of this choice to hurt real readers, so I don't know that it was actually a GOOD choice, even if I con't believe it was an intentionally hurtful one. I do think it's interesting that, as this comment points out, the shift in pronouns for Sniper comes after we get a chapter from Sniper's own narration, and they tell us explicitly not to trust Mycroft's pronouns. But still, I dunno. It didn't bother me -- or, rather, it bothered me just enough to be jarred by each use but not enough to get mad at the narrative, but it's still a rather uncomfortable authorial choice (by Palmer, I mean, not Mycroft).
And two other gender things real quick: I noticed in this book that some characters just don't get gendered pronouns very often. Like, Apollo, for instance -- at some point, I wasn't even sure if they'd ever been described as "he" (or if I was just defaulting to that mentally because of the name), and kept watching for it and watching, and I think it comes up, like, twice or maybe three times in the entire second half of the book. Which could be because Mycroft doesn't talk about Apollo too much unless he has to, and when he does talk, it's mostly to people like MASON, who probably wouldn't put up with his gendered pronoun bullshit. But I'm really curious now, and am wondering if anyone's gone through and, like, counted this up. Because Apollo shows up by name a lot, and euphemistically, but pronouns are pretty rare. And I also noticed that pronouns used for Utopians somehow always caught me by surprise -- I think maybe the pronouns intentionally come in later than with other characters? The second thing is, I'm increasingly convinced Dominic counts as a genuine trans character, rather than just someone who happens to be biologically female and gendered male by Mycroft.
As well as the gender stuff, J.E.D.D. Mason was another thing I was unsold on in TLtL. At this point I'm... still not very interested in him, honestly (in fact, when it looked like he was going to exit the narrative, I found myself quite happy about that, and a little disappointed that it wasn't permanent (though, duh, he is the Son of Man or something, of course he gets a resurrection *sigh*). But I do like him better thematically knowing that he is basically the result(/victim) of a crazy experiment. I still don't find him interesting, although 'ambition' motivated by the perception of the loss of omnipotence -- all that stuff about the powers of government as "prosthetic gods" was pretty interesting, at least. The scene of child Jehovah "changing" Mycroft was quite different than I'd imagined, and somewhat anticlimactic, although it makes sense. And it's a fairly neat trick, the way Jehovah's resurrection, which proves to him that "his universe" persisted even while he was dead, removes Jehovah's personal issues with killing, and maybe Mycroft's as well? Although I also appreciated that Bridger introduces some doubt there at the end as to whether it's Jehovah that's really responsible for Mycroft's transformation or himself (which, as Mycroft's reader aside posited, I'd wondered about myself).
And speaking of Bridger -- ouch. This was not a twist I had foreseen, although in retrospect, Bridger's ~death is pretty clearly implied in the epigraph, when taken along with the "he is the lightning" passage from the first book. This part worked for me really well: We'd spent enough time with Bridger that I felt for him as a character, as a child, and also believed in Mycroft's love for him ("not as others before me have loved a son, a brother, a savior, a master, but whom I-strange creature that I am-love in all these ways at once, all rolled together into a new kind of love, abject and irrevocable, that has as yet no name."), so his death really hurt. And yet, it was also believable/in character, and also narratively inevitable, I guess, since once can't really have a high-stakes war with an omnipotent character around. I'm a bit iffier about the whole Major/Achilles thing. Partly I'm torn because I'd really liked Major and (as a Hector fangirl for 35 years) can't stand the mythological Achilles. But it's an interesting trick to have a veteran of all the wars, including the future one from Apollo's Pacific Rim book, and seems generally within the envelope of Bridger's poorly understood, semi-unconscious powers. And now I kind of want to reread both books to see if I can notice the Aimer/Patroclus thing. Apparently my slash goggles don't extend to plastic soldiers. Anyway, poor Bridger :(
OK, then there's plot. Which is ridiculously contrived, with the secrets and agendas and double-crosses and Perry's Monte Cristo game and secret identity and layers of obscured parentage... but, like, intentionally so? It makes sense for it to be ridiculously baroque when it's all Madame's doing. Well, "makes sense" as long as you accept the central premise of Madame's that gendered sex is a superweapon, which I do not, but am willing to posit for the duration of these books because it makes for an intriguing thought experiment. I don't have a lot to say about the individual things from Madame's -- the whole Perry-Danae-Ganymede-Ando thing and Carlyle's Gag-gene parentage and Perry's revenge-driven scheme to topple the Humanists and Mitsubishi. (As a side note, so Danae and Ganymede are actual clones (except for a Y chromosome change) rather than just twins? Huh.) But the soap opera-ness of all this aside... Actually, I don't know how to finish that sentence. It's soap oper-y and over the top, but I don't actively mind this, even though I don't actively enjoy it either.
A lot more interesting to me was all the stuff about the motivations on the political arena -- people willing to bring about a "sacrificial" war, or what people are prepared to do to stop a war, what is worth fighting and killing and dying for. I really liked that there was such a wide range of motivations and conclusions here, from Madame who is basically seizing power for the lulz (originally, anyway; maybe she's honest about now wanting to hand Jehovah the world as the nearest she can get him to omnipotence), to Perry climbing the ranks so he can topple the whole thinkfor petty revenge, to the Mardis debating a smaller war as a sort of "controlled burn", to Apollo, who either needs a 'practice' war to give Utopia a chance at surviving the big one for Mars, or to ensure Earth is not so much a utopia that even the Utopians decide the exploration of Mars isn't worth it, to Mycroft trying to create instead a miniature war with himself as the enemy, to the O.S. and their belief in controlled killing for the greater good (up to and including parricide), Sniper being willing to lead a revolution to preserve the Hives and the Terra Ignota way of life. It's a nice range of motivations and ideals, and while I don't agree with any of them (I don't think), I like the variety. (Of all of them, I find myself most sympathetic to the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' and Sniper, though I wouldn't want to be in their position myself / wouldn't make the same calls if I was. Which is why I'm not a Humanist. :P) And same for various bystanders' reactions to the crises and what they thing should be done, from Brody de Lupe to Bryar Kosala to the King of Spain.
Actually, speaking of Hives I'm not: you may recall I had been waffling between self-sorting Utopian and Gordian after book 1. Well, I'm pretty sure at this point that Gordian is the better fit. For one thing, their position as "outlier but not TOO far out" appeals to me more than Utopia's future-focused self exile. For another, the potential future of the Brillists and their mind-mapping experiments is actually more interesting and palatable to me personally than terraformed Mars. For another, this philosophy of abdicating the present to others so that one can lay claim to the future is definitely not for me, and neither is Apollo's philosophy of killing complacency to enable progress -- I'm way too fond of complacency to make a good Utopian, clearly. And the Infinite To Do List that apparently lives in most Utopians' vizors is something I would really hate. And, as I mentioned even after the first book, the voker thing is definitely a strike against Utopia for me as well. 20 hours a week sounds perfect for a job, actually, and the rest for random noodling. I still wish I could have a U-beast, though. Swissnakes, Techupines, Pterascanadons, Fiberoptifoxes -- I want them all! :D
I did appreciate the additional insight into Utopians (like their burial practices being turned into future Martian soil, which Apollo cannot be part of because his remains were too contaminated), and the other Hives. Especially interesting was the explanation/claim that the Humanists were inevitably the ones to come up with the O.S. scheme, because they are the only ones who think of history in terms of the impact of individuals ("Mitsubishi would target corporations, Masons governments, Europe nation-strats, me bash’es, the Anonymous ideas"). And this fun bit: "Cousins will cheer politely, Europeans debate, Humanists cheer or heckle, but the expressionless Brillists just took notes in a dozen silent formats, or whispered technical terms in breath-soft German, as if safely separated from this fascinating subject by a mirrored wall."
