Books Of Brian

“Teenagers – Tired Of Being Hassled By Your Parents?

Act Now!

Move Out, Get A Job, Pay Your Own Bills…

While You Still Know Everything.”

James Hauenstein

**Here Be Spoilers**

I’ve finally finished the Murderbot Novellas and I’ve really, really enjoyed the trip.  Before I get to the book, however, I’m going to do the same thing here that I’ve done with my reviews for both “Rogue Protocol” and “Artificial Condition” – I’m going to rant:

“I honestly have only one complaint and it has nothing to do with the book itself.  I don’t like the way Martha Wells and the publisher are commercializing the work – hence the Razor / Blades quote.  The story is being sold as 4 separate novellas:

• All Systems Red – 2017
• Artificial Condition – May 2018
• Rogue Protocol – August 2018
• Exit Strategy – October 2018

They’re sold separately as hardcovers at the price of $16.19 and as e-copies for $9.99.  In reality, these are 4 sections of one book – obvious as you read through each separately – and could easily have been published in one volume.  The fact that they were all released within an 18 month period only confirms that the Author and the publisher made a pretty crass commercial decision to break the book into four pieces and sell them separately to maximize revenue.

Instead of paying $25 for a single hardcover volume, I’m forced to purchase 4 separate novellas for a combined cost of ~$68.00 in hardcover or ~$40.00 in digital format.  Before you say it, I will – shame on me – no one forced me to spend the money – I know I’m being played.  Nevertheless, I’m really enjoying the books and I want to get my hands on them as they become available.  It just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and it makes me wonder about Wells’ attitude towards her fans and readers.  Wells and her publisher gave me the Razor but she’s selling me the blades – one at a time – at a pretty high price.”

Good – got that out of the way!! I can now go on to say that this 4th novella was, in my opinion, the very best of the Murderbot installments.  It went quickly – just like the preceding three.  It was funny and fun – just like the preceding three.  It was easy to fall in love with Murderbot again in this novella – just like the preceding three.  What made this one stand out from the others, however, was the fact that it reunited the original group of characters – it closed the circle.  Most importantly, it brought Mensah and Murderbot back together.

Seeing them together again in this final installment, I found myself thinking of the two of them and their relationship in a very different light.  It may be a bit of a stretch for some but I can’t help but think of Murderbot as a teenager – a smart, capable, totally frustrating, thoroughly conflicted teenager.

Throughout the story, Murderbot is doing all the cliche things that many would equate with teenage behavior.  He’s rebelling.  He’s running away from home.  At times, he’s surly in the face of authority.  He’s pre-occupied with his media.  At times, he lacks the conversational filters you develop as you age.  He thinks all humans / adults are stupid.  He always thinks he’s right.  He doesn’t do what he’s told to do.  Most importantly, he’s growing up and defining himself in a very complicated world.

Similarly, I couldn’t help but think of Mensah as Mom.  Mensah is Murderbot’s touchstone.  She’s calm.  She’s mature.  She’s decisive.  She always does the right thing.  She is THE ONLY human that knows how to interact with Murderbot in a way that forces him to acknowledge the quality of her thought processes and she is THE ONE human character that Murderbot seems to respect.  She’s the one human Murderbot actually confers with – defer to – his one human truly ADULT presence.  Mensah also saved his life back in “All Systems Red” and she was willing to advocate for his actual personhood.

During the final combat sequence, in a life and death situation, Murderbot steps back from what he’s doing to actually ask for Mensah’s opinion regarding the motives of their attackers.  At the point when Murderbot had decided to try and capture the Bond Company gunship and was about to act – Mensah suspected what he was about to do – she stopped him cold with one word – a simple no – and then engaged him in the way a concerned and very capable parent would – explaining what was driving his behavior – making him realize that there was a more rational, less confrontational way to achieve his objective.  She provided the adult perspective.  It was classic parenting.

I know Wells is married but I don’t know for sure that she has children.  If so, I would bet my bottom dollar that she was drawing on her parenting experience as she wrote this book.  I’ve been looking at all of this through the lens of a serious and dedicated science fiction fan and – while I’ve always been really positive overall – there were parts of the story that I quibbled with – quibbles that I’ve written into my first three reviews.

With this new perspective, however, the story transforms a bit.  Looking at this as more of a family drama and a mother / son story, I fell in love with the books in a different and totally unconditional way.  I enjoyed all of these books but I enjoyed this 4th and final installment the most – by far.  As a parent myself – one that’s done the work of helping my son make the transition from boy to teenager to young adult, I now think I know why! 🙂

If you haven’t read these books, please do so.  They’re just flat out wonderful – even if you do have to pay too much to get them.

