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Marion Zimmer Bradley & Deborah J. Ross, A Flame in Hali: As far as I can tell from the intro, Bradley didn’t write any of this, though Ross based it on her notes of conversations with Bradley who just spun out Darkover history as it occurred to her. Any inconsistencies with previous canon are explained, amusingly and plausibly, as resulting from the distortions wrought by history. So this is the third book in a trilogy about the beginning of the Compact, focusing on one of Varzil the Good’s sworn enemies and Varzil’s sister, former lovers torn apart by circumstances—but the book isn’t about their romance; their lost love is in the background. It’s not bad if you’re desperate for more Darkover canon, but it lacks any sense of urgency. People are largely sensible and hardworking; Varzil’s enemy Eduin has angst for various compelling reasons, and he ends up a nicely complex character who doesn’t make any evil overlord mistakes, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Maybe Darkover is just too long ago for me, or maybe this was a pure franchise play with no soul in it.
Robin Hobb, Renegade’s Magic: In the third book of the Soldier’s Son trilogy, Nevare is disgraced among his people, the Gernians, and forced into the ways of the enemy Specks, not even in control of his own body. The Speck self inside him has a plan to destroy Gernian expansion utterly. Hobb’s treatment of cultural difference has been the most interesting thing about this series—the Gernians are technology-users who build for the future and value their children’s lives highly, but they’re also generally racist, sexist, environmentally destructive, and determined that other cultures must assimilate or die; the Specks are in tune with nature but heedless of human life and individuality; the few Kidona left around are violent and bitter over the fact that the Specks destroyed their former agrarian existence and then the Gernians destroyed their nomadic existence, leaving them impoverished and despised. In this volume, Nevare finally sees conflict among the Specks, some of whom believe that they need to adapt to Gernian iron—with its deleterious effects on Speck magic—and some of whom seek more militant solutions to preserve Speck ways (an endeavor that also requires changes, since Speck ways didn’t include waging large-scale war on the Gernians).
The Specks and the Gernians can’t even agree, as Nevare says, over whether they’re at war, because they define conflict so differently. And their struggles over territory, culture, and the appropriate treatment of land can’t be resolved by deciding who hit whom first. Nevare doesn’t lose his acceptance of Gernian values—he starts from the premise that his ways are right—but he becomes increasingly clear-eyed about their incommensurable interests, and his commitment to trying to save as many people as he could made me more sympathetic to him than I had been in previous volumes, even when his decisions lead to further death and destruction. It also helped that he shed his reflexive sexism as he matured, making a far-from-inevitable transition to a maturity in which he saw people as shaped, but not determined, by their circumstances.
Though I wouldn’t say this is my favorite of Hobb’s trilogies, I respect the world-building: creating problems between societies that can’t be resolved without winners and losers. I found the ending a bit of a let-down, in part because Nevare ultimately perceives himself as pushed around by magic, having no choice in the things he does. While I understand that as a way of managing his guilt about the damage surrounding his life, it makes him a pretty useless person, and puts his constant agonizing over decisions in a bad light.
Laurell Hamilton, The Harlequin: Hey, Anita has a plot! And no real angst over sleeping with the monsters, and no out-of-control ardeur! She calls herself a succubus, even. And she gets another animal, but that’s almost incidental. I almost expected her to bust out with “I don’t kill monsters. I date them.” Another big bad comes to town—the Harlequin, who are extra-special vampire enforcers, except they’re not following the rules. Edward returns to help out! Along with Olaf the serial killer who’s obsessed with Anita! It’s like Hamilton checked off a fan wishlist. The sad thing is that I no longer care.
