spocksbro

This was a very disappointing reference work. I’ve mentioned in other reviews of similar books that I live for this kind of information. I’m not a follower of the Wheel of Time or A Song of Ice and Fire but I’ve got the encyclopedias. Nor am I a great fan of Peter Hamilton but I’ve got The Confederation Handbook. Now, I am happily anticipating Peter Capaldi as the Doctor. Anyone who watches a lot of British TV will immediately recognize Capaldi. He’s one of those character actors who appears in everything. I first saw him playing Vera, a cross-dressing prostitute, in the original Prime Suspect series; and I most recently caught him playing King Charles II in The Devil’s Whore. And he’s no stranger to Doctor Who, having played the father in the Pompeii episode (“The Fires of Pompeii”). I’m looking forward to his interpretation of the Doctor.

It’s odd but recently I had been contemplating what I found lacking in the new Doctor Who, and I had come to the conclusion that – among other things – we needed a more mature incarnation (Capaldi is in his 50s) [note 2].

All this is rather beside the point and a long-winded way of getting around to why I found this particular book a disappointment, so ahead with the review.

My chief complaint is the author's appalling lack of discrimination. Each entry gets a page. This is fine for characters/races who appear for a single story (cf., the Zygons or the Krillitanes, to name two from the old and new series, respectively). But considering their central role in both series, don’t the Daleks deserve a bit more? And certainly the various Doctors deserve more than a page that is mostly white space and factoids?

There’s nothing substantive here. This book doesn’t hold a candle to [b:Ahistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe|678268|Ahistory An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe|Lance Parkin|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1177062068s/678268.jpg|664262], a gloriously convoluted attempt to reconcile 40 years of TV shows that was informative and fascinating, and highly recommended for the Who fan.

As for this let-down, I can only recommend the book to Whovian completists (and even here, it’ll disappoint, since it doesn’t cover all of the myriad races and characters who’ve popped up since the first episode in 1963).

NOTE 1: If I were to commend any role Tennant’s played it would be his Hamlet more than his Doctor. I picked up Tennant’s Hamlet a few years ago not expecting much based on my experience with Doctor Who but was blown away by the performance.

NOTE 2: Assuming Capaldi is not the final Doctor, I was also thinking that BBC should push the envelope for his next regenerations. A nonwhite Doctor? (For some reason, I keep seeing Idris Elba in my head.)



And why couldn’t the Doctor regenerate as a woman? Alas, these will likely remain unrealized dreams limited to my fanfic version of the Whovian universe.

But speaking of canon. In the old Doctor Who, Time Lords were limited to 12 regenerations. In fact, one of the Master’s many crimes was stealing bodies so he could live beyond his final incarnation. Will the new series simply ignore the old rule or will they contrive some means around it? I look forward to the answer.

I have mentioned in reviews of modern adaptations of Medea that she is one of my favorite mythological characters. Her story in the hands of various authors is endlessly fascinating to me. It’s a tale that touches on themes of love and hate, obsession, faith and loyalty, and in its most profound reading reflects human beings in their most complex nature. Up to now, my favorite translation has been Frederic Prokosch’s, written in 1947 and which I have in a collection of Greek plays edited by Dudley Fitts. When I read it, I thought it read easily, with an energy I had found lacking in others. With Robin Robertson’s Medea, I have a new favorite, though I would still recommend Prokosch’s. Robertson’s interpretation is even crisper, more energetic and more lyrical than Prokosch’s, and made me appreciate Euripides’ subtlety more than ever before. (Note: I’ve yet to read Carl Müller’s version. I liked his versions of Prometheus Bound and Herakles. He tends to be more prosy than poetic so I have a feeling it’ll read more like Prokosch than Robertson.) Below is a brief example of the differences I’m getting at. It’s the tutor’s observation to the nurse about Jason’s actions and human nature. The first is Robertson’s take, then Prokosch’s, then the Loeb Classical Library’s version:

What mortal man is not guilty?
A new woman in the bed
leaves no room for anyone else.
He has forgotten everything,
including his boys.
Has it dawned on you
that we’re each of us human:
we put ourselves above all others.

And which of us has not done the same? Haven’t you learned long ago, my dear, how each man loves himself far more than his neighbor? Some, perhaps, from honest motives; some for private gain. So you see how Jason deserts his children for the pleasure of his new bride.

As what mortal is not? Because of his new bride, the father does not love these boys: are you only now learning that each man loves himself more than others, some justly, others for the sake of gain?

