Recent Reading
29 July 2007 06:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nuranarForcing myself to write about the MacLean books has been good for me. (Don't get me wrong; I love to write about MacLean. It's just work, like anything besides reading is, for me, Work.) In some ways PaperBackSwap has been a greater temptation than a blessing. The sheer volume of my reading this year is staggering. I couldn't keep up with a monthly record, since I couldn't hope to remember everything I'd read in a month. I'm certain I'm well over 100 for the year, and possibly more like 150. Plus there's all the science fiction books, novellas, and stories that I've skimmed with varying degrees of attention. (For stuff that I don't choose, like in sale boxes or in random compilations, I don't make myself read closely at first. That way it's easier to jump ship when Something Objectionable crops up.)
That last brings me to the books I'm going to review. I feel like I'm making a confession, of all things! I've made no secret of the fact that I love fiction, and of fiction I love mysteries, and action/adventure, and space opera stories the most. Most of the time it doesn't bother me, but it's true that the critics (and the generalsheep public) look down upon these genres. I'm not ashamed of loving that stuff - I'm not - but the general disdain makes me feel defensive from time to time.
That last brings me to the books I'm going to review. I feel like I'm making a confession, of all things! I've made no secret of the fact that I love fiction, and of fiction I love mysteries, and action/adventure, and space opera stories the most. Most of the time it doesn't bother me, but it's true that the critics (and the general
And now I've fallen for something else: A fantasy story.
Fantasy has never been my thing. I've always had an unexplainable desire for the fantastic to be throughly grounded in the realistic. So while I can't stand so-called "realism" as a genre, I love a MacLean or a Chandler who writes terrific Stories set in the real world. I don't quickly become acclimatized to the new world of a fantasy or science fiction book. I feel uneasy and unsettled and uncertain, reading quickly to try to place these new characters in their world. The difficulty of this adjustment explains why it's taken me until my 24th year to try science fiction. And I was still driven to it in despair of finding any more of the "mundane" action-adventure I love. With a few authors I've now become familiar, and this helps. Leigh Brackett's Mars, already inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs's Mars, is familiar enough that its new aspects are simply exciting and fascinating, not unreal and unfriendly for their very alienness. But on the whole, each new book and story is still a wee bit of a struggle to get into.
And fantasy itself seems a newer sub-genre than science fiction. Of course Tolkien began it, in its modern form; and with its beginnings in the postwar world, unlike science fiction it had little chance to develop in the comparative propriety of the first half of the century. (This is sounding very much like a lecture!) It might be, to be less pretentious, that I prefer Things That Go Bang to Sharp Shiny Things - sci-fi has one, fantasy the other. :D But really, Tolkien and C. S. Lewis are favorites simply because of what the books are, not because I love the genre they're from.
Do you remember my posting a big list of science fiction authors, about a month ago? I got a bargain box of hardbacks from a sale, sight unseen, and about 45 of 50 I'd never heard of. While listing them on PBS, though, of course I had to read not only the dust jackets but quite a bit inside. (It took maybe 16 hours to list them all. I am so compulsive it's not funny.) The premise on the dust jacket of one intrigued me, so I read the first part to see how the author handled the tactics of the situation. Needless to say, I found it incredibly absorbing, and there was absolutely nothing I could object to. It was unfortunately the first hardback to be requested; I was so sad to mail it off that I figured I'd unwittingly found a favorite.
The book in question was Exile's Gate, by C. J. Cherryh. (The author's last name is/was actually Cherry, but her publisher was worried that she'd sound like a romance author!) It is the fourth of a short series about a woman named Morgaine and her... quest, I suppose you'd have to say. I'm not terribly familiar with Stargate, but I think the concept is similar. Once upon a time there were gates throughout the world/galaxy; these gates were used to travel not only from world to world, but time to time. A humanoid but non-human race called qajal controlled the gates, ruling, controlling, and manipulating all the worlds they touched, and jumping ahead in time to see the results of their own activities. And then somebody went back in time; things changed; and the universe kind of twisted up and shook itself. The fallout was pretty intense. A certain group decided that the only way to prevent that from happening again was to travel through the gates from world to world, closing each for eternity as it was past. By the beginning of the first book, Gate of Ivrel, Morgaine is the only one left of the group that set out. The qajal tend despise humans and use the power they get have from the gates, even if they've lost the knowledge to travel with them. For Morgaine, simply getting from one gate to another can be a huge struggle.
"Eh," I thought when I first read the premise that I've baldly explained above. My favorite characters are very rarely women, and frankly, I had no reason to expect anything particularly good out of this box of books. And despite the Stargate-like premise, it was clearly far more fantasy than science fiction. Add many more reasons (like the nature of fantasy in general, women protagonists, Mary Sues, etc.) and I had great cause to be leery.
