Honor's Knight - Rachel Bach

Honor’s Knight is the second in Rachel Bach’s ‘Paradox’ series. The narrative follows the delightfully named Devi Morris, a powered-armour user, as, put simply, she jaunts around the galaxy, usually on the run from somebody, and proceeds to eliminate everything around her with extreme prejudice.

This second book picks up from the conclusion of the first, and immediately establishes credentials by not ducking any consequences. Devi is emotionally wrung out, hurt, confused, and particularly good at suffering in silence. Readers of the first volume will be left as torn apart as Devi; the first third of the book is really one long emotional crisis, and it reads very well.
Bach has a knack for clear, concise, easy to read prose. Like her heroine, the text is blunt, stylistically straightforward, but packs a serious punch. It was very easy to find myself turning pages, and looking up an hour later wondering where all the time had got to!

The characters are largely familiar from the first volume; outside of Devi, and one of the new characters whom I won’t spoil here, they don’t really have the sort of depth that I’d like. This may be a function of the first person narrative more than anything else, but most of the cast remain relative ciphers. They do have some backstory, usually provided in dialogue with Devi, but it was a struggle to really see most of them as more than foils for the heroine. There are a few exceptions of course – Caldswell, the captain from the first novel, draws attention from the first page; Bach gives a nuanced portrayal of a tormented, angry man, and manages to keep a large part of this subtextual, insinuating itself into the reader’s experience via incidentals, rather than explicitly infodumping in the prose.

There’s also the central romance, between Devi and the cook from the previous novel (Rupert); this suffers rather from the consequences of the first novel, and the impact of those consequences is wonderfully written. That said, the whole romance angle reads a bit more awkwardly than I’d hoped – it’s just not as interesting to read as the various plots, machinations, hostage situations, gunfights and witty dialogue in the rest of the book. The ripples that come out of the relationship are wonderful, the impacts on the narrative are fantastic, it just didn’t quite ring true for me.

Plot-wise, this one is an absolute barnstormer. The original book, Fortune’s Pawn, was a fast-paced action piece. Honor’s Knight keeps that pace, and the rapid-fire action, and intertwines it with some serious twists and turns – crosses, double crosses,  justifications and lies mixed up with gunfire, quick escapes, and last minute salvation.

Overall then, if you’ve read the first book in the series, you really will want to follow up to see where this one is going. The series has a lot of promise, and it’s delivering.

Interstitial - Honors Knight

Been powering through Rachel Bach's 'Honors Knight' the last few days. Strong female protagonist, mildly awkward romance elements, shape changing, moral ambiguity, aliens - it doesn't have it all, but it has a lot of good stuff.

More tomorrow!

Academic Exercises - K.J. Parker

K.J. Parker is an author whose prose I’ve always enjoyed; on the other hand, nobody else ever seems to have read any of their work, and that is, frankly, a crime. As such, today we’re going to talk about Parker’s short fiction anthology, ‘Academic Exercises’ – which doesn’t require any knowledge of existing series to read through, and is, not to give the game away, really rather good.

The text collects a variety of Parker’s short fiction; some of it has been available before in the form of novella (e.g. ‘Purple and Black’, an epistolary tale of ambition, power and trust), and some of it has even been made available for free in the publisher’s ongoing magazine (the marvellous ‘Let Maps to Others’, discussing the value and necessity of document authenticity, in a thick stew of revenge). There’s also a set of work I hadn’t seen before, which may well mean it’s new – it’s certainly new to me.

So, what makes this anthology worth reading? Immediately, two things: first, the quality of Parker’s prose. Each story is written in the first person, and each inner monologue is presented with their own voice – across all the different stories, the narrators are easily distinguishable from each other, which is quite an achievement. Tonally, the narrators are quite similar – there’s a dry, grim, resigned wit that permeates Parker’s work, and whilst it’s rarely laugh-out-loud funny, it’s often amusing.

At the same time, the words themselves are a pleasure to read – well crafted, with excellent description of both worlds and ancillary characters. The latter are perhaps not as well drawn as the main characters – but that may be a factor of the first person narrative form.

So, the first reason to read Parker’s work is that the setting is well drawn, the characters feel like people, and the whole is both cohesive and a pleasure to read.

What’s the second reason?

Parker unflinchingly approaches larger themes through their characters, and unrelentingly pursues all sorts of complex aspects of the human experience. The stories aren’t afraid to talk about history, for example –a bout what makes a thing authentic, and what makes people that way too. It doesn’t shy away from philosophy, and several of the narratives explore the strands of thought around the question of whether the motivation for actions matters, or merely the result.

Alongside these broader themes there are characters who are very clever indeed, and use that cleverness to drive their own actions – in many cases, dragging the reader after them kicking and screaming. By no means does “intelligent” equate with ‘nice’. Within these characters, the author throws in a lot fo the deeper human emotions – fear, loss, pride, revenge, and drills into their often catastrophic effect on the human condition. Each protagonist is convincingly portrayed, and the end result is that I, for one, couldn’t stop turning pages.

Parker is also a wonderful writer of the twist denouement; this is less obvious in their other work, but most, if not all of the short stories presented here have at least one sting in the tail. This is perhaps an issue, in the context of reading the entire collection back-to-back; I started looking for plot twists, even expecting them, rather than just letting them surprise me – but that’s not a fault of the stories themselves, so much as an observance of a common theme in the author’s work.

There’s a few non-fiction articles thrown in here for good measure, on the rise and development of weapons and armour – and these are written in the same accessible style, and quite entertaining. It would be nice to see the references used for these, but in context, they’re still very interesting.