🙂

Have A Great Weekend!

“The Honor Of A Nation Is Its Life”

Alexander Hamilton

There are literary figures that have truly stood out for me over the years – who have resonated so strongly that they became real – came to represent something far more than just a picture on a cover or a source of fictional satisfaction.  There are a very rare few who have, over the years, become symbols for me – iconic characters that I’ve chosen to elevate and aspire to – role models.  Aragorn is one such – Rudi MacKenzie is another – Paul Atreides is a third.  While they all lived in insanely complex, richly imagined, brilliantly conceived worlds that I fell in love with, it was the characters themselves that I fastened myself to and that became the book – characters who, over the course of the book, had me wishing that I’d been given the chance to follow them – to become a part of their story.

Honor has always been one of those characters – an ideal that has helped to define expectations that I have both for myself and for others. Like everyone else, I met her in the early nineties when I read “On Basilisk Station” – a book that had the benefit of being unburdened by all the accumulating history and increasing complexity of the subsequent 20 novels – just a young, relatively inexperienced Commander, a small ship and a nearly impossible military and political situation.  The way she navigated the circumstances in which she and her crew found themselves – the strength of her character – captured me and it’s held me for a quarter of a century now.  In the interests of full disclosure, I formed a similar connection to Horatio Hornblower – Honor’s fictional template – many years earlier when I read those books as a boy – but Honor somehow became far more tangible and real for me and managed to replace Hornblower in my fictional Hall Of Fame.

There have always been many things about these books that made them special for me – the first and most important being Honor herself.  The others, however, would likely have been compelling even had Honor not been present or had somehow been less powerfully conceived.  The first is the richness of the universe Weber has created – the history of humanity as it expanded into the galaxy and gave birth to the Constitutional Monarchy of the Kingdom of Manticore, the faith based Monarchy of Grayson, the People’s Republic of Haven, the Andermani Empire, the Solarian League and many, many others.  There’s so much here to play with I’ve always been a bit surprised that no one’s created a space combat sim set in this world.  Were someone to do so, I’d likely dive in and never come back up for air.

Another defining characteristic of the books has been the cast of supporting characters Weber introduces – particularly the men and women of the Royal Manticoran Navy (RMN) with whom Honor serves.  While the RMN begins this 21 book story as a robust institution with strong, defining traditions and values, Honor she sets a new and higher standard for a whole generation of new RMN officers as she progresses through her career – all of whom come from different backgrounds, have different life stories and represent unique individuals, but who adopt Honor’s code, her commitment to the RMN and her devotion to duty as their own.  Whether as a symbol or by virtue of her mentorship, she becomes the soul of the RMN.  As the books progress, her influence spreads beyond the political leaders and military officers of Manticore’s allies (Grayson) to – in the later books – the political leaders and military officers of their foes turned friends (The People’s Republic of Haven).  Honor’s virtue becomes a defining and unifying aspect of a disparate alliance that, in the end, redefines a power paradigm that has governed their universe for centuries.

A third aspect of the books that I’ve always found compelling is the pseudo-scientific and economic framework that Weber has built.  The technology that drives these kingdoms – both in war and peace – is meticulously created and faithfully adhered to – both with respect to it’s capabilities and it’s limitations.  That technology and the underlying scientific theory defines every aspect of the world – manufacturing, propulsion, weaponry and economics.  As you read, Weber does such a good job of weaving it into his narrative that you simply accept it, you adopt it’s vocabulary and you begin to anticipate it’s ramifications.  His extended story is incredibly faithful to his science and a large and fascinating part of his long tale is the opportunity to watch that science evolve and advance over time.

Finally, and in some ways, the most rewarding aspect of the books is the combat.  Weber set out to do something that all too many of his peers simply don’t have the courage to do – create a ship to ship, fleet to fleet, approach to combat that accepts the realities of physics and the limitations imposed by mundane things like gravity, inertia, acceleration, velocity and mass.  Every battle that Weber describes is a physics lesson and is so carefully crafted that I have to believe that, even if its not for sale, he’s created his own space combat sim that he uses to virtually model these episodes as he writes them.  There’s a remorseless and graceful beauty to the combat in these novels that I don’t think anyone has ever been able to recreate.