As I wrote, Robertson has made me appreciate Euripides’ complexity more, and upon reflecting in the course of writing this, I’ve come to see Medea and Jason as two sides of the human coin. On one side is Medea, who is close to the Homeric heroic ideal; on the obverse is Jason, who is a “modern” man. Neither image is particularly flattering but both carry conviction because both ring (all too) true.

What follows are simply some of my favorite passages. Lines that – for whatever reason – struck me. The more I find myself reading Euripides, the more I find myself liking him, so I definitely recommend him. Ideally, we’d read him in the original Greek but as most of us have let our Ancient Greek get a bit rusty, seek him out in your native tongue at the very least.

NURSE:
I’ll try, of course, but I doubt I’ll persuade her.
When any of us approach
you can see her hackles rise – like a lioness
when you get between her and her cubs.
If only we could charm her with music;
but those old composers were such fools:
they wrote melodies only for the happy times –
festivals, grand banquets, celebrations.
None of them thought to make a music for real life,
music that would salve our wounds
and soothe our bitter griefs. Didn’t they see
these wounds and griefs destroy us,
and a music that healed such sorrow
would be precious?
What is the point of music and song at a feast?
People are happy when they’re full.
We need a tune when there’s no food there to eat.

MEDEA:
My reputation, yet again! It goes before me like a curse.
My father should never have allowed me an education,
never raised me to be intelligent.
Those who are out of the ordinary
attract jealously and bitterness.
If you try to bring new wisdom to fools,
the fools are furious;
if your mind matches the minds
of the city’s intellectuals
then they’re threatened.

MEDEA:
There are no names for something
as foul and spineless as you.
A man who is no man at all.
How dare you come to us here,
where you are most despised.
Is this your idea of courage or heroism,
to wrong your family and then visit them?
Loathesome, shameless, evil man.

CHORUS:
On the matter of children: many times we’ve argued,
many times we’ve lost. Men’s skill in rhetoric
is more subtle, more practiced than our own.
But women have a Muse, too, who gives us wisdom,
and this is our opinion: those men and women
who have never brought up children are, by nature, blessed.
They never suffer those extremes.

Look at the parents, worn down by love and worry.
Are their little ones sick? Are they hungry?
Will they grow up well, or badly? And worst of all,
after years of this, the fear all parents know:
that they’ll outlive their children. That Death will come,
with his casual, careless hand, and knock them off the world.

Yet we persist – in search of love, or heirs,
or some brief brilliant proof that we exist –
and the fruit of all this anxious love is grief.

MEDEA:
Hate on! I am so sick of your pathetic voice. [This last line, taken out of context, may not make much sense. It comes at the end of a brilliant, bitter back and forth between Medea and Jason at the end of the play, and I shudder to imagine the loathing and contempt with which a good actor would deliver it.]

This is the second book in Nancy Springer's series about Sherlock Holmes' younger sister Enola. She's in London and trying to stay below the radar of her brothers while still doing good, and the stresses of maintaining several identities is beginning to grind Enola down.

She stumbles upon an apparent elopement of an upper caste daughter and only just manages to keep out of her brother Sherlock's hands while solving the mystery.

As with the first book in the series ([b:The Case of the Missing Marquess|606928|The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes Mysteries, #1)|Nancy Springer|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309288606s/606928.jpg|3313623]), this one is a fast paced, enjoyable read. The Mesmerism plot is hackneyed but - upon reflection - is reminiscent of Conan Doyle's style of writing in some of his Sherlock stories.

Highly recommended both to adults and/or that adult looking to find something exciting for his/her "rugrat" to read.

Sandi's review nails it when she writes "Existence is a giant mess of a novel."

At its heart, this is another attempt to resolve Fermi's paradox, which asks the question, "Where is everybody?" The basic resolution is reminiscent of [a:Alastair Reynolds|51204|Alastair Reynolds|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1369753656p2/51204.jpg]'s in his Revelation Space series. And I liked that aspect of the novel, and, if Brin had contained himself to that story, then I might have been be able to give it that extra star.

But he doesn't. This book is all over the map with multiple story lines and POVs that - as many reviews here point out - go nowhere (i.e., the Hacker Sander/dolphin thread, the Basque Chimera/Neanderthal story or the Autism Plague).

Ultimately, the chief reason I can't recommend this novel is an essential philosophical difference between the author and myself. Like many of the hard SF writers today he leans strongly toward libertarianism and a childlike and absolute faith that technology will answer all the myriad problems we face. True, there are nods toward the unintended, often maleficent consequences of constant "progress" but the only possible answer to them is more, more, more technology. Anyone who might have a different viewpoint is a bad guy (i.e., The Prophet) or is sneeringly referred to as a "do-gooder."