I have not talked about characters yet, and I should, because for all that these books are incredibly stylized, I do actually get attached to the characters, I find (well, some characters), in a way that I tend not to in other "high concept" stuff. I feel like there was less Mycroft in this narrative than in book 1, both as actor and as active narrator (e.g. fewer reader asides, less talk about himself) and oddly enough, I missed him. Also, god help me, I continue to like Saladin and, like. Actively ship him with Mycroft. /o\ I mean, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for axe murderers in love couples, but they are just so... murderously cute together?? Like, Mycroft waxing all poetic about his Saladin-installed and co-designed pacemaker (which was a really clever way to fool the tracker system!) and Mycroft warning Papa and the Utopian doctors to "make sure there are no records of who performed the surgery" ("Saladin still territorial?"). Or reminiscing about sharing a last kiss before going into their two-on-two battle against Apollo and Seine, or Mycroft sucker-punching Saladin to keep him around Jehovah and kissing him in apology, or the night the two of them and Bridger spend in the cell together -- it's all weirdly cute, considering what Saladin and Mycroft's bonding consisted of, from playful cannibalism to gruesome torture and murder. I mean, it's not that I think Mycroft and his "scary friend" are OK people, but they just seem to really belong to each other, and it's oddly sweet. In a murderous way. (I even like the way other people around Mycroft basically immediately grasp what Saladin means to Mycroft, how to manipulate Mycroft by threatening him, etc.) Moving on!
I continued to like Papa, and was very amused that once Thisbe handed him the key to the puzzle of Mycroft being in two places at once with the dog thing, that took immediate priority over absolutely everything, and Thisbe's outrage at this ("You’re not good at being a cop, you’re just good at stalking Mycroft.”) And I already quite liked Ockham in book 1, but his behavior with Ganymede, Perry, and Ando, his leadership of the bash', and especially the scene where he's submitting to his arrest made me like him even more here. I also continue to feel for Cato, and really liked the way the "is it hot here?" scene unfolded, where at first it seems like he's just babbling under stress, and then it turns out that he actually caught the intruder -- Cato is this really intriguing mixture of frailty and competence, which I find interesting. And it makes Lesley more interesting knowing that she knew her parents had been killed for the greater good and still embraced the ideals of the O.S. And Sniper through their own eyes was both sympathetic and fun; I was particularly touched by the detail that they have one of their back teeth notched so as to be able to tell themselves apart from a doll version come to life; you know, proactively. Basically the whole Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' is really fun, though I would've liked to have seen more of the set-sets in this one, and the twins remain rather an enigma still. Oh, and I continue to be intrigued by and feel incredibly sorry for Ganymede. (Hmm. I was trying to think why I find Ganymede so much more sympathetic than Danae, and I'm guessing the majority of that is maybe Mycroft's narration of things. I feel like any character Mycroft consistently uses "she" for is portrayed at best neutrally and mostly negatively. He's got some issues, hasn't he... I mean, of that specific kind. Obviously he's got general issues galore.) Oh, and as for new characters, I liked Mushi Mojave and his ant obsession and his alien poems written by the motion of ants (although ICK to having them living in his vizor *shudder*).
I'd been hoping this book would provide more information/insight on the mysterious Apollo Mojave figure, and it sure did that. My favorite thing learned, I think, is that Apollo was a crap writer (although Mycroft's explanation of his Iliad Pacific Rim AU makes a lot of sense XP) I did like the weirdly humanizing moment we get from MASON's story, about Apollo going to tell his bar buddies that he didn't want to die before going to face Mycroft. It's interesting that future-focused "Prince of Utopians" Apollo was, after all, willing to risk sacrificing his war/the future he was looking to save with it so that Seine wouldn't have to face torture and death alone. Did he really believe Mycroft would finish the job for him? Or agreed with Mycroft's idea that this mini-war of two on seventeen could serve the needed purpose? Or what? And Mycroft's forensic-style report of Apollo's death, where he refused to answer the question he himself raises about whether Apollo had taken the placebo pill by chance or choice -- when a few chapters earlier he'd claimed Apollo had chosen to life those several hours more over a painless death by cyanide -- hm! And it was very interesting to me especially to witness the conversation about Apollo between Mycroft and MASON, the depths of Cornel's unrequited love, and Mycroft telling him about Bridger's ability to turn him into Apollo for good (though I note that when he is talking about bringing Apollo back to the reader or to Bridger, he just refers to the statue being animated, not that. Which, Bridger would not take to the idea of killing Mycroft to bring back Apollo, but he's got no reason to pretend one vs the other to the reader? that I can see anyway...)
And some random Apollo-related thoughts: So what's the deal with Bridger and Apollo, actually? Bridger resembles him, Mycroft occasionally mistakes him for Apollo -- is he actually a clone? A humanoid U-beast (which are supposed to be banned)? When I was going over my highlighted quotes, I noticed that Apollo had chosen to stay and fight/die with Seine because, as he said to his bar buddies, "I'd go mad living on, knowing I left Seine to go through this alone" -- and "I'm going to go crazy" is what Bridger keeps repeating in the final through-the-door conversation with Mycroft before he also takes the action that's tantamount to suicide. Also, how does Saladin feel about Apollo? Is he jealous of the reverence Mycroft seems to feel for him? Does he share it?
Other things:
Thisbe's smelltrack witchcraft was both a really neat idea and very well done, both Mycroft's fear of her abilities that he doesn't really know how to express other than by branding her a witch and the scenes where she is using them. (And, NGL, I LOL'd when Croucher appeared to Papa's men and they thought the plastic soldier talking to them meant the gas masks weren't working. Speaking of, I totally did not see one of the soldiers betraying Major and the others, even after Croucher was off brooding by himself at the beginning.)
Mycroft refers to himself as "parricide" twice. Does that mean he and Saladin actually engineered the explosion that killed the rest of their bash? There's a line about how it was Providence that had Saladin end up presumed dead and Mycroft survive. I'm assuming that means baby murderers Mycroft and Saladin's explosion was either an accident from them playing with bombs or something ("parricide" doesn't require intent, I guess) or if it was intentional, ended up less controlled than they had expected? Or I guess the third possibility is that they were trying to blow up everyone including themselves, but I don't really see that?
I guessed back in book 1 that the Anonymous of the time would be Vivien Ancelet, the Censor. Partly because it made sense for them to be someone whom Mycroft already knew in some other capacity, but what sealed it for me was the scene at Madame's with Anonymous and Bryar Kosala all over each other, with Mycroft gleefully emphasizing they were wearing their wedding rings during this scanadlous affair because that was part of the spice. I was happy to have this confirmed, as Vivien had been one of my secondary favorites from book 1. But now I'm confused/intrigued: Mycroft made this whole production of not revealing the identity of the seventh Anonymous before he was unmasked in the story, even though it's a matter of public record at the point from which Mycroft is writing. But then he goes and includes in the narrative that Papa tells Mycroft that he's been named the next Anonymous. Does the fact that he reveals it means that didn't actually go through? That he's been succeeded by someone in the three months between Papa telling him that and the "now" from which he is writing? That the record is sealed until after Mycroft's death? (there is that line where he says "Has it occurred to you, reader, that these are the words of a dead man? All books will be someday," after all...) (Come to think of it, what happens if an Anonymous dies without anyone having ever figured out who they were? What happens to the succession then?) Or does he just step down? He says early on, "I could have been the next Anonymous, the second most powerful political voice on Earth. But I gave that up to teach you, gentle reader, what violence the human beast can sow when we are free." -- meaning, back when he was 17? Or/also later?
One thing I'd wondered about in book 1 was why there were so few women in power in this presumably post-gender society. It was interesting to her here that (if Dominic is to be believed, which is debatable), the reason is that Madame has been pulling this strings with her 18th C gendered bullshit, and society has actually regressed in this regard ("fifty years ago half the Hives had female heads") -- which of course could not be monitored or talked about because gender is no longer a thing. I like this closure of what seemed to be a worldbuilding hole in book 1.
So Papa warns in the Sniper chapter there is "Strong evidence that substatial parts of this document are an alteration or forgery" -- by Mycroft? or just that it was written by a Sniper doll or?
Speaking of Mycroft the unreliable narrator and/or filter. "Presumptive madness"? Is that, like, a new thing? What the general public thinks of him because of the murders 17 years ago? (the latter doesn't seem to be the case from anyone who interacts with him, so I'm guessing it's not that...)
So, our time is referred to as the Exponential Age, counted from the Black Plague to the World Wars -- which means our half of the 20th century and 21st doesn't even rate being included in it explicitly, which I thought was a nice touch. I guess we're sort of the shoals of Terra Ignota that way...
Oh, and I don't think I commented on this last time, but I like the way German is represented in speech, with capitalized nouns. And Jehovah's mingled speech, indicated with all the different quotes and punctuation marks at once was also fairly neat, although does not sound like any real code-mixing I've ever heard, although admittedly I don't know any childhood heptalinguals who think they are gods.