Having said all that, the series has had its ups and downs.  The first 5 of these books are devoted to a story arc that focuses exclusively on the war between the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the People’s Republic of Haven.  They’re based loosely on the Napoleonic War – as were the Horatio Hornblower novels – and they’re a very simple, straightforward pleasure.  It’s all about the war, the ships, the technology, the men and women who serve and the combat.  They’re easy to read, they’re straightforward and they represent military science fiction at it’s best.  As Weber moves deeper into his story, however, the politics of the primary players moves closer to the forefront and there are times when it detracts from the things that make these books such a pleasure.  More and more of the content shifts away from Honor, the RMN and the battles it fights to the politicians and the politics of the adversaries.  I can remember times when I hit chapter transitions that took me away from the Command Chair and into the offices of bureaucrats and it managed to deflate me – caused me to roll my eyes a bit and move to accelerated reading mode where I was sampling sentences within paragraphs just to progress as quickly as I could back to Honor and the ships and fleets she commands.  Weber is a superb writer of military science fiction but there’s a cliched, caricatured aspect to some of his political drama that can get a bit tiring.

This became particularly pronounced when he chose to create a second story arc within the larger narrative revolving around the Mesan Alignment and conflict with the Solarian League.  Weber acknowledges that his decision to do so – beginning with the book “Crown Of Slaves” (co-authored with Eric Flint) – radically altered his narrative focusing on the conflict between Manticore and Haven.  While it introduced a story line that will carry his series past Honor’s exit, it also led to a number of books focusing on political maneuverings, espionage and ground-based, planetary conflict that I found to be tiresome and decidedly mediocre.

Still, it was never so bad that it turned me away from the series and I have to say – getting finally to this last book in Honor’s story – that he brought it home in a very rewarding and satisfying way.  In this book, Weber spends far more time on the bridge of RMN warships and far more time in combat – particularly throughout the first half of the book.  He steps back a bit in the third quarter and returns to the offices of bureaucrats and the skullduggery that takes place within to set the stage for the final quarter and the concluding events but it wasn’t as burdensome or as distracting as it has been in past volumes.  Most importantly, when it ended, it was all Honor and it was rooted in all the things that have made her such a special character for so very long.  Her final solution is everything we’d expect from the Officer we’ve been following for twenty five years and it leaves both the galaxy and the person in a place that makes it possible to walk away with the satisfaction that comes from a job very well done.

The only bone I have to pick with the book is that Weber – on two occasions – allows his sentimentality get in the way of what would represent a tragic but relate-able outcome.  In the wake of two truly devastating episodes – one being the RMN’s defense of the Hypatia system and the second being the destruction of the orbital platforms around Beowulf – calamities that resulted in almost no survivors – Weber allows for a small number of critical characters to miraculously come through alive.  I would have made allowances for this once – and I have to admit that the survival of three pivotal characters in the wake of the Beowulf disaster is critical to the ending that Honor delivers and that delivers her – but twice is just too much.  He just should have let Hypatia stand as the tragically heroic episode that it was without the unnecessary miracle.

That, however, is a pretty minor criticism.  In almost every other aspect, this book is a fitting and truly rewarding final chapter in Honor’s story.  While Weber isn’t done with the Honorverse – there are still battles to be fought – Honor’s part of this story is largely over.  In his Afterword, Weber makes it clear that, while Honor may occasionally make an appearance or serve as a presence lurking in the background, she’ll be stepping out of the story and passing her torch onto a new generation.  I’m truly sad to know that she’ll no longer be there as a defining presence but I’m ready – after all she’s done, all the sacrifices she’s made, all the losses she’s endured – to grant her a very well deserved exit from the crucible of combat and give her the chance to spend time with her husband and her children.  I’ll also look forward to seeing those children grow into RMN officers in their own right and to enjoying a chance to experience their part in finally, once and for all, ending the threats posed to the Star Kingdom of Manticore.

“The Life Of The Dead Is Placed In The Memory Of The Living”

Marcus Tullius Cicero

I haven’t read a Black Company novel since 2001 – when the final volume in The Company’s history – “Soldiers Live” – was published.  It’s been so long that I’d actually forgotten most of the details of the extended narrative – stretching across 9 books broken out into 3 story arcs (there’s also a spin-off called “The Silver Spike” – a very good book but unconnected to the Company’s history).  Before cracking this one open, I had to go back and review the plot summaries from the nine volumes that preceded it – just to get myself grounded again and prepared for what was to come.  What I most remembered, though, was how much I enjoyed these books and how very different they were from all the Fantasy I’d previously read.  They were my first real taste of anything not built upon the bones of Tolkein and I loved them.  They opened up a whole new sub genre for me and a whole new way of thinking about and enjoying Fantasy.

