Empire of Ivory - Naomi Novik

Returning to the world of Temeraire like an old friend, we pick up in Empire of Ivory with every dragon in Britain--save Temeraire himself--suffering the effects of the dragon plague. Many have already died, leaving the Corps in dire straits. When Temeraire is exposed, but does not sicken, they begin to wonder if his earlier cold, cured by mushrooms at the Cape on their journey to China, may have been along the same lines. Laurence and Temeraire, and others of their cohort still sick but marginally well enough to travel, head out on Riley's dragon transport ship again to try to recover the cure. Blah blah, things happen, eventually they find the mushrooms, but they also find a civilization in the African interior that again challenges Europe's notions of how dragons and humans must live together. Laurence and Temeraire's crew are taken captive, they rescue them, Capetown is attacked by the African dragons, the Europeans are driven out of Africa, but they return to Britain with the cure. The most interesting part of this book is when Laurence discovers that the military has sent a captured French dragon back to the French--after exposing it to the plague. Without the cure, thousands of dragons all over Europe will die, and so Temeraire and Laurence together decide to steal the cure and bring it to the French, in the hopes of staving off such utter destruction, rending both of them traitors.

This is... not the strongest of the Temeraire series. It's not bad, per se, it just feels like a stepping stone between bigger issues. The previous storylines were almost mandatory based on logical progression: Temeraire must fight in the war for Britain, China must eventually find out, he must return to them to figure out his place in the world, they must return to Britain, etc. This book more feels like an excuse to explore the alternate history culture of another continent, with the only real development plot point coming right at the very end of the book.

I get the commercial sense of having more books in a series (see also every goddamn YA trilogy that could be condensed into one) but it makes me wonder what this series would be like condensed into a more efficient form. I imagine there would be only four books, instead of the total of seven. I also imagine I might skim less pages of introspection and philosophy. I want the meat of the plot, the rest is just sauce.

Still, there are some rather clever moments with the characters that I enjoy, and it's not like I'm going to quit the series or anything. Clearly there's something working, even if I'm getting rather more sauce than meat.

"Jane," Laurnece said, "will you marry me?"
"Why, no, dear fellow," she said, looking up in surprise from the chair where she was drawing on her boots. "It would be a puzzle to give you orders, you know, if I had vowed to obey; it could hardly be comfortable. But it is very handsome of you to have offered," she added, and standing up kissed him heartily, before she put on her coat."

Overall: 3 stars

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Shades of Milk and Honey - Mary Robinette Kowal

My relationship with e-books has had its ups and downs. Initially I was one of those squares who was all, "Real book 4eva! Smell of paper! Musty! Happy!" and then I moved five times and after lugging twenty plus boxes of books everywhere I began to rethink think my stance on seeing books as something to 'collect'. After that I got a Kobo and began exploring the world of free epubs, and eventually for convenience I've migrated to the Kindle app on my phone and computer. The convenience is undeniable: I only have to think of a book and I can find it on Amazon, purchase it in an instant, send it to my phone, and start reading. But as I learn more about some of Amazon's business practices, including the poor treatment of workers in their warehouses and the Amazon/Hatchett fiasco of yesteryear, I'm really considering changing my spending habits to focus more locally. It's a tough call, trying to weigh my consumer conscience with consumer convenience.

Long story short, this book is an example of why I'm just so hesitant to cut that convenience cord. I found this book solely through Amazon recommendations: Jane Austen plus magic? Count me in. It's like Temeraire (Napoleon plus dragons!) but from a lady perspective. And I am all about the lady perspective, being one myself.

So the main story of this book is about Jane and Melody Ellsworth, unmarried sisters of a fairly respectable family. A few cliches jump out at me here, particularly in that Jane is the plain but talented one, and Melody is the pretty but untalented one, and they each are jealous of the other for what they lack. Once you get past that, you've got a fairly Austen-esque story of love triangles, where Melody likes both Mr. Dunkirk and Captain Livingston, and both seem interested in her, but Jane also like Mr. Dunkirk, and Mr. Dunkirk's sister Elizabeth is interested in Captain Livingston, and then there's the artist Mr. Vincent who also is forming an attachment to one of these ladies, etc. etc. Add in a dash of glamour, magic used to create various illusions that is as important as painting or music to a lady's drawing room accomplishments.

