(no subject)
prince of skulls by m.a.r. barker.
what is it about these tekumel books that spins my propeller? because i'm snoopy-&-red-baron all over the place when i get around to reading another one. in this one, some of the idealistic main characters? who in their books, slowly learned the value of moral compromise? are thrown together to be a bunch of hilarious geniuses. "oh, no, listen, i've traveled the ancient's tube ways to dead cities!" "an alien took me across dimensions!" "no, listen to ME! a time traveling wizard showed me his space ship!" & so forth. with lots of linguistic digressions along the way. these aren't just good, they are good & probably important. m.a.r. barker has a vibrant, diverse world free of the constraints of modern, western, or even terrestrial constrictions. his characters all have opinions, & those opinions are each treated with equal validity. plus, as far as endings go, the out-of-left-field nature of this one is less deus ex machina & more "you let what happen off camera?" these books are kind of a pain in the ass to get, but i recommend that any reader of fiction do so; heck, non-fiction too.