Which leads into my second philosophical objection - A pathological disdain/dislike (bordering on hatred?) of Nature. All things - in this book - are meant to be used or modified to the benefit of the human race. And not only that but humans are meant to bring all the "benefits" of consciousness to other beings (i.e., dolphins). It's the greatest difficulty I had with Brin's "Uplift" series, and Existence often reads like a Christian fundamentalist bringing the Gospel to the Godless savage.

For all his nods toward diversity and the richness of human experience, Brin's universe (for me) is a bleak, soulless, mechanistic nightmare.

And a sexless one as well.

Not in the sense that there's no sex (though, fortunately, Brin avoids any - inevitably - awkward sex scenes) but one in which the only major female character (Tor Povlov) is rendered genderless very early by a terrorist attack that leaves her a cyborg. And all the other women in the book are motivated by maternal instincts.

I wish I were exaggerating but even the token woman scientist - Emily Tang - is motivated to acquire alien technology because she learns that they have artificial-womb technology.

All right - I should point out that Brin is brimming with interesting notions. I've reached the point where that's about the only reason I read hard SF anymore. I'm not a Luddite who would see modern humans reduced to their hunting/gathering ancestors. I retain a belief - perhaps as equally naive as Brin's in technology - that there's a balance to be found in how the world is and how we would like it to be, and that we can find it. But I can't see it in Brin et al.'s visions.

Always on the look out for things to stock my nieces' bookshelves with and being a fan of Sherlock Holmes, I was very pleased to come across Wealhtheow Wylfing's reviews of this series on my update feed, especially as it's Hailey's birthday this month (May).

Enola Holmes is the much younger sister of Mycroft and Sherlock, and for the past 14 years has been living with her mother on the family's estate, Ferndell Hall. When Mum disappears on Enola's birthday, the girl comes under the direct guardianship of Mycroft. A state of affairs that quickly grows intolerable since Mycroft's (and Sherlock's) idea of a proper lady includes corsets and boarding schools. Fortunately, Enola is a worthy fruit of the tree that produced her brothers, and her mother has left her clues that give her the resources to strike out on her own, escaping to London, where she quickly becomes involved in the case of a missing heir. All the while, she's also trying to find out what happened to her mother.

This is a very fun, very fast read with a likable character in Enola and is definitely recommended for the 10-14 crowd, but also worth a look if your a fan of the Great Detective.

I'm not a big Star Wars fan beyond the original three movies and [a:Timothy Zahn|12479|Timothy Zahn|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1215545810p2/12479.jpg]'s Thrawn books but this is a well drawn and reasonably interesting look at the origins of the Jedi.

Unfortunately, I listened to this on Audio CD in the car and was unable to take even cursory notes so what follows is a list of impressions it made upon me and "things" that stuck in my mind.

* As a whole, the book looks at the relationship between violence and religion. Carroll argues that religious practice developed because humans had to reconcile the necessity of violence (if only in killing animals to live) with the pangs of conscience that arose within them. That need to sacralize violence only became more important after the Agricultural Revolution c. 12,000 BC, which saw the rise of sacrificial cults. (He interprets the story of Abraham nearly sacrificing Isaac as a myth justifying the end of human sacrifice, for example.)

* But religion is like a game of whack-a-mole. It doesn't eliminate violence, it channels it into socially acceptable actions. It's in this context that he discusses the development of Christianity in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, setting it against the near constant state of revolt that afflicted Roman Judaea from about 60 to 138, when Bar Kochba's rebellion was savagely suppressed. The Jewish Christians were eliminated along with their nonbelieving Jewish cousins (the Romans not being big on doctrinal distinctions) and the Gentiles and Hellenized Jewish converts of the Diaspora carried on Jesus' legacy. The disastrous consequence (in Carroll's argument): Two millennia of anti-Semitism.

* I wish he would have spent more time on a notion he raises in discussing America's relationship with Jerusalem and that's the infantilization of religion as an unintended consequence of the US's separation of church and state. This is common to Western civilization as a whole as the apparent separation between knowledge and faith becomes more pronounced but is most evident (according to Carroll) in America.

* I was also fascinated by his discussion of how the notion of not sacrificing the youth of a nation (his interpretation of Abraham & Isaac, see above) was turned on its head to justify just that, particularly in the context of the First World War, Zionism and the current Islamist reliance on suicide bombers.