Also, one thing not related specifically to this book, but something that came up in conversation with
sunlit_stone and I wanted to mention here to make it easier to find later: We were talking about sensayers as a great worldbuilding invention, and it occurred to me: Come to think of it, you know, "religion is opium for the masses" and here's religion being treated pretty much like a substance that is beneficial in certain controlled circumstances but dangerous when allowed to run unchecked -- so it's tightly controlled and accessible only through a trained and licensed professional.
And I'm still loving the writing in a lot of ways, so here are a lot of Quotes:
"It’s an important question, fundamental really-can we choose actions that purely make the world worse without any perverse perceived benefit?-but we couldn’t discover whether the true Human Beast could exist back when the Beast was like a craftsman in an age of mass production, negligible beside the infinitely greater evils"
Sniper: "so I tasted at last that easy affection which only dolls and dildos had enjoyed before."
"that signature determined darkness of mourning someone whose death you chose, and would choose again."
“The Masons and the Cousins agree too often. Between them they have 48 percent of the population.”
“Masons and Cousins never agree, they’re polar opposites.” “Exactly, they propose opposite plans, then compromise, and reduce any debate to reconciling their two proposals and ignoring everybody else’s.”
On Ganymede: "His Grace is an exile in time, and it is madness to him that his subjects are his by vote, and not by birth or conquest."
"How confident the Cousin was that, in this golden age of peace and ever-watching trackers, a virgin with a bag of gold could walk across the Earth without danger. Our modern moths have bounced so many times off lightbulbs, they aren’t prepared for torches, and forget that wings can burn."
On Dominic: "his pet beasts squabbled, competing to lick the meat-sweet monthly drippings from his cunt."
"an electronic text ceases to be quite real the instant it leaves the reader’s lenses, easy to forget. Paper, with its must and bookmarks, lingers in the corner of the eye, refusing to be unread."
Utopians annoyed: “You wasted human effort, slowed our progress, aided entropy.”
'“You want to rescue Mycroft?” the Major repeated in a flat, tired tone, neither approving nor criticizing, just listing one more fact in a world which has too many facts in it.'
"Curiosity is a dangerous thing for a dead man; it tempts one to want to live."
"It is the late Nineteenth-Century mind that fascinates, these scientists who were simultaneously so rigorous and so poetic, so critical and so credulous, so expert and so wrong."
"Kat Typer I know is fascinated by the pseudoscientific spiritualism of the Nineteenth Century: [page worth of expanation of the fascination of Nineteenth Century spiritualism] Robin Typer likes bikes."
Bridger, to Mycroft: "I’m leaving with you, or with a good reason you can’t come, or not at all.”
"a flock of scientists wondering what fool had shattered the walls of objectivity with that most dangerous of missiles: an opinion."
"Julia gave … patronizing isn’t the right word, a matronizing smile."
Julia: "It takes a lot of strength to betray your teacher. I’m so proud of you.”
Carlyle: “I did have a pretty good teacher to betray. [...] That didn’t come out right, did it? [...]I mean that you were a good teacher, Julia, you showed me how to do something with my life, and how much the world needs help. And separately you really do deserve to be betrayed.”
Felix Faust: “Don’t give Madame all the credit. Some of us cultivated excellent perversions on our own.”
On Jehovah: "He is offended enough by the time it takes to move from one location to another, and cannot stand to lengthen the delay."
And more of Jehovah being his charming Alien self:
“Your flesh will drain your strength less if you sit.”
"Each person, I learned, could only perceive words made in their presence, and no new words could be made, only the same repeated that I heard from them, like atoms, diverse only when they recombine."
“We must stop this conversation now,” “Why?” “We are increasing the cumulative total of human pain."
“What will you do now, Fili?”
“He doesn’t know. While He was in His universe He remembered His whole life, before and after His first death, but here He remembers only the past.”
His father frowned. “I meant, what do you intend to do?”
Perry to Danae: “You’re angry because I slept with your brother? Your husband sleeps with your brother. Everyone sleeps with your brother. That’s what your brother’s for!”
Thisbe to Papa: “Jealous? Mycroft loves you too, you know. More than they love me, I think. Except when I make them love me more.” and
“This is all very fascinating,” she began anew, “but significantly less important than a child with the powers of a god.” “That’s your opinion,” Papa snapped.
"Senate Guard in Romanovan gold, white, and blue stood pale with awareness that they were no longer ceremonial."
MASON threatening that perpetrators will be "prosecuted for your assaults with the full strictness of Cousin’s law, and the harshness of my own."
"This world is a utopia, not perfect, not finished, but still a utopia compared to every other era humanity has seen."
Felix to Jehovah: “You’re eight Years old and you can understand the secret Dynamics between the Hives, but not the Rules of Tag, or Grammar.
"Of course [the Cousins Hive is] teetering [when gender is banned]! The Masons would teeter if we banned the word ‘Empire’ and Gordian if we banned the word ‘psyche.’"
"And thanks to Madame’s training, Dominic believes a man may only love something weaker than themself."
"The engineers always said it [surviving a ride on the outside of a flying car] was impossible, but now they have a dozen explanations, something about a wind pocket in the inner angle, or back drafts, or something.»
Oh, miraculous chameleon, Science, who can reverse your doctrine hourly and never shake our faith!"
"deputies substitute for omnipresence, laws for Justice, welfare for Divine Love, the long reach of the military for the angel with the flaming sword. I had not until this moment imagined that Jehovah would consent to being Master of the world, but a lost God, stripped of His native omnipotence like an amputee of his rightful limbs, might take every prosthesis offered Him."
"I felt my own tears changing, hope diluting grief."
I actually have The Will to Battle checked out and even read the first couple of pages, but am honestly trying to stay away before this universe pulls me under for another week... I need to be able to think of some other things besides this series!
*
So we saw Infinity War, finally! Pretty packed theater for this long after the release, though the fact that it was a 6:30 showing probably helped there. Anyway, we all enjoyed it (O was watching for the second time, but it was the first for the rest of us), and definitely glad we saw it in theaters, because the special effects were pretty cool.
We got a really nice crop of trailers -- Fantastic Beasts 2 (kelp serpent thing! Jacob and Queenie back in action! Dumbledore!), The Incredibles 2 (which looks so fun! except almost everyone sounds a little different even though most of the voice cast is reprising their roles -- I guess that 15 year gap is showing...), Jurassic World (I mean... Chris Pratt and dinosaurs, we're going to watch it. And Blue better make it out alive!), and Solo (which... I'm not too excited about, but young Harrison Ford and that role are foundational to me, so I was always going to be a tough sell. That one will keep for Redbox for sure). We also got Facebooks "sorry we fucked up but we're better now!" commercial, which was rather weird.
OK, on to the movie itself:
Other people have remarked that the movie feels surprisingly coherent and not-too-confusing while giving so many characters a fair bit of screentime and good character moments -- I definitely agree. There were both funny and poignant moments for almost everybody, and I also thought it managed to balance the funny tone the Guardians bring with them with the seriousness of people dying and suffering loss and grief and all that. I also thought it managed pretty well to keep reminding us how splintered the Avengers have been lately -- Bruce having been gone for a while and having missed the whole Ant-Man and Spider-Man thing, Thor not being sure anymore who's on the team. With so many characters, I think my favorites in this one specifically were Spider-Man, Drax and Mantis, and also Thor (entirely to my surprise; I guess I like him after Thor 3? XP). Oh, and the Cloak of Levitation, which continues to be team MVP XP (And speaking of useful apparel, I also like Spider-Man's spider legs, and Tony's nanotech suit features.) But there were moments with almost everyone that I enjoyed, except maybe Natasha and (sadly) Bruce, who hasn't worked terribly well for me after the first Avengers/his cameo in IM3. OK, on to SPOILERS!
I was glad to see Rhodey recovering... Wish Falcon had gotten more to do. Not a fan of either Steve with the longer hair and beard (one good line, though, "I am Steve Rogers" in response to "I am Groot") or Natasha's white-blonde hair color on this one. Actually, I think the only moment I really liked involving Team Cap was when Bucky grabbed Rocket and spun around with a gun in one hand and Rocket, shooting, in the other, and their subsequent exchange ("How much for the gun? Well, how much for the arm?").