Robin Hobb, Renegade’s Magic: In the third book of the Soldier’s Son trilogy, Nevare is disgraced among his people, the Gernians, and forced into the ways of the enemy Specks, not even in control of his own body. The Speck self inside him has a plan to destroy Gernian expansion utterly. Hobb’s treatment of cultural difference has been the most interesting thing about this series—the Gernians are technology-users who build for the future and value their children’s lives highly, but they’re also generally racist, sexist, environmentally destructive, and determined that other cultures must assimilate or die; the Specks are in tune with nature but heedless of human life and individuality; the few Kidona left around are violent and bitter over the fact that the Specks destroyed their former agrarian existence and then the Gernians destroyed their nomadic existence, leaving them impoverished and despised. In this volume, Nevare finally sees conflict among the Specks, some of whom believe that they need to adapt to Gernian iron—with its deleterious effects on Speck magic—and some of whom seek more militant solutions to preserve Speck ways (an endeavor that also requires changes, since Speck ways didn’t include waging large-scale war on the Gernians).
The Specks and the Gernians can’t even agree, as Nevare says, over whether they’re at war, because they define conflict so differently. And their struggles over territory, culture, and the appropriate treatment of land can’t be resolved by deciding who hit whom first. Nevare doesn’t lose his acceptance of Gernian values—he starts from the premise that his ways are right—but he becomes increasingly clear-eyed about their incommensurable interests, and his commitment to trying to save as many people as he could made me more sympathetic to him than I had been in previous volumes, even when his decisions lead to further death and destruction. It also helped that he shed his reflexive sexism as he matured, making a far-from-inevitable transition to a maturity in which he saw people as shaped, but not determined, by their circumstances.
Though I wouldn’t say this is my favorite of Hobb’s trilogies, I respect the world-building: creating problems between societies that can’t be resolved without winners and losers. I found the ending a bit of a let-down, in part because Nevare ultimately perceives himself as pushed around by magic, having no choice in the things he does. While I understand that as a way of managing his guilt about the damage surrounding his life, it makes him a pretty useless person, and puts his constant agonizing over decisions in a bad light.
Laurell Hamilton, The Harlequin: Hey, Anita has a plot! And no real angst over sleeping with the monsters, and no out-of-control ardeur! She calls herself a succubus, even. And she gets another animal, but that’s almost incidental. I almost expected her to bust out with “I don’t kill monsters. I date them.” Another big bad comes to town—the Harlequin, who are extra-special vampire enforcers, except they’re not following the rules. Edward returns to help out! Along with Olaf the serial killer who’s obsessed with Anita! It’s like Hamilton checked off a fan wishlist. The sad thing is that I no longer care.
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I no longer care.
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Anita: ...why couldn't this have been written five years ago? It's everything I've been waiting for, and yet--I agree, I no longer care. I remember the later books reading very rushed and poorly edited; is that still true?
And thanks for the review on Hobb: I read her earlier trilogies but I've found that for an amazing world-builder with an amazing grip on her characters, she has the tendency to depress the hell out of me after I'm done reading her books. I think I'll pass on this one.
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I think I respect Hobb a lot more than I like her, though I enjoyed the Assassin trilogy (I agree, the ending--especially the Fool's ending--was depressing). The ending of this trilogy wasn't depressing in the ordinary sense, but if Nevare was right about the inevitability of doing what the magic wanted him to do, then it retroactively turned a lot of what went before into irrelevant and wasteful detours, and that's sad.
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MZB. Huh. I completely missed that someone was writing new Darkover. I may need to check them out whilst at the beach.
RH. I was almost completely unimpressed with the first book of this series -- silly me. I kept waiting for something to happen! -- and so haven't read the next two. And as someone said above, great world-building, great characters, great plots... but she leaves me depressed nearly every time. Except maybe for the end of the Live Traders trilogy. What's not to love about the restoration of dragons to the world? *g*
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That's what I said too!!! But don't worry ... it won't last. "Blood Noir" is right back the same old oversexed, under plotted "story". At least in this one the main orgy of sex she completely glosses over due to a memory block from good old Marmee ...
Why do I keep reading? I'm so tired of the journey ... I just want her to get where she's supposed to go (whatever that is, queen of everything and everyone?? *shrugs*) ... I'm really starting to wonder however if LKH has any idea of where this is going.