In the end, I enjoyed the book (though not enough to track down a physical copy - not at this time, anyway). Philosophically, Carroll and I are often on the same page, and his idea of "good religion" mirrors my own. But I think that's its problem when it comes to speaking to a broader audience. Carroll can be very persuasive in his interpretations of what the Bible is "really" saying but - in the end - he can muster no greater justification for them than others whose interpretations differ. I'm reminded of [a:Stephen R. Prothero|84485|Stephen R. Prothero|http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1271803921p2/84485.jpg]'s [b:God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter|7655375|God Is Not One The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter|Stephen R. Prothero|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347507888s/7655375.jpg|10226193], where that author argues that the "God" of the world's major religions is not the same entity. And even within a religious tradition, "God" means different things to different people. Carroll's "God" and his "religion" will appeal to certain people but will remain unconvincing - if not downright blasphemous(1) - to others.

Recommended if only because of the provocations Carroll offers to our considered understanding of religion. In that regard, he's particularly good for the ancient Israelite material and the European Reformation; he's relatively light, however, on Islamic and doesn't even consider non-Western Christian movements.

(1) In his final chapter, Carroll gets all New Age-y and mystical, writing statements of seemingly profound wisdom that turn out upon reflection to not say much at all. And - to the dismay of Christian readers, at least - rejects the need for salvation entirely. This last part is the weakest section of the book, no question.

I finished this Tuesday and since I have to take it back to the library on Friday, I will have a real review by then.

To tide you over till that happy day - This is a well-written, fascinating look at a particular moment in Tolkien's life that deepened my understanding of Tolkien's work and made me appreciate them even more.

Highly recommended.

[b:Kushiel's Dart|153008|Kushiel's Dart (Phèdre's Trilogy #1)|Jacqueline Carey|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328168291s/153008.jpg|2990010] blew me away when it came out.

Carey showed real verve and talent in exploring the world of Terre d’Ange and Elua’s commandment to “love as thou wilt” with interesting characters and an involving story. There wasn’t quite as much energy in the second trilogy – [b:Kushiel's Scion|153007|Kushiel's Scion (Imriel's Trilogy, #1)|Jacqueline Carey|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1344265086s/153007.jpg|39896] et al. – but we were still in Terre d’Ange and I was entertained by the author’s continuing look at the implications of following Elua’s teaching.

Unfortunately, this first book of the new trilogy lacks everything that made the first two interesting.

I’m not going to spend more time dissecting the book because I don’t think it’s worth it. I still want to like Carey – she’s proved that when she has a character and a story she cares about she can write well (I can still vividly recall the scene when Phedre is being skinned alive in the first trilogy) but she has yet to rediscover that Muse.

Unfortunately, I can’t recommend Naamah’s Kiss and I can’t bring myself to continue with the other two books in the series, I have far more interesting things on my shelf, but I will continue to hope that – if she returns to Terre d’Ange – Carey will be able to reignite that passion that flowered in me when I first took up Phedre’s tale.

If you’re a fan of the Malazan Book of the Fallen, forget everything you ever thought you knew about the Tiste, the Jaghut, or anything or anyone else you encountered in that series. Better yet – since Erikson here and other authors in my recent reading have emphasized that the stories we tell ourselves are but simplifications, rationalizations and justifications to force the world to make sense – do remember what you’ve learned about the author’s world and weigh it against what you learn and what’s hinted at in Forge of Darkness.

Forge is typically Erikson – a sprawling, multi-POV tour de force where several stories play out at once. The author is getting better at keeping his tale focused, however. Many reviewers of The Fallen remark that things only begin to come together around book three, and – for my money – Erikson doesn’t really begin to tell the story he wants to until book five (at least). Here, though, Erikson has better control. There are three foci: Anomander, the First Son of Mother Dark, and the people in his orbit; Draconus, Mother Dark’s Consort, and those swept up in his wake; and Urusander, retired leader of Urusander’s Legion, one of the defenders of Kurald Galain in a recent war with the Forulkan (aka, the Forkrul Assail). And it’s all to the better that these three principals rarely take center stage; the story is told from the point of view of their followers and allies.