So, the deaths. I thought the real deaths were all well done, from Loki, scheming and playing up his untrustworthy nature (for whatever ends), to Gamora, first the scene with Peter where he finally gathers the will to follow through on his promise and bubbles come out of his gun, then the scene with Thanos on the soulstone planet, and the Vision death scene was my favorite, I think, even though I never actually liked Vision or Wanda that much. I thought they were pretty awkward together here, not to mention it was a strange pairing to begin with, but the scene where she destroys the stone to keep it out of Thanos's hands was really great. Even though I guessed that Thanos would just use the time stone at that point -- which was very nicely set up with "This is not time to mourn. It is no time at all." All that said, I could see any/all of the three coming back. I don't know how Loki could've survived that, but come on, it's Loki, he's done this, what, three times now? It's kind of what he does. Gamora -- I wonder if she's, like, trapped in the soulstone in some fashion, since hers was a magical sort of death. And Vision -- he can just be, like, rebuilt, can't he? I mean, Shuri spent all that time mapping his neurons or whatever -- it's got to have SOME payoff, right? The dissolve-into-mist deaths/disappearances I definitely expect to be reversed. Also, I went in pretty much expecting Tony to die -- sad as it is, RDJ seems pretty done with the role -- and so was rather surprised when he was one of the few left standing, like, the only one left on Titan. But I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a for-real heroic death at the end of Avengers 4, though.
MCU has always been pretty weak on villains, and Thanos didn't make much of an impact on me when he showed up before, but OK, he is a pretty good villain. I do like that he is basically an idealist who seems to genuinely believe he is doing good on a universal scale, at considerable personal sacrifice, and the gravitas and sadness he brings to the role. I guess if we have to stretch a Big Bad across a two-parter, this is as good as one can hope for. (Also, once he explained his "kill half the universe to solve overpopulation" philosophy, I leaned over to L and whispered "Malthus", which she had to agree with. Look, there's even a quiz XP)
And, OK, so, Strange giving the Eye to Thanos was a ploy, presumably? Since he made a point of telling Tony and Peter that he would prioritize saving the stone over saving them, in a scene that felt fairly shoehorned in. And then saving Tony's life didn't make much sense either. So the one out of fourteen million whatever futures that he saw where they won started with Thanos getting the Eye.
Some favorite moments/things in bullet points:
- Loki's "We have a Hulk" was a really nice callback to the first movie, showing how far he's come.
- One of my favorite lines was Tony's "Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards." and Tony and Strange snarking at each other. (What is going on with Bruce, though, and the Hulk sulking? That was weird. The brief Science Bros moment was nice, though.)
- Drax and "How long have you been standing there?" "An hour." was a really fun Drax scene (I like Drax a lot, OK?)
- Peter Quill feeling insecure around Thor while Drax waxed poetic about him and Gamora petted his muscles was very funny. And I liked that Thor just kept calling Rocket a rabbit, and he just kind of rolled with it after a while.
- Quill saying he thinks of himself as "more of a titan-killing long-term booty call" when Thanos refers to him as "the boyfriend"
- Thor holding open the forge thing, letting the power of a star burn around him, was pretty epic, and then Groot looking up from the video game long enough to give the axe a handle, and Thor's CMOA in Wakanda were all pretty great.
- Peter Parker, on Strange introducing himself as Doctor Strange: "Oh, are we using our made-up names? Then I'm Spider-Man." (Hm, so at this point we have two Peters and two Stev/phens, although one of them goes by Steve, and I guess also two Jameses, though neither of them actually uses his first name.)
- My favorite sequence was the Team Red (Strange, Iron Man, Spider-Man) vs the Guardians on Titan ("I'll do you one better, why is Gamora?"). And Mantis's "We kick names and take ass" as she sort of twirls around was probably my favorite moment of the entire film.
- So we're just gonna ignore Bruce/Natasha from now on, right? Excellent call.
- When Wanda leaves Vision's side and joins the rest of the people fighting for Wakanda on the field and Okoye (I think?) asks, "Why was she up there all this time?" or something like that -- she voiced exactly what I'd been thinking.
- The after-credits scene with Fury going "motherf--" as he disintegrated was nicely done!
- Stan Lee cameo as the bus driver was very nice! (BTW, at some point in the movie, L started calling the annulus-shaped spaceships "hamsterwheels of death", which -- yeah XD)
- And not an intended fun thing, but Vormir (name of one of the planets) means "to vomit" in French, which both L and B giggled about
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1080454.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).
39. Jonathan Kellerman, Night Moves -- This book was a more fun read than the previous one, although it did feel rushed to print -- I caught several typos and some non sequiturs that I think were editing lapses. Anyway, despite all that, I really enjoyed this mystery -- there's a lot going on, but the pacing worked for me well, and I appreciated both the red herrings and the actual reveal of the whodunit. Spoilers from here! I also liked the fact that not all the victims and innocent bystanders were nice people (e.g. Felicia, Trevor, the lazy cop who ended up murdered), and that we got to meet the murderer early on, but there was a lot of doubt about how everything was connec who was calling the shots until the very end. And there's both an actual confrontation with the mastermind (unlike in the previous book) and some form of closure (for Cory) and possibility of some hope for the future, although not untainted (for Chelsea and Trevor, though he is likely to die soon; for Cory). We got to meet some interesting characters -- Trevor the artist, Felicia, the retired cop neighbor.) It just felt like a much more solid book, more in the classic Kellerman vein. Also, I probably would've long forgotten about her if I hadn't read the two books back to back, but I was sad to learn that in the aftermath of the shooting at the end of the last book, the rookie who'd shot the suspect quit the force, even though the shooting was ruled justified.
40. Ursula Vernon, The Frozen Menace (Dragonbreath #11) -- I think this is meant to be the last book in the series, judging by the ending? It wasn't as funny as some of the earlier books -- I do feel like the premise is wearing a bit thin after all this time, at least for an adult reader. But I still enjoyed hanging out with Danny and especially Wendell and Christiana, and seeing Danny's great-granddad again. The phoenix chick and the giant ice worms were not as fun as some critters from earlier books (especially the potato salad), and not as cute as the rodents, but it was still a fun adventure and had a couple of lines that made me chuckle or at least smile:
'"I don't believe in magic," said Christiana scowling.
"Very sensible," said Great-Grandfather Dragonbreath. "Believing in it only encourages it."'
and
Wendell: "Will we have to stay here forever? What will we eat?"
Christiana: "Each other. All good Arctic expeditions eventually devolve into cannibalism."
Danny: "We'll eat Wendell. His mom feeds him health food all day. He's gotta be, like, super-healthy."
Also, looks like we have skipped book 10 (Knight-Napped), which I do want to catch up on.
42. Ursula Vernon, Hamster Princess: Harriet the Invincible -- I mean, it's
ursulav, hamsters, and fairy tale subversion -- there is basically no universe in which I would not eventually read and enjoy this; really, the only surprise is that it took me so long to get around to these books (the series is up to five books now, with book 6 due out in September). It looks like all the books are subversions of individual fairy tales (Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, Rapunzel, Twelve Dancing Princesses, Little Red Riding hood for the forthcoming #6), and this first one is a subversion of Sleeping Beauty (Harriet is cursed to prick her finger on a hamster wheel, because of course XD). My favorite part of this story specifically came in at the end, spoilers! with Prince Wilbur the slightly useless but trying hard, who made friends with the hydra guarding him on the glass mountain and named it Heady, and whose contribution to the fight with the wicked rat fairy was tossing Harriet her sword using his paperboy skills. XD The art is adorable, the whimsy is very Vernon (Mumfrey the riding quail, Harriet's faithful steed! hunting newts!), and the characters too -- Harriet is fun but flawed (she kind of *is* a bit of a thug XP but in her defense, she likes fractions), parents are well-meaning but more quirky than useful. And the cover is pink and purple and silver glitter all over XD I feel like if my elementary school self had the skills to write a book or any art skills whatsoever (and a lot more self-awareness, OK), this is exactly the book I would have written at that age. It is still very much a book I enjoyed reading at 40, and L at 17. As L put it after just a couple of pages, "Harriet is a badass."
