Reread: Mary Gentle's Ash: A Secret History
Currently I'm halfway done with a reread of Mary Gentle's book (published in the US in four individual books, but in the UK as one) Ash: A Secret History. I had bounced hard off of an attempt to read previous Mary Gentles, namely Grunts! and Ancient Light, but this book was pretty highly reccomended by the denizens of rec.arts.sf.written, and also seemed to be, at least topic-wise, more up my alley. (I was right, too - but the fact that I finally finished and enjoyed a Mary Gentle didn't help me with her other books, because I promptly bounced right off of Rats and Gargoyles.)
Ash is the story of a female mercenary captain in the 1400s. While at first it seems like a straighforward historical (or perhaps historical fantasy) story, we begin to see very quickly that Ash's fifteenth century is not our own, despite a certain general resemblance. With the addition of a framing story set in our time (and told via "emails") we discover that the Ash narrative is meant to be a scholar's translation of a Latin document telling Ash's story, but as the translation progresses, more and more anomalies become apparent. What unfolds is a wonderful, rich, and bloody story involving secret history, golems, women disguised as men, King-caliphs, Visigoths, rat breeding, wild machines, and the bond of a mercenary captain with the men who serve her.
The book is not for the faint of heart - if you can get past the first five to ten pages, you should be fine for the rest of the book, but if you can't, don't plough ahead in the hopes that the close-up look at the harsher realities of war (think the beginning of Saving Private Ryan) and life in a medieval society will pull back into softer focus. The book may be a little icksome at times for people, but the reward is very high, because Gentle pulls off an amazing story.
Ash is the story of a female mercenary captain in the 1400s. While at first it seems like a straighforward historical (or perhaps historical fantasy) story, we begin to see very quickly that Ash's fifteenth century is not our own, despite a certain general resemblance. With the addition of a framing story set in our time (and told via "emails") we discover that the Ash narrative is meant to be a scholar's translation of a Latin document telling Ash's story, but as the translation progresses, more and more anomalies become apparent. What unfolds is a wonderful, rich, and bloody story involving secret history, golems, women disguised as men, King-caliphs, Visigoths, rat breeding, wild machines, and the bond of a mercenary captain with the men who serve her.
The book is not for the faint of heart - if you can get past the first five to ten pages, you should be fine for the rest of the book, but if you can't, don't plough ahead in the hopes that the close-up look at the harsher realities of war (think the beginning of Saving Private Ryan) and life in a medieval society will pull back into softer focus. The book may be a little icksome at times for people, but the reward is very high, because Gentle pulls off an amazing story.