I also remembered that while these books were amazing to the end – the very last word of “Soldiers Live” – the experience changed drastically for me with the end of the 1st story arc – The Books Of The North – composed of “The Black Company”, “Shadows Linger” and “The White Rose”.  By the end of “The White Rose”, only six out of the original ~800 – 900 Company veterans remained alive.  At the beginning of the 2nd story arc – The Books Of The South – composed of “Shadow Games” and “Dreams Of Steel” – The Company had left the Domination and headed off into a new and very different part of the world.  Both transitions were challenging but Cook managed to make them work in a pretty amazing way.  Still, finishing The Books Of The North and pushing on into The Books Of The South, I never quite got past the feelings of loss caused by the absence of so many old friends:  The Captain, The Lieutenant, Candy, Elmo – all the other Company veterans you got so attached to over the course of the first three books.  I think I may also have regretted the fact that Croaker, who I’d come to love as the Company Surgeon / Historian, was forced to assume command – no longer allowing him the latitude to be the same simple, curmudgeonly soldier I remembered him to be in the first three books.

Prior to reading the book, I was curious as to why Glen Cook chose to come back to The Company – what part of the story he felt he’d left untold.  Their history was complete and there weren’t really any hanging chads from the 9 books he’d already written.  As you read through the book, however, you realize that Cook wanted to look back to the early years of the Domination and provide a backstory for The Lady.  He does this but in a cagey way that doesn’t provide definitive answers – the realization about what he’s doing sneaks up on you – challenging at first but very satisfying by the end of the book.

Nor does it sound like he’s finished – this is the first of two final volumes he’s planning to write – the other to be called “A Pitiless Rain” – identified as the true concluding volume of The Company’s history.  This story lives inside the 1st story arc – The Books Of The North – and sits chronologically between Book #1 – “The Black Company” and Book #2 – “Shadows Linger”.  While there’s no connection to The Books Of The North narrative, it was still so much fun to get back to the early parts of The Company’s history and get caught up with all those characters that I’d enjoyed so much when I first read these books – Cook basically gets The Band back together.

I mentioned earlier that the narrative was a bit twisty and I have to admit that it proved to be challenging at first.  Cook has you regularly flipping back and forth between the earlier years of the Domination and the era in which the Company is fighting for The Lady against both the remainder of the rebel armies that were shattered in Book #1 and the Resurrectionists fighting to return the Dominator to life.  While I may not be remembering clearly, I think this is also the first time Cook has ever spent any real time describing the early years of the Domination.  It takes awhile to settle into the story and to start putting pieces together.  I think Cook is having fun with his readers, knowing that some probably will find it to be a bit too much work but not caring in the least.

I will say that this is not a book for anyone new to The Black Company.  While I can see someone attempting it as a standalone read, I’d recommend against it.  I don’t know about others but I fell in love with The Company when I read that first book – its people, its culture and its traditions – and you should have taken that fall before you start “Port Of Shadows”.  Trying to get to know and appreciate the Company’s world and its culture through a book whose narrative structure is not straightforward and intuitive would likely be a hard slog for many.  Short to long – don’t cheat yourself out of the pleasure of the 1st book before jumping into this one.

For me, Cook’s Company has always been a family – big, extended, unruly and highly dysfunctional in so many ways – yet at the same time – extremely well led, bound by tradition, loyal to each other and incredibly, competently deadly.  I found it interesting that Cook spent most of this book creating two other families and putting them at the center of the story – Croaker’s weird but very likable group consisting of Mischievous Rain (Kitten, Credence Senjak, The Lady), Shin, Baku and Ankou – and the weird but somewhat repulsive false family of the Necromancer (Papa), Bathdek (Kitten, Credence Senjak, The Lady) and Liassa (Dorotea Senjak).

I need to think about this more – go back and reread several sections – but I think Cook is trying to give us perspective on The Lady – using her first, very twisted faux family experience with the Necromancer and Liassa to illustrate a youth that leads her to becoming the immensely powerful but measured and emotionally nuanced sorceress capable of defeating the Dominator and re-establishing his Empire without resorting to the same level of brutality and terror.  He’s using the second of the two faux families – Croaker, Mischievous Rain, Shin, Baku, Ankow – to show just who The Lady has become over the course of so many years – ruthlessly efficient, terrifyingly capable, absolute in her power yet with soft spots and the ability to care in an all too human way – even if it’s just an indulgence that she knows is fleeting.