Erikson is also getting better at writing scenes with emotional impact. I’ve put what follows in a “spoiler” tag because (1) it’s an extreme example of my assertion about Erikson’s growth as a writer, and (2) it involves rape, and I know that will turn many people off of reading the book. You have to trust me that it’s not gratuitous, it’s not voyeuristic, and it’s not in any way pleasant to read (it’s reminiscent of Hetan’s mutilation and ordeal). In The Fallen, Stonny’s rape at the hands of a Pannion Domin soldier happens off-stage. We see the outward consequences of the crime but scant attempt to get into her head. In Forge, the gloves come off and we witness a brutal – and fatal – gang rape and do get into the head of one of the rapists, Narad, a man who fell into soldiering with Urusander’s Legion by chance. He’s a potentially interesting character as Erikson appears to be exploring how a person can do what he did and how can a person deal with the consequences – does he become the monster he’s afraid he might be, does the crime break him, or does he salvage something from the wreck he’s made? I feel a bit uncomfortable suggesting a rapist can find atonement but this is a theme that Erikson has played with before – the brutalizing effect of violence and how people deal with it. I’m interested to see how Narad’s story is going to play out in the next two books.

Of less ominously fraught interest are Arathan, Draconus’ bastard son, and Korya Delath, a Tiste hostage of the Jaghut Haut, who reminds me of Kruppe in his interactions with Korya and others. I like both because I see reflections of myself in their characters so there’s a natural affinity, and both promise to be major factors in subsequent events. At the end of Forge, Arathan is left in the hands of Gothos (who readers of The Fallen will be familiar with) along with Korya in the abandoned Jaghut city of whose existence we got a glimpse in the final volumes of The Fallen. There are several others who’ve peaked my interest: Feren of the Borderswords, Faror Hend and Finarra Stone of the Wardens who watch the Vitr, and Sandalath (another character familiar to readers of the previous series).

I am looking forward to what’s going to happen to them. (I think; Erikson is not above having very unpleasant things happen to his characters. I may not enjoy getting what I’ve wished for.)

For fans of the Malazan novels, there’s a wealth of revelations and hints about the origins and natures of old acquaintances: the Sons of Mother Dark, Mother Dark herself, Father Light, Sandalath and Orfantal, the Shake, the eldest gods, Draconus and Hood (our favorite god of death), to name but a few. The best developed in this respect (at the moment) is Draconus. He’s not evil except in a relative sense since his actions – blinded by ego and confused motives – have disastrous consequences. It’s from his gift, for example, that Mother Dark flees Kurald Galain, and it’s in quest of that gift that Hood loses his mate and subsequently vows to defeat death.

As readers should expect, there’re the usual philosophical concerns that Erikson wrestles with – among them, the nature of faith and worship, the paradox of power and its use, the price of civilization, the brutalizing nature of violence, and the need to learn humility.

This is not the place to begin one’s experience with Steven Erikson. Forge of Darkness assumes that its readers have read the Malazan Book of the Fallen, and woe betide those who haven’t. So if you’re an Erikson tyro, start with that saga, and pay attention. If you’re already a fan, this is a very solid entry in the author’s oeuvre and promises good things to come in books two and three.

The Drowning Girl is a difficult book to characterize. Baldly, it’s the story of India Morgan Phelps (aka “Imp”), a highly functional schizophrenic whose life is turned upside down by the appearance of Eva Canning, who may or may not be a ghost, a werewolf, a mermaid or a stalker. If you don’t like unreliable narrators, ambiguous (and sometimes downright confusing) plots and – in the end – not really knowing “what happened,” then you will loathe this book. If you can wrap your mind around the idea that what we perceive as reality is a story that our mind constructs, then you might enjoy this tale.

Kiernan has been a favorite ever since I read [b:Alabaster|81059|Alabaster|Caitlín R. Kiernan|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170993468s/81059.jpg|78261]. She’s a master at creating characters, settings and moods, and comes highly recommended. In Imp, the author has created an extraordinarily believable and sympathetic person. She’s not someone to be pitied – though we can sympathize with her troubles – but to be admired. She doesn’t retreat from the world but stands up to face it and find a way to be part of it. She’s an outlier – a schizophrenic – but her journey is essentially what we all have to do.

I think the moral of the book is best summed up in a quote from a review of Oliver Sack’s [b:Hallucinations|13330771|Hallucinations|Oliver Sacks|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1340987347s/13330771.jpg|18538423] in the London Review of Books:

What hallucinations have to tell us might be that the inner workings of our senses are a riotous carnival, driven by an engine of unimaginable processing power whose most spectacular illusion is reality itself. (Vol. 35, No. 5)

Highly recommended, though not for the faint of heart.

Rather disappointing. The artwork is so-so as is the story, whose chief weakness is that I never quite believed how the hapless Dr. Mason got roped into traveling with Cat.