I've always had a thing for secondary characters. When I was younger I made a habit to pick somebody besides the protagonist to be my "favorite", whose activities I'd read with more than ordinary interest and whose fortunes I'd occasionally mourn. (Picking a favorite like this is particularly dangerous when reading an Agatha Christie. I still remember one book, in which I picked a fellow who turned out to be the murderer!) For some books, of course this doesn't work. What secondary do you pick in Ben-Hur? Or any Marlowe or Lord Peter book? But in The Lord of the Rings, my favorite member of the Fellowship was Legolas (Don't shoot me! It was always that way.), and of the four hobbits, I liked Merry the best. In the Saint books, I hanker after whichever Halo is handy. This picking of a favorite is part of why I have difficult with concurrent narratives, like in the Tarzan books. I want to read more about the group my favorite is in, darn it, not about the other guys!
Well, in the Morgaine books, although Morgaine is the key - it is her purpose that drives the quest, and about her person is the mystery - it through the secondary character, Vanye, that the story is told. And Vanye is not merely the Watson, the less-than-omniscient personal narrator whose character, however pleasant, is of far less interest than that of the Holmes. With one exception of the four books, they are told throughout from his extremely limited third person point of view.
This point of view is key to the telling of the story. Vanye was swept into Morgaine's quest by a combination of chance, necessity, and some of the strongest customs of honor and loyalty that can be imagined. He knew nothing of her or of her purpose, but he became bound to her by ties similar to, but far stronger, than those between a lord and his knight. Virtually everything is revealed, shown, through Vanye's eyes and limited understanding. Everything from Morgaine's purposes to her power, personality, and faults.
If you haven't guessed, I like Vanye very much. I refuse to reel off a list of character attributes, since it's not so easy to categorize him. In a world of the fantastic, the evil, and the non-human - Morgaine herself is certainly not human - Vanye is very human. He is not the typical protagonist that I prefer, it is true. Perhaps I am merely easy to lead, and I fall for archetypes. But Vanye is an immensely sympathetic character. His faults and mistakes are not the typical ones a reader can predict and dread from a mile away. In each book Vanye is separated from Morgaine for an extended period of time, sometimes more than once. It says much that these parts are no less interesting to read than those with Morgaine.
With so much potential for angst (trust me, I haven't given you a fraction of it), the author allows little time for reflection, and none for pointless maundering. Her prose is tight and skillful. Dialogue is good, even the phrasing to indicate use of a different language or dialect. Human relations get quite realistically complicated and difficult. Nothing is merely a plot device, not Vanye's oath to Morgaine, nor her terrible Weapon of Power, nor her dark and difficult past (which is not dwelt upon, Mary-Sue-fashion); it's all critical to the story. Oh, and if it's not clear, there's no hanky-panky. For the very, very best and truest reasons: human nature, circumstances, and culture. Here, as everywhere in the book, the characters are consistent to themselves and their world. 'Tis excellently done. And the action moves. Goodness, how it moves! These are among the few books, mostly MacLeans, that I want to turn to the beginning and read again as soon as I finish.
For the record, I am recommending these books by C. J. Cherryh:
Gate of Ivrel
Well of Shiuan
Fires of Zeroth
Exile's Gate
They must be read in order. Well, okay, I did all right by reading Exile's Gate first. It was written after a greater interval, I believe. But the first three are tied together strongly, although they can stand by themselves if they must. They are in the grey area between series and trilogy.
Fantasy has never been my thing. I've always had an unexplainable desire for the fantastic to be throughly grounded in the realistic. So while I can't stand so-called "realism" as a genre, I love a MacLean or a Chandler who writes terrific Stories set in the real world. I don't quickly become acclimatized to the new world of a fantasy or science fiction book. I feel uneasy and unsettled and uncertain, reading quickly to try to place these new characters in their world. The difficulty of this adjustment explains why it's taken me until my 24th year to try science fiction. And I was still driven to it in despair of finding any more of the "mundane" action-adventure I love. With a few authors I've now become familiar, and this helps. Leigh Brackett's Mars, already inspired by Edgar Rice Burroughs's Mars, is familiar enough that its new aspects are simply exciting and fascinating, not unreal and unfriendly for their very alienness. But on the whole, each new book and story is still a wee bit of a struggle to get into.
And fantasy itself seems a newer sub-genre than science fiction. Of course Tolkien began it, in its modern form; and with its beginnings in the postwar world, unlike science fiction it had little chance to develop in the comparative propriety of the first half of the century. (This is sounding very much like a lecture!) It might be, to be less pretentious, that I prefer Things That Go Bang to Sharp Shiny Things - sci-fi has one, fantasy the other. :D But really, Tolkien and C. S. Lewis are favorites simply because of what the books are, not because I love the genre they're from.
Do you remember my posting a big list of science fiction authors, about a month ago? I got a bargain box of hardbacks from a sale, sight unseen, and about 45 of 50 I'd never heard of. While listing them on PBS, though, of course I had to read not only the dust jackets but quite a bit inside. (It took maybe 16 hours to list them all. I am so compulsive it's not funny.) The premise on the dust jacket of one intrigued me, so I read the first part to see how the author handled the tactics of the situation. Needless to say, I found it incredibly absorbing, and there was absolutely nothing I could object to. It was unfortunately the first hardback to be requested; I was so sad to mail it off that I figured I'd unwittingly found a favorite.