I have to say – I loved this book – really loved being back with the old Company – before it was decimated in the remaining two Books Of The North – before it headed South to a very foreign and ugly environment.  Having said that, it won’t be a book for everyone.  I’d recommend this only to those who have already read and fallen for The Company.  It’s not going to be satisfying to a new reader or someone who isn’t a committed Company man.

Best Wishes to all for a great new week.

“It Is Better To Fail In Originality Than To Succeed In Imitation”

Herman Melville

Writing critical reviews has, for me, always been a challenging task – balancing the good against the bad – tempering criticism – calling out perceived shortcomings in a measured and constructive manner.  I find it to be particularly challenging when I’m reviewing a debut as I’m always rooting for new writers.  This book is a perfect example of just how challenging it can be.

I’m not going to beat around the bush.  This was not a good read for me and I do not understand the gushingly positive reviews it’s receiving – several of which I’ve copied and pasted below from Amazon with my own comments added in parentheses:

“Empire of Silence is epic science fiction at its most genuinely epic.  Ruocchio has made something fascinating here, and I can’t wait to see what he does next.” —James S.A. Corey, New York Times-bestselling author of The Expanse novels

(No damning with faint praise here – does Corey really feel that Ruocchio’s epic is more genuinely epic than his own massive epic?)

“Christopher Ruocchio’s Empire of Silence is epic-scale space opera in the tradition of Iain M. Banks and Frank Herbert’s Dune, without being a clone of either of them. His is a welcome new voice in science fiction.” —Eric Flint, author of the bestselling 1632 series

(Descriptive but not truly evaluative –  a clever sophistry – I think I can respect this more than the comment Corey provided)

“Empire of Silence has the sweep and political complexity of Dune (though no sandworms). It builds to a blazing climax, followed by a satisfying conclusion. I recommend the book.” —David Drake, bestselling author of the RCN Series

(I found this one particularly interesting – calling out one iconic element of Dune that wasn’t written into this story when so many others were)

“Empire of Silence is a rich tapestry of future history and worldbuilding, a galactic-sized story of a hero, a tyrant, but portrayed as a man.” —Kevin J. Anderson, New York Times-bestselling author of The Dark Between the Stars

(Again – descriptive but not evaluative – given how I feel about the Anderson novels I’ve read, I probably would have been relatively comfortable having him create an equivalence between Ruocchio’s debut and his own “Saga Of Seven Suns” series)

Had I been asked to write the blurb review, it probably would have gone something like this:

An overly ambitious but heartfelt effort that offers the reader rewards in places but disappoints in equal measure.  Ruocchio is to be commended for this monumental first attempt but might have better served himself with a less aggressive maiden voyage.  He leaves me both hopeful and worried about where this might eventually go. 

I’ll call out several aspects of the book that I found challenging:

• It was just too derivative.  In the first 100 pages of this book, you’ll find analogs of The Butlerian Jihad, Mentats and The Litany Against Fear from Dune, lightsabers from Star Wars and The Borg from Star Trek.  Unlike Flint’s comparison to Banks and Herbert, I found the narrative structure to be far more similar to Rothfuss’ “The Name Of The Wind” – lacking the roguish exceptionalism and endearing characteristics of the protagonist.  It almost felt like Ruocchio took a sampling of the more iconic elements of some of the most notable books and movies from the last 40 years and renamed and repurposed them.

• It was far too long – there were entire chapters that contributed little or nothing to the overall story and they detracted from the tale that Ruocchio was trying to tell.  The Author and the book would have benefited from some aggressive editing.

• The protagonist spent far too much time hinting at his dismal end state and his moral and ethical repugnance.  I found Hadrian Marlowe to be a relatively unsympathetic character to whom I was never really able to connect.

• The book was loaded with the purplest of prose – while there were places where this worked, I found myself all too often thinking that Ruocchio fell in love with his own language – hard – and overwrote in a tortured way.  I kept hearing Sergeant Hulka whispering in the background – “Lighten up Francis!”

This is one of those books that broke my heart a little.  I wanted very badly to enjoy it but I just never got there.  There were moments when it shone – Hadrian’s time as a Myrmidon and his relationships with his brothers and sisters in arms was rewarding – I truly appreciated his Jaddian characters, particularly Olorin, and wanted to spend more time with them – Valka was a fascinating character that I enjoyed getting to know.  Overall, I’m encouraged by the fact that many of the characters I enjoyed are – in the last chapter – brought back together as a group that will travel together in the second volume.

It wasn’t bad – it just wasn’t nearly as good as I wanted it to be.  All I can do is write this one off as a minor loss and hope for a better second quarter.