Operation Read All the Sutcliff: Frontier Wolf
I love this book. You know how sometimes you think you will never find a book that is new to you that you love as much as the books you loved when you were, oh, fourteen, because now you are a cynical bitter adult and you just cannot love another book as much as everything you loved that has all that nostalgia bound into it
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Like you I find that rather odd how happy this book makes me, given that almost everyone dies. Maybe it's because of the happy ending? But The Lantern Bearers and The Shining Company also have happy endings (or at least happyish), and I found them pretty grim. (I'm curious to hear what you think of The Lantern Bearers!)
And the Orion passage you quoted is lovely. One of the things that makes Frontier Wolf such a good book, I think, is the way that the nature porn and plot and character development and culture clashes and and and everything are so neatly braided together: it's not just that they're all evenly distributed through the book, but they're all happening at the same time, sometimes ( ... )
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One of the things that makes Frontier Wolf such a good book, I think, is the way that the nature porn and plot and character development and culture clashes and and and everything are so neatly braided together: it's not just that they're all evenly distributed through the book, but they're all happening at the same time, sometimes.
Yes, exactly. I think this is what I'm trying to get at when I keep saying it's tightly plotted -- it's not just the plot, it's everything, and it all just works together really well.
Aww, Lucius. I would read either of those, if you ever wanted to write them.
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Although probably the bad officer who got Lucius sent to the Frontier Wolves would say that the transfer was because Lucius was reading his Georgics when he should have been standing watch or something.
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YMMV, but with TSC, while it ends somewhat hopefully, I think I find it less happy/hopeful because a) Prosper and Cynan aren't really friends yet, b) Cynan at least clearly has some serious PTSD/survivor's guilt going on (I want fic about this so much), and c) Prosper is separated from the characters previously set up to be his BFFs (Conn & Luned). With TLB, I feel like Aquila and Ness's relationship is still in a not-awesome place, and Aquila is still fucked in the head and thinks he's a terrible father.
Whereas with Frontier Wolf, Alexios is grieving, yes, but a month later he's standing on the ramparts with Hilarion, looking forward to Belgica and realizing that he's going to heal emotionally. For me that's a much more optimistic ending.
ALSO I REALLY WANT YOU TO WRITE THAT FIRST LUCIUS BACKSTORY FIC. I'm not actually sure that isn't likely--I think Lucius has a pretty strong core to him in canon?
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But someone who breaks multiple vinestaffs when disciplining his men is clearly a terrible human being, so it's hardly a stretch for him to be vindictive toward poor Lucius.
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