41. Ada Palmer, Seven Surrenders (Terra Ignota 2) -- when my hold on this came in (in a format where I could highlight stuff to my heart's content and easily go back and forth), I dropped three SFF books I was in the middle of which I was enjoying and read this one pretty much straight through, with brief interruptions for Kellerman and kidlit to let my brain rest a bit from this universe. For the last couple of chapters, I hid in the bathroom for an hour to finish reading. And oh man, I just continue to be so impressed with the density and scope and ambition of this work, the layers of worldbuilding and the willingness to take this painstakingly constructed edifice and just kick everything over. MASSIVE SPOILERS from here!
The first thing that comes to mind about this book is just how TALKY it is. I don't mean that as a bad thing, actually -- this did not detract from its excitement or tension for me at all, but, like, if you consider objectively, I think there's only two actual "action" scenes in the whole thing (Jehovah's assassination and resurrection and Mycroft's fight with the Sniper doll, and the action parts are both over super quickly -- Jehovah dead in seconds, the Sniper doll de-animated as soon as Mycroft yells for help), and everything else is characters delivering speeches, characters having debates or conversations or arguments or letting each other in on secrets, or flashbacks to things happening in the past, or references to things that have happened offscreen while dealing with their aftermath. (I think book 1 was like this a lot, too, but I do feel like there were more things actually happening real-time... but maybe I was just overwhelmed trying to figure out the world and not paying as much attention. But I did feel like Mycroft being attacked had some real-time action, and there were the standoffs between the Servicers (plus Carlyle) and the would-be attackers, and Saladin finding Bridger. Anyway. So much talking, but the talking scenes were as fraught with action and suspense as anything more cinematic -- I was very impressed with how well this was done, partly through the impact of what was being discussed, partly through the speeches themselves, and partly through Mycroft's framing narration ratcheting up the tension -- I noticed this the most in the scene where Dominic and Carlyle meet, which is framed as a build up to rape, basically, and does end up being a kind of psychological rape, considering the taboos that Carlyle grew up with, religious rather than sexual violation. The other thing about the talkiness is that ideally I would not only try to stay afloat in the sea of expressed philosophy and worldbuilding and plot, but also keep track of who is telling things to whom, and whether they are likely to be lying (Yes), and who else among the characters knows or doesn't know about this.
I might as well talk about the gender stuff at this point. It didn't do much for me in the first book. I think it might be paying off more for me here, although I'm still not sure what exactly it's doing for me. There's two notable things that happen with gender here (or at least two things that I noticed) -- the pronoun switch for Carlyle and for Sniper. The Carlyle one just never stopped being jarring to me -- Carlyle was always 'he' in the back of my mind, so even after Mycroft went on his thing about how clearly Carlyle is a delicate innocent stumbling into Dominic's dark den and therefore, biology be damned, Carlyle should be referred to as "she", I kept thinking of them by the old pronoun, and doing a double-take every time I encountered "she" -- kind of like with the Radch books, actually, so at least the gender tricks were doing something. Sniper... I can absolutely see why so many readers were hurt and pissed off by the choice of "it" for Sniper, although I agree with those defenders who say that in-universe that's got more to do with their "living doll" aspirations than with the fact that (however they got there) Sniper is intersex. And I think on the writing level, "it" worked to help conflate the actual Sniper with the Sniper dolls brought to life by Bridger -- some narrative sleight of hand from Mycroft to keep the reader guessing (which sounds like a very Mycroft thing to do). But, man, the pronoun never stopped being incredibly jarring to me when I encountered it -- and I suspect that's actually part of the authorial intent? In the sense that I do think to the actual modern reader, "it" is almost inevitably jarring when used for a person (it trips me up when reading about Bel in Vorkosiverse ALL the time), so it's much closer to the effect of "he" and "she" on Mycroft's contemporaries than the "thee" stuff, which just feels quaint and dated. So I'm guessing "it" is there to give a flavor of the transgressive nature of Mycroft and Madame's pronoun use. Buuut. Narrative sleight of hand, in-character for Mycroft, transgressive flavor for the modern reader -- I'm not sure all of those outweigh the potential of this choice to hurt real readers, so I don't know that it was actually a GOOD choice, even if I con't believe it was an intentionally hurtful one. I do think it's interesting that, as this comment points out, the shift in pronouns for Sniper comes after we get a chapter from Sniper's own narration, and they tell us explicitly not to trust Mycroft's pronouns. But still, I dunno. It didn't bother me -- or, rather, it bothered me just enough to be jarred by each use but not enough to get mad at the narrative, but it's still a rather uncomfortable authorial choice (by Palmer, I mean, not Mycroft).
And two other gender things real quick: I noticed in this book that some characters just don't get gendered pronouns very often. Like, Apollo, for instance -- at some point, I wasn't even sure if they'd ever been described as "he" (or if I was just defaulting to that mentally because of the name), and kept watching for it and watching, and I think it comes up, like, twice or maybe three times in the entire second half of the book. Which could be because Mycroft doesn't talk about Apollo too much unless he has to, and when he does talk, it's mostly to people like MASON, who probably wouldn't put up with his gendered pronoun bullshit. But I'm really curious now, and am wondering if anyone's gone through and, like, counted this up. Because Apollo shows up by name a lot, and euphemistically, but pronouns are pretty rare. And I also noticed that pronouns used for Utopians somehow always caught me by surprise -- I think maybe the pronouns intentionally come in later than with other characters? The second thing is, I'm increasingly convinced Dominic counts as a genuine trans character, rather than just someone who happens to be biologically female and gendered male by Mycroft.
As well as the gender stuff, J.E.D.D. Mason was another thing I was unsold on in TLtL. At this point I'm... still not very interested in him, honestly (in fact, when it looked like he was going to exit the narrative, I found myself quite happy about that, and a little disappointed that it wasn't permanent (though, duh, he is the Son of Man or something, of course he gets a resurrection *sigh*). But I do like him better thematically knowing that he is basically the result(/victim) of a crazy experiment. I still don't find him interesting, although 'ambition' motivated by the perception of the loss of omnipotence -- all that stuff about the powers of government as "prosthetic gods" was pretty interesting, at least. The scene of child Jehovah "changing" Mycroft was quite different than I'd imagined, and somewhat anticlimactic, although it makes sense. And it's a fairly neat trick, the way Jehovah's resurrection, which proves to him that "his universe" persisted even while he was dead, removes Jehovah's personal issues with killing, and maybe Mycroft's as well? Although I also appreciated that Bridger introduces some doubt there at the end as to whether it's Jehovah that's really responsible for Mycroft's transformation or himself (which, as Mycroft's reader aside posited, I'd wondered about myself).
And speaking of Bridger -- ouch. This was not a twist I had foreseen, although in retrospect, Bridger's ~death is pretty clearly implied in the epigraph, when taken along with the "he is the lightning" passage from the first book. This part worked for me really well: We'd spent enough time with Bridger that I felt for him as a character, as a child, and also believed in Mycroft's love for him ("not as others before me have loved a son, a brother, a savior, a master, but whom I-strange creature that I am-love in all these ways at once, all rolled together into a new kind of love, abject and irrevocable, that has as yet no name."), so his death really hurt. And yet, it was also believable/in character, and also narratively inevitable, I guess, since once can't really have a high-stakes war with an omnipotent character around. I'm a bit iffier about the whole Major/Achilles thing. Partly I'm torn because I'd really liked Major and (as a Hector fangirl for 35 years) can't stand the mythological Achilles. But it's an interesting trick to have a veteran of all the wars, including the future one from Apollo's Pacific Rim book, and seems generally within the envelope of Bridger's poorly understood, semi-unconscious powers. And now I kind of want to reread both books to see if I can notice the Aimer/Patroclus thing. Apparently my slash goggles don't extend to plastic soldiers. Anyway, poor Bridger :(
OK, then there's plot. Which is ridiculously contrived, with the secrets and agendas and double-crosses and Perry's Monte Cristo game and secret identity and layers of obscured parentage... but, like, intentionally so? It makes sense for it to be ridiculously baroque when it's all Madame's doing. Well, "makes sense" as long as you accept the central premise of Madame's that gendered sex is a superweapon, which I do not, but am willing to posit for the duration of these books because it makes for an intriguing thought experiment. I don't have a lot to say about the individual things from Madame's -- the whole Perry-Danae-Ganymede-Ando thing and Carlyle's Gag-gene parentage and Perry's revenge-driven scheme to topple the Humanists and Mitsubishi. (As a side note, so Danae and Ganymede are actual clones (except for a Y chromosome change) rather than just twins? Huh.) But the soap opera-ness of all this aside... Actually, I don't know how to finish that sentence. It's soap oper-y and over the top, but I don't actively mind this, even though I don't actively enjoy it either.