[b:Children of Morrow|414454|Children of Morrow|Helen Mary Hoover|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1186617889s/414454.jpg|403672] was a favorite when I was younger. It’s a post-apocalypse YA novel about two mutant children who flee the murderous intentions of their village’s mayor and his henchman. I reread it about a decade ago and found that it held up rather well. It was thus that when I resolved to read The Dawn Palace (part of my recent fixation with Greek myths – see my reviews of The Iliad (Mitchell trans.), The Odyssey (Fagles trans.), For Her Dark Skin (Everett), Ransom (Malouf) and Medea (Wolf), among others) I was confident that I would like the story.

I’m happy to report that not only did I like the story, I liked it a lot. I thought this was one of the better interpretations of the Jason/Medea legend, and – despite its target audience of older YAs – it can appeal to adults as well.

Hoover wisely – I think – elects to make Medea a 14-year-old girl, and Jason is not many years older. She is the daughter of Asterodeia, the daughter of Helios the sun god, and Aeëtes, an expatriate Corinthian, who is king of Colchis from his marriage to her. The novel opens when Medea is five and sees a vision of her mother departing. Come the morning, she finds the court in mourning because Asterodeia has apparently died during the night. I say “apparently” because the child discovers that the covered body is not her mother’s. Asterodeia has gone back to her father, leaving Aeëtes to rule as regent for Medea (so she thinks). The years pass. Medea’s aunt Circe teaches her about herbs, magic and other knowledge astrally, visiting her in dreams and taking her to a timeless place where they she can study and learn undistracted. This is a time of change, however. The ancient matriarchal dynasties and the goddess-centered religion are being displaced by patriarchs and the male-centered Olympian pantheon. Aeëtes has remarried and plans to put Apsyrtus, the son of that union, on the throne. Medea learns of the betrayal shortly before Colchis is honored by the arrival of Jason and his Argonauts. Hurt, betrayed and feeling lost, Medea falls hard for the charming, unscrupulous and handsome Greek. Subsequently, the story departs from the received version (i.e., Euripides’) of the legend by making Jason solely responsible for killing Apsyrtus and it is he who murders his and Medea’s children. But it doesn’t exonerate Medea. Before she finally realizes his true nature, she does great evil because of her love for the man.

Outside of the author’s take on the myth, there were two things that made this book so enjoyable for me, and those are Hoover’s characterizations of Hercules and Medea. Hercules’ and Medea’s paths cross three times. The first time they meet is near Troy, which Hercules has sacked because Laomedon, its king, had cheated him:

The dark form moved. Living wood creaked and broke. Rocks chinked and sparks flew. Flames licked up and grew bright, and the smell of burning cedar pitch mingled with the salt air. When he raised the flaming fatwood brand, she saw him clearly.

The arm that held the impromptu torch was thicker than her waist. He was nearly seven feet tall and heavily muscled. As a cape, he wore the dried-out, shabby pelt of a huge lion. Its head served as his helmet. His face was framed by the teeth left in the lion’s grotesquely dislocated jaws. His nose had been repeatedly broken; his dark eyes were fever-bright. His own dark hair, the dead beast’s mane, and his red beard seemed all tangled into one bushy mass. The pelt’s forepaws were fastened to his leather breastplate. The hind legs and tail flapped at the back of his bare knees. A belt secured a leather apron at his waist and also held the widest sword she’d ever seen. (pp. 129-30)

He warns her that Jason will betray her just as he betrayed him because they are both children of the gods, and promises to be a friend when that day comes. A promise that greatly disturbs Medea as she realizes he is on the knife-edge of madness and despair.

Their second meeting occurs several years later. She and Jason and their children have found succor in Corinth with Creon, its king. Hercules’ madness “was more evident now. His throat moved as if he were carrying on an angry internal dialogue, obsessed by old injustices” (p. 178). He reiterates his friendship for her and that he’ll help when Jason inevitably abandons her.

The final time they meet, Medea has fled Corinth, finally recognizing Jason for what he is and taking her revenge against him, Creon and Glauce. Hercules has murdered Deianeira, his wife, and his children. He’s holed up in his palace and so sunk into madness that “[h]e sat naked and hunched up, his huge arms hugging his knees so tightly that his muscles bulged and strained. His eyes were wide and unfocused; his jaws clenched, his throat working. As she watched, appalled, he began to rock in that spastic frenzy peculiar to lunatics. Faster and faster he rocked, until his heels were lifting higher with each backward lunge, and he finally tipped over and fell sideways, his head thudding against the roof” (pp. 203-4). She nurses him back to physical and mental health, and finds that – in the end – he can’t protect her and she must find the strength in herself to salvage what she can of her life.