The story is okay, but you really have to like that kind of thing to start with. Which I do! It's a niche that I fit neatly into, like people who like romance novels. My only real gripe is the characterization. Jane and Melody are fairly developed characters, but it's them we see the most of. The rest seem fairly flat, which may be due in part to our POV resting solely on Jane, and the restrictions of Regency society. The protocols of social interactions at the time so heavily emphasized propriety that it makes many of the interactions seem similar, and so it's realistic that a girl like Jane would not get to know the intricacies of Mr. Dunkirk or Mr. Vincent's personalities, and by consequence the reader, seeing through her eyes, would also see only what's on the surface. But it does leave our male heroes at a disadvantage because it's hard to root for one of them, when you're not emotionally connecting with any of them. A good romance is romancing the reader as much as the heroine, and without that connection, it's infinitely more difficult.

Also, once we got to the climax of the story, it and the resolution suddenly seemed to flow very quickly compared to the rest of the story. I had to go back and reread the climax to really understand what had happened, who had been shot, etc. and then it felt like within a very short span of time, the happily-ever-after was wrapped up in a nice little bow. It felt a little easy. I would have liked to see a few more obstacles to Jane's romance, after it was acknowledged. Writers are here to throw rocks at their characters: that's what we're here to see. I don't feel it diminished the story, necessarily, but perhaps was a missed opportunity.

But it's still one of those fun reads, a tasty little snack to fill the spaces between bigger, tougher books. I'll probably go on to read the rest of the series as well.

Overall: 3.5 stars

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Black Powder War - Naomi Novik

Welcome back to the Temeraire train! Still winding my way through a re-read so that I can pick up the latest book in the series right on the heels of the last. In Black Powder War we continue Temeraire and Laurence's journeys, leaving China after Laurence's adoption by the Chinese emperor when the pair receive urgent orders from home to return by way of Turkey and pick up some dragon eggs on the way (a bit like calling one's spouse to get eggs and milk on the way home, but much longer and with more danger). A lot of time in this book is spent traveling, which again, common to the previous books, does not much advance in the way of plot. They employ a guide named Tharkay who appears to be half British and half Mongolian, and implies a certain amount of suffering in consequence by the chip on his shoulder. They cross deserts and mountains, instigate an avalanche and befriend a large group of ferals, reach Turkey only to be denied the agreed-upon eggs, steal the eggs and flee (dropping one in the process, which I'll be honest, is pretty heartbreaking!). They get caught up in the war between France and Prussia, and Granby rather accidentally graduates to captain of a fire-breathing Kazilik from their Turkish eggs. Finally they arrive home, battered and bruised and worse for the wear, to find that all of Britain's dragons save themselves and the ferals they've brought along are sick with a plague and Britain's war effort is in serious danger.

Again the plot often seems as if nothing in particular is happening--there's a lot of flying, a lot of traveling, some waiting, some eating, some philosophizing. But you don't get to the third book in a series without knowing ahead of time that's what you're getting into, and must be okay with it at that point. Novik's got a talent for making that work.

But is this book that gives me the most egregious examples of terrible sentences. I give you:

Maden, who in his trade often served as a factor for British visitors, spoke excellent English, and his family also; they sat to table five, Maden's two sons being already established in their own homes; besides his wife only his daughter Sara remained at home, a young woman well out of the schoolroom: not yet thirty but old to be unmarried with so good a dowry as Maden seemed able to provide, and her looks and manner were pleasing if in a foreign mode, dark hair and brows striking against fair skin, very like her elegant mother.

That is one sentence. One sentence with two semicolons, one colon, and eight commas. I run out of breath just reading the thing. Semicolons are that tricky punctuation that everyone seems to love but few manage to use sparingly enough that they don't become obtrusively obnoxious. Let's boil it down very simply: try not to use them at all, but if you must, use them as little as possible. Periods are not the enemy. Ending sentences does not diminish your work. A period is a breath point, an internal signal for the brain to pause and catch itself; semicolons and commas do not give you that. Look, I just used one! Once.