A lot more interesting to me was all the stuff about the motivations on the political arena -- people willing to bring about a "sacrificial" war, or what people are prepared to do to stop a war, what is worth fighting and killing and dying for. I really liked that there was such a wide range of motivations and conclusions here, from Madame who is basically seizing power for the lulz (originally, anyway; maybe she's honest about now wanting to hand Jehovah the world as the nearest she can get him to omnipotence), to Perry climbing the ranks so he can topple the whole thinkfor petty revenge, to the Mardis debating a smaller war as a sort of "controlled burn", to Apollo, who either needs a 'practice' war to give Utopia a chance at surviving the big one for Mars, or to ensure Earth is not so much a utopia that even the Utopians decide the exploration of Mars isn't worth it, to Mycroft trying to create instead a miniature war with himself as the enemy, to the O.S. and their belief in controlled killing for the greater good (up to and including parricide), Sniper being willing to lead a revolution to preserve the Hives and the Terra Ignota way of life. It's a nice range of motivations and ideals, and while I don't agree with any of them (I don't think), I like the variety. (Of all of them, I find myself most sympathetic to the Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' and Sniper, though I wouldn't want to be in their position myself / wouldn't make the same calls if I was. Which is why I'm not a Humanist. :P) And same for various bystanders' reactions to the crises and what they thing should be done, from Brody de Lupe to Bryar Kosala to the King of Spain.
Actually, speaking of Hives I'm not: you may recall I had been waffling between self-sorting Utopian and Gordian after book 1. Well, I'm pretty sure at this point that Gordian is the better fit. For one thing, their position as "outlier but not TOO far out" appeals to me more than Utopia's future-focused self exile. For another, the potential future of the Brillists and their mind-mapping experiments is actually more interesting and palatable to me personally than terraformed Mars. For another, this philosophy of abdicating the present to others so that one can lay claim to the future is definitely not for me, and neither is Apollo's philosophy of killing complacency to enable progress -- I'm way too fond of complacency to make a good Utopian, clearly. And the Infinite To Do List that apparently lives in most Utopians' vizors is something I would really hate. And, as I mentioned even after the first book, the voker thing is definitely a strike against Utopia for me as well. 20 hours a week sounds perfect for a job, actually, and the rest for random noodling. I still wish I could have a U-beast, though. Swissnakes, Techupines, Pterascanadons, Fiberoptifoxes -- I want them all! :D
I did appreciate the additional insight into Utopians (like their burial practices being turned into future Martian soil, which Apollo cannot be part of because his remains were too contaminated), and the other Hives. Especially interesting was the explanation/claim that the Humanists were inevitably the ones to come up with the O.S. scheme, because they are the only ones who think of history in terms of the impact of individuals ("Mitsubishi would target corporations, Masons governments, Europe nation-strats, me bash’es, the Anonymous ideas"). And this fun bit: "Cousins will cheer politely, Europeans debate, Humanists cheer or heckle, but the expressionless Brillists just took notes in a dozen silent formats, or whispered technical terms in breath-soft German, as if safely separated from this fascinating subject by a mirrored wall."
I have not talked about characters yet, and I should, because for all that these books are incredibly stylized, I do actually get attached to the characters, I find (well, some characters), in a way that I tend not to in other "high concept" stuff. I feel like there was less Mycroft in this narrative than in book 1, both as actor and as active narrator (e.g. fewer reader asides, less talk about himself) and oddly enough, I missed him. Also, god help me, I continue to like Saladin and, like. Actively ship him with Mycroft. /o\ I mean, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for axe murderers in love couples, but they are just so... murderously cute together?? Like, Mycroft waxing all poetic about his Saladin-installed and co-designed pacemaker (which was a really clever way to fool the tracker system!) and Mycroft warning Papa and the Utopian doctors to "make sure there are no records of who performed the surgery" ("Saladin still territorial?"). Or reminiscing about sharing a last kiss before going into their two-on-two battle against Apollo and Seine, or Mycroft sucker-punching Saladin to keep him around Jehovah and kissing him in apology, or the night the two of them and Bridger spend in the cell together -- it's all weirdly cute, considering what Saladin and Mycroft's bonding consisted of, from playful cannibalism to gruesome torture and murder. I mean, it's not that I think Mycroft and his "scary friend" are OK people, but they just seem to really belong to each other, and it's oddly sweet. In a murderous way. (I even like the way other people around Mycroft basically immediately grasp what Saladin means to Mycroft, how to manipulate Mycroft by threatening him, etc.) Moving on!
I continued to like Papa, and was very amused that once Thisbe handed him the key to the puzzle of Mycroft being in two places at once with the dog thing, that took immediate priority over absolutely everything, and Thisbe's outrage at this ("You’re not good at being a cop, you’re just good at stalking Mycroft.”) And I already quite liked Ockham in book 1, but his behavior with Ganymede, Perry, and Ando, his leadership of the bash', and especially the scene where he's submitting to his arrest made me like him even more here. I also continue to feel for Cato, and really liked the way the "is it hot here?" scene unfolded, where at first it seems like he's just babbling under stress, and then it turns out that he actually caught the intruder -- Cato is this really intriguing mixture of frailty and competence, which I find interesting. And it makes Lesley more interesting knowing that she knew her parents had been killed for the greater good and still embraced the ideals of the O.S. And Sniper through their own eyes was both sympathetic and fun; I was particularly touched by the detail that they have one of their back teeth notched so as to be able to tell themselves apart from a doll version come to life; you know, proactively. Basically the whole Saneer-Weeksbooth bash' is really fun, though I would've liked to have seen more of the set-sets in this one, and the twins remain rather an enigma still. Oh, and I continue to be intrigued by and feel incredibly sorry for Ganymede. (Hmm. I was trying to think why I find Ganymede so much more sympathetic than Danae, and I'm guessing the majority of that is maybe Mycroft's narration of things. I feel like any character Mycroft consistently uses "she" for is portrayed at best neutrally and mostly negatively. He's got some issues, hasn't he... I mean, of that specific kind. Obviously he's got general issues galore.) Oh, and as for new characters, I liked Mushi Mojave and his ant obsession and his alien poems written by the motion of ants (although ICK to having them living in his vizor *shudder*).
I'd been hoping this book would provide more information/insight on the mysterious Apollo Mojave figure, and it sure did that. My favorite thing learned, I think, is that Apollo was a crap writer (although Mycroft's explanation of his Iliad Pacific Rim AU makes a lot of sense XP) I did like the weirdly humanizing moment we get from MASON's story, about Apollo going to tell his bar buddies that he didn't want to die before going to face Mycroft. It's interesting that future-focused "Prince of Utopians" Apollo was, after all, willing to risk sacrificing his war/the future he was looking to save with it so that Seine wouldn't have to face torture and death alone. Did he really believe Mycroft would finish the job for him? Or agreed with Mycroft's idea that this mini-war of two on seventeen could serve the needed purpose? Or what? And Mycroft's forensic-style report of Apollo's death, where he refused to answer the question he himself raises about whether Apollo had taken the placebo pill by chance or choice -- when a few chapters earlier he'd claimed Apollo had chosen to life those several hours more over a painless death by cyanide -- hm! And it was very interesting to me especially to witness the conversation about Apollo between Mycroft and MASON, the depths of Cornel's unrequited love, and Mycroft telling him about Bridger's ability to turn him into Apollo for good (though I note that when he is talking about bringing Apollo back to the reader or to Bridger, he just refers to the statue being animated, not that. Which, Bridger would not take to the idea of killing Mycroft to bring back Apollo, but he's got no reason to pretend one vs the other to the reader? that I can see anyway...)
And some random Apollo-related thoughts: So what's the deal with Bridger and Apollo, actually? Bridger resembles him, Mycroft occasionally mistakes him for Apollo -- is he actually a clone? A humanoid U-beast (which are supposed to be banned)? When I was going over my highlighted quotes, I noticed that Apollo had chosen to stay and fight/die with Seine because, as he said to his bar buddies, "I'd go mad living on, knowing I left Seine to go through this alone" -- and "I'm going to go crazy" is what Bridger keeps repeating in the final through-the-door conversation with Mycroft before he also takes the action that's tantamount to suicide. Also, how does Saladin feel about Apollo? Is he jealous of the reverence Mycroft seems to feel for him? Does he share it?
