Interstitial - The Last Witness

Tomorrow we'll be talking about The Last Witness, the latest novella by K.J. Parker. It's dark, complex, and won't let go - so very much a vintage Parker effort.

More on that tomorrow!

Eden Green - Fiona Van Dahl

Eden Green is a blend of sci-fi and horror by Fiona Van Dahl. It begins with the concept of a parasite, one which will merge with and regenerate its host. Functional immortality  and heroic endurance are perks. Of course, these things come with a price. There’s also the question of where the parasite came from, and what this means to both the protagonist and to humanity as a whole.

There’s some really interesting ideas in Eden Green. The idea of a symbiont that works to regenerate its host is intriguing. It allows exploration of a couple of themes – most immediately, that of power. When an individual has seemingly superhuman strength, and can recover from repeated mortal wounds, then what does that do to the individual? How do they cope, in a world where they are something other than normal? It’s a theme that has been explored elsewhere, but Eden Green approaches these questions unflinchingly, and with a degree of nuance which was enjoyable to see on the page.

It also approaches the question of identity. As an individual is regenerated by their symbiont, the question arises of whether they are, in fact, human any longer. The role of identity is touched on, and the author isn’t afraid to examine the effects of a changing or even lost sense of self. The actions of the symbiont prove an excellent way to do this, and the interactions between characters as they attempt to resolve who they are, who they think they are, and what defines them as, well, themselves, is an interesting read. 

The first section of the book revolves around the protagonist, Eden Green, as she’s drawn into the world of the symbiont, and the creatures that inhabit that world. The author sketches Green well – a focused, rational individual, with a penchant for logic and lists, and a genuine sense of caring for her friend. Her supporting cast includes the aforesaid friend, and a mysterious individual who first provided that friend with the symbiont. Eden’s chum is also well done – a scatty trouble-magnet, with the ability to make extremely dubious decisions, usually for all the wrong reasons. I was quickly joining our protagonist in sighing in frustration at her friend when she appeared on the page and did something incredibly, but plausibly, unfortunately, wrong. The third of this band, the mysterious stranger, I didn’t enjoy as much initially. There’s a sense of power there, certainly, and something of danger, but the character doesn’t quite work in that mould – their dialogue a tad disjointed, their actions not tied together with quite enough narrative rope. On the other hand, there’s some excellent notes of genuine menace there – the character seemed like a solid base, which needed a bit more building up to have the narrative impact required.

As the book progresses, all three of this central core of characters change – the degree of change depending somewhat on the narrative. I give credit to the author for trying something ambitious, showing us the descent of individuals, and the way that they alter as their perceptions of themselves shifts. I think the sense of confusion that laces the text is a great way to convey this mood, but also that the reader could use a few more signposts, even if the characters don’t get to see them – some later segments felt a little scattershot, and I was trying to figure out what was going on as much as Eden. Maybe this is intentional, but I think a little more signposting would have helped the flow of the text.

Plot-wise – there’s some excellent sections here. Eden’s initial encounters with her friend, and with the creatures that seem to be involved with the symbiont, are deliberate, well paced, and explode occasionally in compulsive action sequences. As the scope of the text broadens, the narrative momentum seems to be lost a tad – there’s a middle section which has ramifications for the narrative, but seems either longer or shorter than it needs to be. The author does well at evoking the sense of the human and the alien internally – and the city our protagonist lives in is drawn with enough detail to feel real, but it, and other environments, could use a little more texture in order to make them come alive.

Is it worth reading? I’d say so. There’s some intriguing thoughts in here, ideas about humanity, about what makes us who and what we are, which are worth pursuing. I a little more polishing - and in some instances a cleaner narrative structure – would do wonders for the text, but right now, it’s an interesting, emotionally punishing read, with some interesting things to say.