Incidentally I've been reading about the semicolon tattoos recently and as an amateur punctuation fan I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, I appreciate the message, but the metaphor doesn't carry. "A semicolon is used where the author could have ended a sentence and chose not to," so also apply that to your life. It's hard to criticize, because I think many would take it as criticizing the message, which I emphatically repeat that I am not. That said, any writer worth their salt would end that sentence with "...but they probably should have ended the sentence after all, really, because periods are important and semicolons are overused and overvalued."

Sigh. The life of a pedant.

Anyway. Another solid entry in the Temeraire series. I will note that for all my criticism I did not find these kinds of semicolon issues in Novik's most recent release Uprooted--or at least, they were few enough that they weren't obtrusive, which is really the goal. A writer can certainly (and probably should) improve their writing skill with each book as they learn more and more about their craft, so I do not lobby this as insults against Novik herself by any means. I still envy her ability to weave a story and hey, she's certainly doing better than I am!

Overall: 4 stars

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Throne of Jade - Naomi Novik

In an attempt to get through old books (again) and give them away, I'm burning through the Temeraire series this month at a pretty consistent speed. Maybe it's because the other books I'm reading are just not very interesting, and I keep veering back to the fun reads! As helpful as craft books are, they're incredibly boring, let's admit. Sometimes you just want to shut your brain down a little bit and get lost in something fun.

Interesting cover variant.

In this, the second book of the series, Temeraire and Laurence are confronted by Chinese envoys who have heard of Britain's acquisition of a Celestial dragon. Yet again, we have authorities trying to separate the two, in a kind of star-crossed-lovers battle to stay together. Eventually it is agreed for the envoys, including a prince, Yongxing, to accompany Temeraire AND Laurence AND his crew back to China. Naturally the envoys still want to separate them, and naturally Temeraire and Laurence intend to resist. Once there the pair learns how differently dragons are treated in China, much to the disadvantage of Britain's coverts. Here we don't see dragons used as slaves to the British military cause, but treated as people in their own rights, able to travel the cities at will, purchase goods, or even starve. The price of freedom, one might say.

Here, too, Temeraire meets Lien, the albino Celestial and companion to Yongxing doomed to become the series' regular antagonist in future books. Interesting how her white color, the color of death, is seen as exceedingly unlucky, and after Yongxing's death her life pretty much falls apart because of it. You can't help but feel something for her, even as she seeks to return the damage on Temeraire. You can see how it comes from a place of hurt and anger, and so hats off to Novik for so deftly portraying that kind of turmoil, especially in a non-POV character.

 The sentence structure is often really clunky again, but that's something I want to address further with the next book, Black Powder War. Right now I'm focusing more on analyzing how to plot, with the idea that structure at a sentence level is something that is infinitely easier to teach than structure at a plot level. The Temeraire books are interesting in that, as far as external plot, there's not actually a whole lot of arc to get through. The first book was, essentially: Laurence meets Temeraire, they train, they fight some battles. What gave the book depth was exploring their relationship and that with the people around them. Here again, we find a relatively simple external plot. Laurence and Temeraire travel by ship to China, a few things happen along the way, they get to China, they meet Temeraire's family relations, there are attempts on Laurence's life, and then everything is resolved. It's not particularly complex, but it's the way that we explore this that makes this series work. I think this is owed to Novik's characterization ability (also something I want to work on in my own work) and her ability to lay out a believable historical setting with a draconic twist.

Overall it's a good read. I guess I can't claim it's revolutionary or literary gold or anything, but it's fun and entertaining, and pretty appropriate for a younger reader, too. It explores some philosophical issues in an interesting way, especially in this book, where we delve further into the subject of slavery, both human and dragon. Another issue it picks away at is class, though couched in terms of Chinese imperialism. An interesting way to talk about various issues of freedom and rights.

Overall: 3 stars

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His Majesty's Dragon - Naomi Novik

The Temeraire series is one I actually started a couple years back, but spotting Blood of Tyrants on the shelf at Half Price Books reminded me that I had forgotten to continue it once I caught up to (I think) Victory of Eagles. Naturally, I can't just pick up the unread books, though. My memory is so terrible that I barely remember what happened in previous books--a mixed blessing, shall we say, for though I have to remind myself of what-happened-when it does make for pleasant rereads. It's practically a new book! Ahem. Anyway, that meant that clearly, I had to restart back at the beginning. Luckily I still had most of the paperbacks still on my shelves, and they're such a quick read that it ain't no thing.