Hoover humanizes the elemental force of nature that is Hercules and makes the reader sympathize with his plight – a man who set out to do good in the world but whose every action turns out horribly wrong.

As with Hercules, so with Medea. Over the course of the novel, Hoover creates a complex, believable and sympathetic character. As I mentioned, she commits evil but she’s also capable of good, and it’s never simply a question of doing the right thing since there’s no act she can do that won’t have maleficent consequences. I don’t have any specific passages that could illustrate my point. It’s a matter of the author’s ability to flesh out Medea’s character throughout the story but it works. Even more so than Hercules, Hoover’s Medea is a fully human person who readers empathize with even if they can’t always condone what she does.

There are two further points I wanted to mention before closing out this review. The first is Hoover’s treatment of gods and magic. There certainly is an element of the supernatural; I’ve already mentioned how Circe visits Medea astrally. But, otherwise, the gods and magic are more noticeable in their absence. Much of Medea’s power comes from greater knowledge of the physical world. For example, she murders Glauce and Creon with a dress and crown seeded with white phosphorus. Her murder of Pelias is accomplished with stage magic and duplicity. And her skill as a physician, not spells, saves lives. I wasn’t sure if this worked when I first read the novel but upon reflection I think it does, for the most part. I personally like the ambiguity of not knowing if the gods exist or to what extent – if they do – that they interfere in human affairs.

The second point is that if there is a weakness in this novel it’s that the author compresses the second half of the story (after Jason and Medea reach Greece), and it feels rushed and incomplete. I would have liked 50-100 pages more devoted to Medea’s life in Greece so that its sudden disruption would have had as much emotional “oomph” as the events of the first part.

That aside, this novel comes highly recommended by yours truly (I’ll be sending a copy to my niece for her birthday), and it makes me intrigued about Hoover’s other work. Children of Morrow had already proved she could be an interesting writer but if her other work matches The Dawn Palace, I’m even more interested in seeking out her stuff.

I find myself without a great deal to say about Railsea.

I certainly liked it. China Miéville is one of my favorite authors and I have yet to be disappointed in anything of his I’ve read. His imagination and talent are on full display – as usual – and it is far more than a simple homage or pastiche of Moby Dick.

Other reviewers have summarized the plot (which is also reasonably well summarized on the dust jacket of my edition) and described the railsea and its denizens so I’m not going to dwell on those aspects of the novel. What I will briefly mention, however, are two episodes that stood out for me, and that are examples of why I like Miéville so much – his ability to surprise me. When I first began reading [b:Un Lun Dun|68496|Un Lun Dun|China Miéville|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170692699s/68496.jpg|2959401], I feared that the author was “slumming.” Writing a YA fantasy that really wasn’t going to push any boundaries but then he turned everything on its head and delivered a great story.

A similar thing happened with this book. I can’t go into too much detail without entering spoiler territory but both scenes involve choices – the one Sham makes when Caldera Shroake asks him to go with her and Dero as they set out to complete their parents’ quest to find the end of the railsea (a bad choice as it turns out), and the one the Medes’ crew makes when faced with confronting Mocker-Jack (“the great white mole”) or rescuing Sham (a good choice). If there’s any truth to what Gardner writes in [b:On Moral Fiction|596242|On Moral Fiction |John Gardner|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1361377327s/596242.jpg|582922]*, that fiction is “good … only when it has a clear positive moral effect, presenting valid models for imitation, eternal verities worth keeping in mind, and a benevolent vision of the possible which can inspire and incite human beings toward virtue, toward life affirmation as opposed to destruction or indifference,” then Railsea is “good.”

But don’t let that put you off. Another quality of Railsea is that it’s not preachy nor does it talk down to its ostensibly YA audience – of which, hopefully, my niece will be one as this will be yet another book sent to her for her enjoyment.

* A recent read that’s going to be futzing with my reading enjoyment for years to come, for better or for worse.