Interstitial - Eden Green

On Monday we'll be looking at Fiona Van Dahl's sci-fi/horror piece, Eden Green. It's got some interesting ideas and thoughts on personality and memory, wrapped up in a sci-fi/psychological horror wrapper

The Palace Job - Patrick Weekes

The Palace Job is the first in a series by Patrick Weekes. It centres on Loch, a woman wrongfully (or at least inaccurately) imprisoned, as she escapes, forms a crew of reprobates, and sets out to perform an elaborate and improbable heist. It’s fast, it’s fun, and in places, it has a  hefty emotional impact.

The world has elements familiar to fantasy readers – unicorns, deities active in the world, wizards, that sort of thing – but fuses them together in some interesting new ways. The focus of the text is really the characters and the action, but Weekes manages to give his world enough layers that it has a feeling of depth, as well as geography. There’s the various different clerics who get together to play a poker game. There’s an Empire, waiting in the wings, which seems to be a veiled socio-political threat to the republic where we spend our time. There’s some excellent news-cast style narratives by puppeteers, keeping the population and the reader abreast with political events.

Then there’s the actual politics. Again, it’s more visible around the edges than explicitly covered, but it’s there. There’s two parties struggling for control in the Republic, and at least one has some rather odd goals. This feel of political struggle is backed by references to a war in the recent past – and the feel of being on a tipping point, of preventing or falling back into a huge conflict, is an undercurrent throughout the narrative. There’s a lot of other interesting bits as well – the suggestion that most magical artefacts were created by the “Ancients” – including one which serves as, amongst other things, a spectacular floating prison. The  internal mythologies about the end of the Ancients and the rise of the current civilisations – it’s all obviously been thought about, it’s all internally consistent, and it leaves the reader with a complex and vibrant world.

The characters…well, Loch is the protagonist, if you like. But a large portion of the narrative is her putting together a team for a heist.  Acquiring each member of the team is played as a separate narrative, and they’re all highly entertaining. She ends up with a pretty large collection of rapscallions, including a disreputable wizard, a Death priestess, a rather cranky safe-breaker, and a host of other weird and wonderful personalities.  Weekes does a good job here  of making each member of the team feel distinct, with their own quirks, and absolutely each with their own agenda.  Some get a little more time than others – the irascible, morally dubious wizard, who takes a more naïve member of the team under his wing absolutely steals every scene he’s in – but they’re all charming to read about, and utterly intriguing individuals. Loch, as the nominal protagonist, manages to project an image of calm competence over a slow-brewing anger which is a delight to see on the page. She also manages to wrangle her herd of dysfunctional goats..er..team members…in the right direction, without compromising on who she is, and what their goals actually are.

Plot-wise, well, there’s a prison break. And planning and executing a heist. The book opens strongly with Loch’s efforts to get out of prison, demonstrating the kind of intricate, double bluff plotting that carries through the rest of the text. The pacing is spot on, and the dialogue is plausible and eminently readable. There’s a bit of a lull as she begins gathering her team, but the various situations in which they’re recruited are entertaining, and there’s some solidly tense moments laced through that phase.

The heist itself, in planning and execution, feels like it’s taken a lot of lessons from films like Ocean’s Eleven – it’s fast-paced, it’s tense, and it’s absolutely relentless. It’s also an extremely compulsive read as a result – I was entirely unwilling to put the book down until I saw what happened.

Overall, it’s a solid read. We don’t see a lot of heist-type fantasy novels, and this one is particularly good, if you’re in that particular mood. I would like to see more exploration of the supporting cast, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of Weekes' world in later books – but overall this is a snappy and interesting read.

Interstital - The Palace Job

Tomorrow we'll be taking a look at The Palace Job, the start of a series of fantasy heist novels by Patrick Weekes. Decent heist stories in a fantasy universe are rare, but Weekes has pretty much hit the nail on the head with this one.

More on that tomorrow!

Heirs Of Empire - Evan Currie

Heirs of Empire is a novel which blends sci-fi and fantasy, by Evan Currie; he’s gained a lot of traction recently with his Odyssey One series of sci-fi novels, and it’s great to see him turning his hand to something slightly different here.