A not-particularly-accurate-to-text Temeraire. Todd Lockwood pretty much draws all dragons exactly the same.

So His Majesty's Dragon is the first book in the series, and opens with Captain Will Laurence capturing a French vessel during the Napoleonic Wars. By chance this vessel happens to be carrying a prized dragon egg, and it's close to hatching. England is so hard-up for aerial cavalry that they can't risk letting this dragon go wild, so it's up to the members of the crew to try and harness it, for the good of the nation. Naturally, it's Laurence himself who wins the prize, and his life is forever changed by the deep bond that grows between man and dragon. Laurence and Temeraire must face the prejudices of Navy, family, and Aerial Corps; rush through their training to help in the war; and learn how to navigate not only a new place in the world, but also the tricky political position of having acquired a priceless Chinese breed, which alone may be a grievous insult to the Emperor. 

Much of this book is devoted to establishing the relationship between the main pair, and to Laurence learning the differences between his old and new life. The incident that stands out the most, naturally, is that of Captain Rankin and his dragon Levitas. Laurence befriends him at first, I think grateful for anyone to show him the kindness of acquaintance, when so many aerial men treated him coldly as an interloper. But when Laurence meets poor little Levitas, the neglected and harshly-treated dragon that aches for a kind word, he doesn't make the connection between Levitas and the cold treatment of Rankin by the other aviators as well.

The way Novik portrays the dragons here are like hyper-intelligent dogs, in the sense that they seem to ache deeper than anything for the bond between them and their handlers. It's not as if Rankin, say, beats his partner, but he withholds all affection, and the way that Levitas responds is quite heartbreaking.

"Stay here quietly; I do not want to hear that you have been pestering the crew when I return," Ranking said sharply to Levitas, after dismounting; he threw the reins of his harness around a post, as if Levitas were a horse to be tethered. "You can eat when we return to Loch Laggan."
"I do not want to bother them, and I can wait to eat, but I am a little thirsty," Levitas said in a small voice. "I tried to fly as fast as I could," he added. 

I guess in this way I understand aviators like I understand dog people. Those of us who know the heartstring tug of a dog who only wants to be near you, touch you, be with you; know the same affection that flows from these dragons. I compare this kind of bond to the kind we see in, say, McCaffrey's Pern series. The dragons there are, too, separate beings, and extremely intelligent; but they also share a kind of telepathic bond, and I think the line between human and dragon gets blurred a lot. Which is not a terrible concept, but by this point (McCaffrey began writing Pern in 1967) we've seen a LOT of telepathic dragons, and it's getting a little worn. In Novik's series we spend a lot more time exploring the social effects of dragons existing: can you consider them human? Beast? Somewhere in between? Where is the line drawn? What rights do dragons inherently have? Can you very well keep them in essential slavery if you consider them sentient?

Novik's worldbuilding here also heavily reminds me of Kim Stanley Robinson's The Years of Rice and Salt. In that book, Robinson theorizes about what the world would be like the black plague had killed off nearly all of Europe's population, leaving China and Islam as the major world powers. You can tell that a lot of thought went into the building of this alternate history, thinking of how that gap in European power would lead to this effect, to this effect, and so on and so forth. Novik, similarly, has obviously placed a lot of thought into what the world would be like with these dragons as transport and weapons. In this way it's as much the setting that fascinates as the plot itself, which, I'll be entirely honest, isn't particularly mind-blowing or anything. But it's comfortable, like a warm fireplace on a rainy day. It doesn't have to excite to be pleasant.

All in all I do really enjoy this series, and while I have a tendency to do rereads of whole series every couple years (coughGameofThronescough) once the last book is out (slated 2016) I'll probably retire it in favor of new reads.