** Random observation: The final scene from the book reminds me strongly of that from the film Dark City.

Rating for this book: 3.75+; rating for the series overall: 3.5
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After a relatively lackluster second volume in the Bel Dame Apocrypha series, Kameron Hurley comes roaring back with Rapture. Seven years have passed since the events of [b:Infidel|11470277|Infidel (Bel Dame Apocrypha, #2)|Kameron Hurley|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1317841525s/11470277.jpg|16404567], and Nyxnissa so Dasheem is in exile in Drucia, where she lives with her former comrade Anneka and her family. The situation in Nasheen has continued to deteriorate in the meanwhile: The centuries-long war with Chenja is over, and the boys – the fodder the bel dames and First Families have been sacrificing for all this time – are returning home and becoming a disruptive element that threatens to push Nasheen into outright civil war. Raine, Nyx’s erstwhile instructor, enemy and a man she had left for dead, survived and has become the leader in the fight for men’s rights. When he’s kidnapped, Fatima – another old foe, the murderer of Rhys’ family and bel dame leader – extorts Nyx’s aid in tracking him down and bringing him back to Nasheen. Obviously, things cannot be as straightforward as this, and Nyx rapidly finds herself enmeshed not alone in the machinations of the bel dames, the Queen and the First Families, but also those of the Ras Tiegans, the civilizations of the North and a larger cabal of First Families that revives an ancient conjuror to ensure the “aliens,” who have returned, do not gain a foothold on Umayma.

This thing that makes Rapture such a good read and a very satisfying conclusion to the story is Hurley’s decision to focus almost exclusively on Nyxnissa, who is the heart and soul of the series. Looking back, the weakness of Infidel was that the author introduced too many new characters and their subplots that either didn’t go anywhere or distracted the reader from Nyx. Here, we have brief discursions into what Rhys and Inaya are doing but everything properly comes back to Nyx, who is one of the more interesting characters I’ve encountered in a while.

Why? I have been wondering how to answer that question since I don’t like to leave readers hanging with sentences like the one above, so let me enumerate several of the reasons:

1. Nyx feels very human. That is to say, her motivations are complex, conflicted and not always obvious to herself or to us
2. She’s indomitable. Despite failing – as she see’s it – in everything she’s done, she doesn’t give up.
3. She has at her core an admirable nature (part of which, IMO, is #2). You have to admire her devotion to what she see’s as her duty, to her companions (though they often misinterpret it), and to her ability to cling to her humanity in the face of all the shit (pardon my French) that’s thrown her way.

Another factor in the novel’s favor is that Hurley continues to open up the world of Umayma without info-dumping. We are tantalized with more clues about Umayma’s colonization and its earliest history, the nature of humans and their relationship to the bugs, and the reasons behind Umayma’s xenophobia.

And – finally – I liked the ending’s ambiguity, which immediately brings to mind Frank Stockton’s short story “The Lady or the Tiger.”

A vigorous thumbs-up for this book and the entire Bel Dame Apocrypha series. I fervently hope Hurley continues to write in this universe (as well as branching out; I’d be interested in reading anything she writes).

At last Jeffrey Barlough has returned to the darker (and, to my mind, more interesting) themes of the first books in the Western Lights series, though he hasn't quite plumbed the horrific depths of [b:The House in the High Wood: A Story of Old Talbotshire|1560536|The House in the High Wood A Story of Old Talbotshire (Western Lights, #2)|Jeffrey E. Barlough|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1185232506s/1560536.jpg|1553074] or [b:Strange Cargo|1221613|Strange Cargo (Western Lights, #3)|Jeffrey E. Barlough|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1309206536s/1221613.jpg|1210100].

Our story takes us to the Ayleshire village of Hoole, in the uplands of the Sundered Realm, where Ingram Somervell's uncle, Henry Clement, has died, leaving his estate to his ward, Petra Solsguard, and a small mill to his nephew. Ingram comes to Hoole to settle his portion of the estate and soon discovers that his uncle's death was not so straightforward as it appears, and that Petra is not quite who she seems. The story is written on two levels. First, there is what turns out to be a rather squalid tale of grift involving Petra, the good Doctor Fels and a scheme to acquire the Clement estate and its wealth. On a second level, there is the Lovecraftian tale of ancient powers working unseen and for whom humans are tools, if noticed at all.

Barlough could have done more with the "unreliable narrator" theme: Barlough tells the story from Ingram's point of view, and it's established early on that he has suffered a head wound and is having odd dreams. And, as I mentioned, the Lovecraft elements could have been more pronounced; Squire Turnthirsty could have been far more sinister than he turns out to be.

Barlough's overt humor is largely suppressed in this entry, though he does have some fun with the names of the attorneys who are contesting Henry Clement's will: Rackham and Lash, and the reputable firm of Outlast, Parry and DeLay.

Overall, a pretty good entry in the series and recommended (start w/ the books mentioned above or the first book - [b:Dark Sleeper|1193347|Dark Sleeper (Western Lights, #1)|Jeffrey E. Barlough|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1181777444s/1193347.jpg|1181399] - they're all standalones but these three give you the best exposure to both Barlough's tragic and comedic strengths).