All The Seas of the World - Guy Gavriel Kay

Regular readers will know I'm a huge fan of Guy Gavriel Kay. His lyrical prose, and careful blending of a slightly alternative historical reality with just a soupcon of the different, the magical, well, it's a joy. Every book manages to make me think about life in a different way, and each book manages to make me feel, deeply, as I fly through its pages. All The Seas of the World is no exception. It's a book with a story that'll keep you turning pages late at night to find out what happens next, but it's also more than that. It's an opportunity to think about the role of small decisions and coincidences, and the way they shape lives. It's an opportunity to think about the ripples our steps cause in the lives of others. And it's an opportunity to explore agency, the way we act on the world.  This is a story which, amongst other things, wants to explore the nature of lives and stories, the way the tales we tell ourselves and others are intertwined into a complex web of different expectations and understandings, and common ground between.

Anyway. That's all to say this is a book which manages to balance several plates; not just ponderously ruminating on the human condition, but doing so as flashes of lightning across the sky of a narrative that, well, it does a lot, from assassinations and coups to business ventures and sieges. 

In terms of world: this is set in the same world as many of Kay's other alternate-history tales; in this case it feels a lot like some of the early renaissance republics of Italy, with the serial numbers filed off. There's that sense of a mercantile class shifting around the boundaries of aristocracy. The feeling that the centres of power in the world are shifting. The sense that identity is becoming more mutable, perhaps. Or perhaps not. One of the things the book does is dive into the idea of home, and of self, and whether people are the culture they were born into , or the one they were exposed to, or if they shape themselves under or outside of those pressures. It also looks at the costs of breaking with established homes, of walking away from situations as they get out of control, and the costs that come with staying to struggle under the weight of those situations as well. Many of the characters here are trying to decide who they are, in one way or another, and in trying to define and decide that, they shape not only themselves, but a broader conversation. 

In any case, the world is a lush, rich, baroque one. Kay's vivid prose fills it with life and energy, and a wry humanity, voices filled with affection, violence, horror, joy, passion, love, and, from time to time, outright stupidity. The world lives and breathes and fights and builds and burns and shines on the page. From the soaring stone buildings of an ersatz Republic, to the sun-drenched cracked flagstones of border forts on the boundary of states in a cold war turning hot, there's an energy and a life that makes the backgrop feel like a living world, one that feels real. 

The same applies to the characters, honestly. I don't want to dive inot them in detail, in part to avoid spoilers. But it's always nice to see Kay approach larger issues tangentially, through the eyes of characters who live alongside great events and people we remember from history. This is a story about people who aren't central to the "great individual" theory, but whose choices matter, whose lives matter, whose humanity matters. There's a central duo here, and it's always great to see a well-drawn female protagonist, and some solid minority representation on the page. The pair are smart, and by turns smart, funny, serious and deadly. Really, they're everything that people are, especially people pushed to find their limits and their boundaries in the face of unexpected threats and opportunities.

The story itself is a complex set of interwoven threads, tying characters together half a world apart, or right next to each other. There's murder, mystery, and more than a little mayhem. There's a dash of romance mixed in there, and some lovely platonic interaction by people who give a damn. Chases and battles of wits and unfortunate coincidences and serendipity and blood on the floor and gold in the hand and passion and laughter and tears and, well, life. 

This is a damn good story, and if you're an existing fan, it's a damn good Kay story. Go get it.

The Assassins of Consequence - Marshall Ryan Maresca

Marshall Ryan Maresca's Maradaine series started with "The Thorn", a university student turned vigilante, with something of a murky past. The series quickly broadened in scope to follow multiple characters in stories of their own, from working beat cops to literal knights in shining armour. But Veranix was the first face of Maradaine. It's fitting, therefore, that in The Assassins of Consequence, his be the first story picked up after the explosive events of the last book, which brought all the various characters together, and lit a fuse. The consequences of the following explosion in the metaphorical fireworks factory are reverberating through the world of Maradaine - and through Veranix. 

This Veranix is a mixture of the familiar and the strange. Always a little cocky, he's now trying to risk less, to keep himself and his friends as far out of trouble as he can, while also fighting crime, scowling broodingly from rooftops, and, oh, yes, being a magic student at the university. The university, incidentally, has recently had its magical programme taken over by what passes for a branch of Maradaine's military intelligencee service. Quite why, is another matter entirely. But in terms of chracter, the change dislodges Veranix from his comfort zone. It puts academic pressure on him, it puts demands on him that come backed with social legitimacy. While he's inching closer to his goal of bringing down organised crime boss Fenmere, he's doing so with other pressing calls on his attention. Our superhero is growing up, and not only finding out that heroism has costs, but that both he and others will be forced to bear them, whether they will or not. The text does show us the Veranix we know, in witty banter, athletic leaps from rooftop to rooftop, and daring escapes. But there's a pensiveness, and moments of introspection that suggest the Thorn is more troubled than before, more drawn to being, well, Veranix.

There's some excellent turns by Veranix's gang of do-gooders as well. They're all hanging together, trying to work together to make things better. But they're all pulled by conflicting priorities, loyalties, and their own needs. Sometimes, fighting the good fight in a cape isn't very rewarding, and sometimes you might get appalled at the costs, in life, treasure, and humanity. As a group, Veranix's support team are a joy - each a fully realised individual, with a story

The villains are entertaining, though I must confess that in this case there were rather a lot of them. Fenmere, always the overarching threat, and a host of Veranix's past conquests, getting the band backl together in a jailbreak to go mess him up. And rumblings of others still to come. They're fun to read though, seeing the other side in the vein of Suicide Squad. There's enough moments of humour and humanity to help them not just feel like ciphers, even if the narrative focus is on their grudge, and their scheme to finish it - which, incidentally, includes identifying Veranix, and feeding back into the question of who the man who is The Thorn would be, if he didn't have The Thorn to be any longer.

I won't speak much on Maradaine the city, because I've waxed lyrical on it before. Suffice to say it remains a vibrant, living world. There's ahistory there that you can feel in your bones. And if we don't see as much of it this time around as we have before, we still have the flavour and colour in asides and moments of reflection. Maradaine lives, friends, Maradaine lives. This time it lives in its slums and dockhouses, worn down inns and flashing knives. It lives in its quadrangles and literal walled gardens. In faculty meetings and gang interrogations. It's aplace, still, with depth, and weight.

Anyway. Is it good, then? I don't want to spoil the story, because this one is laced through with turns, twists, chases, escapes, derring-do, moral crises and just plain old crises. I will say that I read it quickly, that I wanted to get to the end and I didn't want it to end. It's maybe not an ideal option for your first Maradaine book (but don't worry, there are lots of entry choices!); but if you're a regular reader, this one is going to follow you around the room. It's great fun, and a great read.