Overall: 4 stars

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My Real Children - Jo Walton

Alzheimer's is a disease that I think most of the modern world is familiar with now, but it's relatively young in terms of the human race. It's only been recognized as a distinct disease since the beginning of the 20th century. I think it's likely that Alzheimer's has existed for much longer than this, but due to two factors, never in such recognizable numbers as those we see today. One factor is that Alzheimer's was likely lumped in with other forms of dementia, but the other being that only within the last century or so have we as the human race been regularly living into our eighties, nineties, and at times beyond. Aging diseases are more prevalent because we're still alive to experience them. Now, as the baby boomer generation moves into the ages when these diseases are cropping up, we're likely to see more and more memoirs of Alzheimer's and its effect on family members, akin to the cancer memoir or the addiction memoir.

It's seems like a logical progression for these themes to then show up in fantasy and science fiction. Jo Walton does this with such an interesting twist: in the modern day, Patricia is in a nursing home. She remembers two different lives: one where she is Trish, married to Mark and has four children, and President Kennedy was killed by a bomb. One where she is Pat, raising three children with her partner Bee, and President Kennedy declines to rerun for office after the nuclear obliteration of Miami and Kiev. She seems to slip between both of these timelines, remembering some days that the bathroom is on the left, and some days that it is on the right.

What I find most interesting about Patricia's dilemma is not just the idea of which timeline is real, but which timeline does she WANT to be real. Logically they can't both be real--although that is somewhat debatable when we're already playing fast and loose with time and reality--but there's severe advantages and disadvantages to each timeline. As Pat she was much more personally happy with her partner and her life, but the world suffers from nuclear fallout and widespread radiation-induced thyroid cancer. As Trish her personal life is significantly more difficult via her terrible marriage, but the world is much more stable overall. And either way, there's children. How could she choose between her children, knowing that any choice would render the others out of existence? And that's assuming she can even make that choice. She may, for as much time as she has left, spend the rest of her days drifting between these two worlds.

I've been thinking a lot about scene vs summary lately, and this book is a excellent example to bring in to that debate. Often it's really easy for people like myself, who want to write sci fi and fantasy, to slip into just a little too much summary, to get across all the worldbuilding information we feel we need. Scene, however, is a lot more powerful way of delivering that, if more difficult. In scene all that information has to feel natural, or we feel like The Real Inspector Hound: "Hello, the drawing-room of Lady Muldoon's country residence one morning in early spring?...I'm afraid there is no one of that name here, this is all very mysterious and I'm sure it's leading up to something, I hope nothing is amiss for we, that is Lady Muldoon and her houseguests, are here cut off from the world, including Magnus, the wheelchair-ridden half-brother of her ladyship's husband Lord Albert Muldoon who ten years ago went out for a walk on the cliffs and was never seen again--and all alone, for they had no children." Yes, that's dialogue. Stoppard's mocking the dialogue-as-exposition and for good reason: it's awkward, clunky, and completely artificial. So it takes a lighter touch to convey this information in scene than it would in summary, where the narrator can just straight out say what happened in the past.

Walton, however, strikes a really pleasant balance between scene and summary. A lot of this story is covering such a vast amount of time--Patricia's entire life--that it's almost required that a good chunk of it would have to be summary. We can skim over her college years without having to be bogged down into any specific instance, for example. And then we can move seamlessly into the exact moment she met Mark and he walked her home, summarize the next few years that they spent apart, and then right back into scene when he asks her to marry him over the phone. "Now or never," he says, and her answer splits her world right in two.

In addition, this is a very 'quiet' story. It's got a kind of understated drama that I think is a really deft, subtle touch. This is a kind of vibe that I want for a particular piece that I've been working on, so it's really helpful to see a successful example. It appears to not be for everyone--I guess some people really want that high-energy drama--but I found it to be a nice departure from the typical.

“Confused today,” they wrote on her notes. “Confused. Less confused. Very confused.” That last was written frequently, sometimes abbreviated by the nurses to just “VC,” which made her smile, as if she were sufficiently confused to be given a medal for it. Her name was on the notes too—just her first name, Patricia, as if in old age she were demoted to childhood, and denied both the dignity of surname and title and the familiarity of the form of her name she preferred.

Full opening excerpt at Tor.

Overall: 5 stars

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