Other things:
Thisbe's smelltrack witchcraft was both a really neat idea and very well done, both Mycroft's fear of her abilities that he doesn't really know how to express other than by branding her a witch and the scenes where she is using them. (And, NGL, I LOL'd when Croucher appeared to Papa's men and they thought the plastic soldier talking to them meant the gas masks weren't working. Speaking of, I totally did not see one of the soldiers betraying Major and the others, even after Croucher was off brooding by himself at the beginning.)
Mycroft refers to himself as "parricide" twice. Does that mean he and Saladin actually engineered the explosion that killed the rest of their bash? There's a line about how it was Providence that had Saladin end up presumed dead and Mycroft survive. I'm assuming that means baby murderers Mycroft and Saladin's explosion was either an accident from them playing with bombs or something ("parricide" doesn't require intent, I guess) or if it was intentional, ended up less controlled than they had expected? Or I guess the third possibility is that they were trying to blow up everyone including themselves, but I don't really see that?
I guessed back in book 1 that the Anonymous of the time would be Vivien Ancelet, the Censor. Partly because it made sense for them to be someone whom Mycroft already knew in some other capacity, but what sealed it for me was the scene at Madame's with Anonymous and Bryar Kosala all over each other, with Mycroft gleefully emphasizing they were wearing their wedding rings during this scanadlous affair because that was part of the spice. I was happy to have this confirmed, as Vivien had been one of my secondary favorites from book 1. But now I'm confused/intrigued: Mycroft made this whole production of not revealing the identity of the seventh Anonymous before he was unmasked in the story, even though it's a matter of public record at the point from which Mycroft is writing. But then he goes and includes in the narrative that Papa tells Mycroft that he's been named the next Anonymous. Does the fact that he reveals it means that didn't actually go through? That he's been succeeded by someone in the three months between Papa telling him that and the "now" from which he is writing? That the record is sealed until after Mycroft's death? (there is that line where he says "Has it occurred to you, reader, that these are the words of a dead man? All books will be someday," after all...) (Come to think of it, what happens if an Anonymous dies without anyone having ever figured out who they were? What happens to the succession then?) Or does he just step down? He says early on, "I could have been the next Anonymous, the second most powerful political voice on Earth. But I gave that up to teach you, gentle reader, what violence the human beast can sow when we are free." -- meaning, back when he was 17? Or/also later?
One thing I'd wondered about in book 1 was why there were so few women in power in this presumably post-gender society. It was interesting to her here that (if Dominic is to be believed, which is debatable), the reason is that Madame has been pulling this strings with her 18th C gendered bullshit, and society has actually regressed in this regard ("fifty years ago half the Hives had female heads") -- which of course could not be monitored or talked about because gender is no longer a thing. I like this closure of what seemed to be a worldbuilding hole in book 1.
So Papa warns in the Sniper chapter there is "Strong evidence that substatial parts of this document are an alteration or forgery" -- by Mycroft? or just that it was written by a Sniper doll or?
Speaking of Mycroft the unreliable narrator and/or filter. "Presumptive madness"? Is that, like, a new thing? What the general public thinks of him because of the murders 17 years ago? (the latter doesn't seem to be the case from anyone who interacts with him, so I'm guessing it's not that...)
So, our time is referred to as the Exponential Age, counted from the Black Plague to the World Wars -- which means our half of the 20th century and 21st doesn't even rate being included in it explicitly, which I thought was a nice touch. I guess we're sort of the shoals of Terra Ignota that way...
Oh, and I don't think I commented on this last time, but I like the way German is represented in speech, with capitalized nouns. And Jehovah's mingled speech, indicated with all the different quotes and punctuation marks at once was also fairly neat, although does not sound like any real code-mixing I've ever heard, although admittedly I don't know any childhood heptalinguals who think they are gods.
Also, one thing not related specifically to this book, but something that came up in conversation with
sunlit_stone and I wanted to mention here to make it easier to find later: We were talking about sensayers as a great worldbuilding invention, and it occurred to me: Come to think of it, you know, "religion is opium for the masses" and here's religion being treated pretty much like a substance that is beneficial in certain controlled circumstances but dangerous when allowed to run unchecked -- so it's tightly controlled and accessible only through a trained and licensed professional.
And I'm still loving the writing in a lot of ways, so here are a lot of Quotes:
"It’s an important question, fundamental really-can we choose actions that purely make the world worse without any perverse perceived benefit?-but we couldn’t discover whether the true Human Beast could exist back when the Beast was like a craftsman in an age of mass production, negligible beside the infinitely greater evils"
Sniper: "so I tasted at last that easy affection which only dolls and dildos had enjoyed before."
"that signature determined darkness of mourning someone whose death you chose, and would choose again."
“The Masons and the Cousins agree too often. Between them they have 48 percent of the population.”
“Masons and Cousins never agree, they’re polar opposites.” “Exactly, they propose opposite plans, then compromise, and reduce any debate to reconciling their two proposals and ignoring everybody else’s.”
On Ganymede: "His Grace is an exile in time, and it is madness to him that his subjects are his by vote, and not by birth or conquest."
"How confident the Cousin was that, in this golden age of peace and ever-watching trackers, a virgin with a bag of gold could walk across the Earth without danger. Our modern moths have bounced so many times off lightbulbs, they aren’t prepared for torches, and forget that wings can burn."
On Dominic: "his pet beasts squabbled, competing to lick the meat-sweet monthly drippings from his cunt."
"an electronic text ceases to be quite real the instant it leaves the reader’s lenses, easy to forget. Paper, with its must and bookmarks, lingers in the corner of the eye, refusing to be unread."
Utopians annoyed: “You wasted human effort, slowed our progress, aided entropy.”
'“You want to rescue Mycroft?” the Major repeated in a flat, tired tone, neither approving nor criticizing, just listing one more fact in a world which has too many facts in it.'
"Curiosity is a dangerous thing for a dead man; it tempts one to want to live."
"It is the late Nineteenth-Century mind that fascinates, these scientists who were simultaneously so rigorous and so poetic, so critical and so credulous, so expert and so wrong."
"Kat Typer I know is fascinated by the pseudoscientific spiritualism of the Nineteenth Century: [page worth of expanation of the fascination of Nineteenth Century spiritualism] Robin Typer likes bikes."
Bridger, to Mycroft: "I’m leaving with you, or with a good reason you can’t come, or not at all.”
"a flock of scientists wondering what fool had shattered the walls of objectivity with that most dangerous of missiles: an opinion."
"Julia gave … patronizing isn’t the right word, a matronizing smile."
Julia: "It takes a lot of strength to betray your teacher. I’m so proud of you.”
Carlyle: “I did have a pretty good teacher to betray. [...] That didn’t come out right, did it? [...]I mean that you were a good teacher, Julia, you showed me how to do something with my life, and how much the world needs help. And separately you really do deserve to be betrayed.”
Felix Faust: “Don’t give Madame all the credit. Some of us cultivated excellent perversions on our own.”
On Jehovah: "He is offended enough by the time it takes to move from one location to another, and cannot stand to lengthen the delay."
And more of Jehovah being his charming Alien self:
“Your flesh will drain your strength less if you sit.”
"Each person, I learned, could only perceive words made in their presence, and no new words could be made, only the same repeated that I heard from them, like atoms, diverse only when they recombine."
“We must stop this conversation now,” “Why?” “We are increasing the cumulative total of human pain."
“What will you do now, Fili?”
“He doesn’t know. While He was in His universe He remembered His whole life, before and after His first death, but here He remembers only the past.”
His father frowned. “I meant, what do you intend to do?”
Perry to Danae: “You’re angry because I slept with your brother? Your husband sleeps with your brother. Everyone sleeps with your brother. That’s what your brother’s for!”
Thisbe to Papa: “Jealous? Mycroft loves you too, you know. More than they love me, I think. Except when I make them love me more.” and
“This is all very fascinating,” she began anew, “but significantly less important than a child with the powers of a god.” “That’s your opinion,” Papa snapped.
"Senate Guard in Romanovan gold, white, and blue stood pale with awareness that they were no longer ceremonial."
MASON threatening that perpetrators will be "prosecuted for your assaults with the full strictness of Cousin’s law, and the harshness of my own."