The world that Currie posits in Heirs is an interesting one. It begins feeling like a melange of a fantasy world and a high-tech paradise. There are knights, an Emperor, and other trappings of a medieval social structure, over the top of bullet trains, laser carbines and personal flying craft. The mixture actually works very well – I was particularly impressed with eh Armati – seemingly psychically linked melee weapons, which seemed to shift shapes to take on different tactical roles, with a degree of semi-sentience.

There’s some great backstory as well. Various points of dialogue allude to unseen threats in the margins of the world as shown to the reader. There’s also hints at a deeper history – the Armati are weapons that can no longer be crafted, for example – and stories of how the ancestors of the current characters reached their location are vague, but suggest they fled a long term conflict. The nature of the world is also not exactly what it appears to be. There’s discussion of a radiation belt girdling the atmosphere, and there’s several different ‘layers’ of sky, of various levels of permeability to skilled flyers. Suffice to say that the world is not…entirely what it appears to be.

Moving from a macro scale to the more personal, Currie’s managed to give us a complex set of socio-political systems, which wrap his characters in conflict. There’s the Imperial family. There’s the senate. There’s armies of heavily armed troops. There’s the Cadre, an elite force whose training and bonding with the Armati weapons gives them a hefty edge in combat. It all swirls around the central pivots of the plot and characters, and defines them in a vibrant, living world.

Speaking of characters; when I reviewed Currie’s “Odyssey One”, I expressed some dissatisfaction at the way the characters existed to serve the plot. I’m happy to say that there’s certainly a lot less of that here. I wouldn’t say that we get to mine the depths of any individual psyche, but each character feels rounded enough to be believable. The larger slices of the book are given over to Mira Delsol, a member of the elite Cadre, and two younger members of the Imperial family. Delsol’s arc is one which I wish had a little more page space. She begins as a loyal member of the Imperial forces, before incidents at the start of the book move her onto a different path. She suffers from anger issues, and has a layer of cynicism over a core of emotional betrayal which is rather well done in the time available. It would have been great to see her given extra time to display some more emotional depth, but Delsol sizzles off of every page that she’s on anyway. 

The Imperial twins stand in Delsol’s shade a little. There’s much made of what pains in the backside they can be, but we don’t get to see much of this. Actually, they start out as fairly civilised, if somewhat entitled. The corners get knocked off of them a bit over the course of the text, and their relationship with another pair of younger characters is simultaneously amusing and heartwarming. Again, they spend a lot of time Doing Things, and we don’t see a great deal of introspection. That said, they’re not a particularly aggravating read, and carry enough personality to keep them distinct and interesting.

Plot-wise – well, as ever, I’ll avoid saying much for fear of spoilers. However, it’s safe to say that the book kicks off with a bang, and never really let’s up thereafter. Currie has always been good at writing visceral, fast-paced action, and that trend continues here. There’s a range between hand to hand combat and sprawling battles, as well as some rather speedy air combat. The plot itself is fairly straightforward, and it manages to explain the stakes quickly and efficiently, whilst also keeping up a roller coaster of action – betrayals, explosions, the occasional Moment of Awesome, it’s all there, and all compulsively written.

Overall, this is an excellent start to a new series from Currie. The world is detailed, and clearly has more to reveal. The characters could use more room to manoeuvre, but they’re sufficiently well drawn to get you to care about them, their emotions, and their fates. The plot absolutely crackles, and there’s some excellent moments of contemplation matched against sections of sheer adrenaline. As an experience, the book was a lot of fun to read, and I’m looking forward to seeing where Currie takes us next.

Interstitial - Heirs Of Empire

Tomorrow we have a review of Evan Currie's latest, a sci-fi epic with a smidge of fantasy thrown in/ It's got a bit of politics, several excellent pieces of hand-to-hand combat, and the sort of epic scope we've come to expect from Mr. Currie. It's a quick, fun read, and very enjoyable thus far.