At any rate, at the close of the book, I’d say K.J. Parker is writing some of the smartest, sharpest, most well observed prose available in the genre today – and that this collection would serve as a good intro to their style and body of work, if you wanted to dip your toe in the water.

Note: The collection is currently available electronically as part of the Humble Books Bundle, which is where I got my copy; it’s been quite hard to get hold of in paper form, so this might be a good time to pick up the e-copy, if you’re interested.

Interstitital - Academic Exercises

Been powering through K.J. Parker's short story collection, Academic Exercises, over the last few days, having picked it up as part of the latest Humble Books Bundle. It's all vintage Parker, really; big philosophical and moral themes, wrapped up in characters full of selfishness, vengeance, petty crime, and the odd moment of goodness. I've always said Parker is one of the most criminally under-read authors currently in the field, and going through this text only confirms that impression.

In summary: It's SO GOOD.

King of Thieves - Evan Currie

King of Thieves is a finely done piece of military science fiction. It’s apparently a stand-alone novel, set in the same universe as a wider series by the same author. Not having read that series, I thought I’d put that to the test.

The narrative follows the Captain and crew of a starship, as they set out to investigate various stellar anomalies. One of those turns out to be something rather larger, and everything very quickly goes from bad to worse to downright terrible. This is a very plot driven book, and I don’t want to hand out spoilers, but I will say that after an initially slow burning lead-in, most of the book was pretty much non-stop action, as characters were forced to react quickly to one crisis or another.

The central narrative split is between the space-side staff, and a team of Marines and Researchers who are used to investigate interesting and potentially lethal knick-knacks. The characters are a bit thin, their inner dialogue and logic not really given the exploration they deserve (particularly the ship’s Captain), but this is more an action-movie of a book than a character study, and so if we’ve handed over nuanced character development in favour of desperate retreats, heroics and explosions, I can’t complain.

Two things make this text stand out – firstly, the writing is more than competent, and makes for a very easy read; the setting is clearly described, and the dialogue flows along smoothly. It might seem obvious, but this does make the text more of a pleasure to read. Secondly, the author has clearly put in some effort to have a consistent scientific framework in their universe, and isn’t shy about providing some technological context to some of the decisions. I couldn’t speak to the accuracy of the science, but it’s nice to feel like everything isn’t happening “because magic tech”, and that the author has thought about how everything in the universe works.

The whole thing is fast paced, and unashamedly action, and with the scientific overlay, it feels like a very effective melange of Aliens and Ringworld (and that's a good thing!)
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From a stand-alone point of view, it’s a good book; there are a few referents to the rest of the series, which I had to roll along with, but nothing that really broke the narrative flow – there was no required knowledge of the rest of the series to enjoy this one.

Overall then, a good piece of military sci-fi, with excellent prose, and an impressive amount of science layered over the top. If you enjoy the genre (and probably even if you don’t), this is a good read – sufficiently so that now I’ll be checking out the rest of the series!

Interstitial - King of Thieves

Review of Evan Currie's sci-fi-military-fiction novel, King of Thieves, to come on Monday.
So far it's been a pretty fast paced mix up of Aliens and Larry Niven, which can only be a good thing!

Endsinger - Jay Kristoff

Endsinger is the conclusion to Jay Kristoff’s ‘Lotus War’ trilogy; this takes place in an ersatz feudal Japan, mixed with a steampunk aesthetic and fantasy elements – Samurai in giant armoured suits, with chainsaw-bladed swords, struggle against griffins (or ‘thunder tigers’) which can shatter bones with a cry, and speak in the minds of their riders. It’s not just an adventure series though – it looks at family relationships, the necessity of violence, the cost and means of progress and the price of revenge – all through the lens of a cast of plausible characters, ranging from the sympathetic to the downright diabolical. 

Given the promise of the narrative, which was very skilfully drawn in the first two books of Kristoff’s trilogy, the question is – does the conclusion deliver? Thankfully the answer is yes – absolutely. 
The narrative picks up from where the previous book left off – but where that one seemed to extend the narrative of the first, the first few chapters of this instalment throw several different curve balls, leaving the reader shaken and unsure of exactly what’s going to happen next. That this unsteadiness is matched entirely by the reactions of the characters is fantastic, and both the characters and the reader march uncertainly into the narrative together thereafter, the rug swept out from under them.

And what a narrative it is. There’s political scheming. Betrayals. Counter betrayals. Love. Stabbing. Friendship. Swordfights. Deaths. Giant war machines. And demons! All of the various narrative threads interweave with each other, and fit together seamlessly as a whole; the pacing is pitch perfect. Each page found something that made me want to read the next one – once picked up, impossible to put down.

Given it’s the conclusive part of the trilogy, some farewells are almost to be expected; but really, all of the reveals, the conflicts and resolutions here are incredibly well done. Kristoff managed to pull joy, sorrow, laughter and tears out of me; the absolute rawness of the emotions given out by the characters ripped me open along with them. That portrayal of emotion, and the character relationships that map to it, has always been Kristoff’s greatest strength in this series, and he’s done it again here.

So, is it worth reading? Well, if you’ve not read the preceding books, I’d go and do that; the first, Stormdancer, is narrower scoped than this one, but perfectly formed. If you’re up to date on the series though, you owe it to yourself to pick this one up – it will emotionally sucker punch you, and reward you with a heart-wringing narrative, and a marvellous conclusion to an excellent trilogy.