"This world is a utopia, not perfect, not finished, but still a utopia compared to every other era humanity has seen."
Felix to Jehovah: “You’re eight Years old and you can understand the secret Dynamics between the Hives, but not the Rules of Tag, or Grammar.
"Of course [the Cousins Hive is] teetering [when gender is banned]! The Masons would teeter if we banned the word ‘Empire’ and Gordian if we banned the word ‘psyche.’"
"And thanks to Madame’s training, Dominic believes a man may only love something weaker than themself."
"The engineers always said it [surviving a ride on the outside of a flying car] was impossible, but now they have a dozen explanations, something about a wind pocket in the inner angle, or back drafts, or something.»
Oh, miraculous chameleon, Science, who can reverse your doctrine hourly and never shake our faith!"
"deputies substitute for omnipresence, laws for Justice, welfare for Divine Love, the long reach of the military for the angel with the flaming sword. I had not until this moment imagined that Jehovah would consent to being Master of the world, but a lost God, stripped of His native omnipotence like an amputee of his rightful limbs, might take every prosthesis offered Him."
"I felt my own tears changing, hope diluting grief."
I actually have The Will to Battle checked out and even read the first couple of pages, but am honestly trying to stay away before this universe pulls me under for another week... I need to be able to think of some other things besides this series!
*
So we saw Infinity War, finally! Pretty packed theater for this long after the release, though the fact that it was a 6:30 showing probably helped there. Anyway, we all enjoyed it (O was watching for the second time, but it was the first for the rest of us), and definitely glad we saw it in theaters, because the special effects were pretty cool.
We got a really nice crop of trailers -- Fantastic Beasts 2 (kelp serpent thing! Jacob and Queenie back in action! Dumbledore!), The Incredibles 2 (which looks so fun! except almost everyone sounds a little different even though most of the voice cast is reprising their roles -- I guess that 15 year gap is showing...), Jurassic World (I mean... Chris Pratt and dinosaurs, we're going to watch it. And Blue better make it out alive!), and Solo (which... I'm not too excited about, but young Harrison Ford and that role are foundational to me, so I was always going to be a tough sell. That one will keep for Redbox for sure). We also got Facebooks "sorry we fucked up but we're better now!" commercial, which was rather weird.
OK, on to the movie itself:
Other people have remarked that the movie feels surprisingly coherent and not-too-confusing while giving so many characters a fair bit of screentime and good character moments -- I definitely agree. There were both funny and poignant moments for almost everybody, and I also thought it managed to balance the funny tone the Guardians bring with them with the seriousness of people dying and suffering loss and grief and all that. I also thought it managed pretty well to keep reminding us how splintered the Avengers have been lately -- Bruce having been gone for a while and having missed the whole Ant-Man and Spider-Man thing, Thor not being sure anymore who's on the team. With so many characters, I think my favorites in this one specifically were Spider-Man, Drax and Mantis, and also Thor (entirely to my surprise; I guess I like him after Thor 3? XP). Oh, and the Cloak of Levitation, which continues to be team MVP XP (And speaking of useful apparel, I also like Spider-Man's spider legs, and Tony's nanotech suit features.) But there were moments with almost everyone that I enjoyed, except maybe Natasha and (sadly) Bruce, who hasn't worked terribly well for me after the first Avengers/his cameo in IM3. OK, on to SPOILERS!
I was glad to see Rhodey recovering... Wish Falcon had gotten more to do. Not a fan of either Steve with the longer hair and beard (one good line, though, "I am Steve Rogers" in response to "I am Groot") or Natasha's white-blonde hair color on this one. Actually, I think the only moment I really liked involving Team Cap was when Bucky grabbed Rocket and spun around with a gun in one hand and Rocket, shooting, in the other, and their subsequent exchange ("How much for the gun? Well, how much for the arm?").
So, the deaths. I thought the real deaths were all well done, from Loki, scheming and playing up his untrustworthy nature (for whatever ends), to Gamora, first the scene with Peter where he finally gathers the will to follow through on his promise and bubbles come out of his gun, then the scene with Thanos on the soulstone planet, and the Vision death scene was my favorite, I think, even though I never actually liked Vision or Wanda that much. I thought they were pretty awkward together here, not to mention it was a strange pairing to begin with, but the scene where she destroys the stone to keep it out of Thanos's hands was really great. Even though I guessed that Thanos would just use the time stone at that point -- which was very nicely set up with "This is not time to mourn. It is no time at all." All that said, I could see any/all of the three coming back. I don't know how Loki could've survived that, but come on, it's Loki, he's done this, what, three times now? It's kind of what he does. Gamora -- I wonder if she's, like, trapped in the soulstone in some fashion, since hers was a magical sort of death. And Vision -- he can just be, like, rebuilt, can't he? I mean, Shuri spent all that time mapping his neurons or whatever -- it's got to have SOME payoff, right? The dissolve-into-mist deaths/disappearances I definitely expect to be reversed. Also, I went in pretty much expecting Tony to die -- sad as it is, RDJ seems pretty done with the role -- and so was rather surprised when he was one of the few left standing, like, the only one left on Titan. But I wouldn't be surprised if he gets a for-real heroic death at the end of Avengers 4, though.
MCU has always been pretty weak on villains, and Thanos didn't make much of an impact on me when he showed up before, but OK, he is a pretty good villain. I do like that he is basically an idealist who seems to genuinely believe he is doing good on a universal scale, at considerable personal sacrifice, and the gravitas and sadness he brings to the role. I guess if we have to stretch a Big Bad across a two-parter, this is as good as one can hope for. (Also, once he explained his "kill half the universe to solve overpopulation" philosophy, I leaned over to L and whispered "Malthus", which she had to agree with. Look, there's even a quiz XP)
And, OK, so, Strange giving the Eye to Thanos was a ploy, presumably? Since he made a point of telling Tony and Peter that he would prioritize saving the stone over saving them, in a scene that felt fairly shoehorned in. And then saving Tony's life didn't make much sense either. So the one out of fourteen million whatever futures that he saw where they won started with Thanos getting the Eye.
Some favorite moments/things in bullet points:
- Loki's "We have a Hulk" was a really nice callback to the first movie, showing how far he's come.
- One of my favorite lines was Tony's "Dude, you're embarrassing me in front of the wizards." and Tony and Strange snarking at each other. (What is going on with Bruce, though, and the Hulk sulking? That was weird. The brief Science Bros moment was nice, though.)
- Drax and "How long have you been standing there?" "An hour." was a really fun Drax scene (I like Drax a lot, OK?)
- Peter Quill feeling insecure around Thor while Drax waxed poetic about him and Gamora petted his muscles was very funny. And I liked that Thor just kept calling Rocket a rabbit, and he just kind of rolled with it after a while.
- Quill saying he thinks of himself as "more of a titan-killing long-term booty call" when Thanos refers to him as "the boyfriend"
- Thor holding open the forge thing, letting the power of a star burn around him, was pretty epic, and then Groot looking up from the video game long enough to give the axe a handle, and Thor's CMOA in Wakanda were all pretty great.
- Peter Parker, on Strange introducing himself as Doctor Strange: "Oh, are we using our made-up names? Then I'm Spider-Man." (Hm, so at this point we have two Peters and two Stev/phens, although one of them goes by Steve, and I guess also two Jameses, though neither of them actually uses his first name.)
- My favorite sequence was the Team Red (Strange, Iron Man, Spider-Man) vs the Guardians on Titan ("I'll do you one better, why is Gamora?"). And Mantis's "We kick names and take ass" as she sort of twirls around was probably my favorite moment of the entire film.
- So we're just gonna ignore Bruce/Natasha from now on, right? Excellent call.
- When Wanda leaves Vision's side and joins the rest of the people fighting for Wakanda on the field and Okoye (I think?) asks, "Why was she up there all this time?" or something like that -- she voiced exactly what I'd been thinking.
- The after-credits scene with Fury going "motherf--" as he disintegrated was nicely done!
- Stan Lee cameo as the bus driver was very nice! (BTW, at some point in the movie, L started calling the annulus-shaped spaceships "hamsterwheels of death", which -- yeah XD)
- And not an intended fun thing, but Vormir (name of one of the planets) means "to vomit" in French, which both L and B giggled about
This entry was originally posted at https://hamsterwoman.dreamwidth.org/1080454.html. Comment wherever you prefer (I prefer LJ).