The book in question was Exile's Gate, by C. J. Cherryh. (The author's last name is/was actually Cherry, but her publisher was worried that she'd sound like a romance author!) It is the fourth of a short series about a woman named Morgaine and her... quest, I suppose you'd have to say. I'm not terribly familiar with Stargate, but I think the concept is similar. Once upon a time there were gates throughout the world/galaxy; these gates were used to travel not only from world to world, but time to time. A humanoid but non-human race called qajal controlled the gates, ruling, controlling, and manipulating all the worlds they touched, and jumping ahead in time to see the results of their own activities. And then somebody went back in time; things changed; and the universe kind of twisted up and shook itself. The fallout was pretty intense. A certain group decided that the only way to prevent that from happening again was to travel through the gates from world to world, closing each for eternity as it was past. By the beginning of the first book, Gate of Ivrel, Morgaine is the only one left of the group that set out. The qajal tend despise humans and use the power they get have from the gates, even if they've lost the knowledge to travel with them. For Morgaine, simply getting from one gate to another can be a huge struggle.
"Eh," I thought when I first read the premise that I've baldly explained above. My favorite characters are very rarely women, and frankly, I had no reason to expect anything particularly good out of this box of books. And despite the Stargate-like premise, it was clearly far more fantasy than science fiction. Add many more reasons (like the nature of fantasy in general, women protagonists, Mary Sues, etc.) and I had great cause to be leery.
I've always had a thing for secondary characters. When I was younger I made a habit to pick somebody besides the protagonist to be my "favorite", whose activities I'd read with more than ordinary interest and whose fortunes I'd occasionally mourn. (Picking a favorite like this is particularly dangerous when reading an Agatha Christie. I still remember one book, in which I picked a fellow who turned out to be the murderer!) For some books, of course this doesn't work. What secondary do you pick in Ben-Hur? Or any Marlowe or Lord Peter book? But in The Lord of the Rings, my favorite member of the Fellowship was Legolas (Don't shoot me! It was always that way.), and of the four hobbits, I liked Merry the best. In the Saint books, I hanker after whichever Halo is handy. This picking of a favorite is part of why I have difficult with concurrent narratives, like in the Tarzan books. I want to read more about the group my favorite is in, darn it, not about the other guys!
Well, in the Morgaine books, although Morgaine is the key - it is her purpose that drives the quest, and about her person is the mystery - it through the secondary character, Vanye, that the story is told. And Vanye is not merely the Watson, the less-than-omniscient personal narrator whose character, however pleasant, is of far less interest than that of the Holmes. With one exception of the four books, they are told throughout from his extremely limited third person point of view.
This point of view is key to the telling of the story. Vanye was swept into Morgaine's quest by a combination of chance, necessity, and some of the strongest customs of honor and loyalty that can be imagined. He knew nothing of her or of her purpose, but he became bound to her by ties similar to, but far stronger, than those between a lord and his knight. Virtually everything is revealed, shown, through Vanye's eyes and limited understanding. Everything from Morgaine's purposes to her power, personality, and faults.
If you haven't guessed, I like Vanye very much. I refuse to reel off a list of character attributes, since it's not so easy to categorize him. In a world of the fantastic, the evil, and the non-human - Morgaine herself is certainly not human - Vanye is very human. He is not the typical protagonist that I prefer, it is true. Perhaps I am merely easy to lead, and I fall for archetypes. But Vanye is an immensely sympathetic character. His faults and mistakes are not the typical ones a reader can predict and dread from a mile away. In each book Vanye is separated from Morgaine for an extended period of time, sometimes more than once. It says much that these parts are no less interesting to read than those with Morgaine.
With so much potential for angst (trust me, I haven't given you a fraction of it), the author allows little time for reflection, and none for pointless maundering. Her prose is tight and skillful. Dialogue is good, even the phrasing to indicate use of a different language or dialect. Human relations get quite realistically complicated and difficult. Nothing is merely a plot device, not Vanye's oath to Morgaine, nor her terrible Weapon of Power, nor her dark and difficult past (which is not dwelt upon, Mary-Sue-fashion); it's all critical to the story. Oh, and if it's not clear, there's no hanky-panky. For the very, very best and truest reasons: human nature, circumstances, and culture. Here, as everywhere in the book, the characters are consistent to themselves and their world. 'Tis excellently done. And the action moves. Goodness, how it moves! These are among the few books, mostly MacLeans, that I want to turn to the beginning and read again as soon as I finish.
For the record, I am recommending these books by C. J. Cherryh:
Gate of Ivrel
Well of Shiuan
Fires of Zeroth
Exile's Gate
They must be read in order. Well, okay, I did all right by reading Exile's Gate first. It was written after a greater interval, I believe. But the first three are tied together strongly, although they can stand by themselves if they must. They are in the grey area between series and trilogy.
