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The Black Company by Glenn Cook

Clearly the first book in a trilogy, The Black Company is about a bunch of mercenaries who leave a depressing garrison job to go fight in the north. It feels relatively gritty, with a lot less common magic than most fantasy novels these days. Magic is still mysterious and often grim.

The book was marred by a bad back cover that emphasizes The White Rose, who doesn’t play much of a role in this book at all. The back cover applies to the trilogy– but doesn’t get at the core of this book.

The forces of the Lady and her dark servants (the ten) are appropriately dark, though there is more complexity than I feared. The opposition, fighting under the circle, is well written as grubby and desperate, even if their cause is nominally better.

In the end, as a book it’s interesting but unsatisfying. As book one of a trilogy it does its job– the characters are strong enough that I’d like to read more about them. Even if this book feels adrift, mostly valuable as a signpost to the rest of the series.

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The Well of Ascension (Mistborn 2)

The Well of Ascension is the second book in Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn Trilogy. It’s very much an Empire Strikes Back type middle book. There are still lots of interesting things going on but the conflicts are muddier and the opposition is suffocating (rather than more viscerally scary).

After the good accomplished by the heroes in the first book, everything seems ready to fall apart. The book begins a year after book one, with Elend ruling a shaky kingdom centered on Luthadiel.

If I had to quickly summarize the difference between this book and its predecessor, I’d say this book is like the first, minus the “planning the overthrow of the Last Empire” crime caper style collaboration and adding an extensive “politics and ruling” subplot. This was still a great book and has me eagerly awaiting book 3 (The Hero of Ages).

One of the biggest changes is spoilery, so I’ll put it below the fold.

Continue reading “The Well of Ascension (Mistborn 2)”
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Cyteen by C.J. Cherryh

Cyteen is a long book with a lot of depth, which makes for a slower read but a thorough look at the world. It’s a story about the Union during twenty five years or so of turmoil in her Alliance/Union universe. The focus is on Ari Emory and Justin Warrick, with several other characters.

Resune, where most of the book is set, is a fascinating place, filled with hard working scientists. Cyteen is a rough world, less terraformed and bland than many science fiction worlds– still a work in progress. Science gets a lot of attention, given Resune’s control of the science seat, and the two POV character’s training in science. The science that’s most prevalent in the series is genetics and cloning, with psychology making a strong appearance.

I enjoyed it quite a bit; as mentioned at the beginning it’s long and feels long, but that fits the story pretty well. One difficult part is that Ari is a child for a good chunk of the book, and it’s not an annoying POV. Which was unexpectedly nice to see.

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Heinlein’s Citizen of the Galaxy

After a few “take it or leave it” encounters with Heinlein, I decided to give him another chance. This book was pointed to as written for teens and a good introduction to the universe. I’m glad I gave him another chance– the book was a very quick read and fun. Near the end, as the protagonist ages a bit beyond the intended readers it gets a little vague… but it’s hard to make business as exciting as exploring the universe.

Thorby’s primary interactions are great; we come to see his owner, Baslim, as a real father figure and intriguing mystery. The book really changes in the middle, kicking Thorby out of his pattern and thrusting him into a series of strange situations that he takes well– but struggles with appropriately.

The ending is the weakest part of the book; instead of a crisp or decisive point, Thorby is drawn into the tedium and unmapped horizons of professional adulthood. A good ending for this hero’s experience.

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Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson

I read Mistborn almost compulsively over Thanksgiving. It was responsible for a couple of short nights– up too late reading.

Mistborn is almost a crime / revolutionaries blend, set in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world. It’s a fascinating setting, with an underworld that feels appropriately gritty and deceptive. The two primary characters shine and the rest of the cast does well.

I loved Vin; she felt real and reliable even as she changed dramatically over the course of the book. Kelsier is interesting– the book really focuses on him, but most of our view of him comes through Vin’s eyes. The way he changes and pushes what’s possible time and again made it a joy to watch him in action.

The world is fascinating; bleak, with ash steadily falling for the last thousand years. The skaa; peasants and serfs, beaten down and beyond the possibility of revolt… almost. The magic system is interesting– balanced, logical, and simple in concept. The greater metals and lesser, mistings versus mistborn, and the like all combine to make the world feel like it’s had these concepts for a long time. Security takes appropriate precautions versus the metals, but has to balance the few metal wielding magicians against the bulk of the peasantry.

I can’t say enough good things about it– except that I was unaware that its sequels are already out. They’ve already been requested from the library, so I hope to leap into the sequels soon.

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Millennium by Ben Bova

A fun book that manages to build a horrible distopia and a great future for humanity in space by 8 years ago. Several things bugged me– probably in part because of the election just a couple of weeks ago– but overall it’s a light fun book at how we could have had a great space program and still had everything go wrong by 1999.

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Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

A fun book that shares the world (but few of the characters) of American Gods. It is mostly told from Fat Charlies’s point of view.

Fat Charlie is an interesting and sympathetic character who has gotten into a rut and lives a blah life. His life is shaken up when his father dies and he’s told about a brother he doesn’t remember, Spider. He invites Spider into his life, which gets complicated quickly…

It’s nice to see Charlie and Spider grow and change as the book progresses; much like Charlie, I was upset with Spider for much of the book, but came to appreciate him by the end. A couple of other characters are also developed over the course of the book (particularly Rosie and Daisy), while others stay relatively flat.

A fun book, with less of a sense of revelation– though whether that’s due to being book two, or the lower key plot is hard to tell.

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The Iron Cage by Rashid Khalidi

The book provides a solid history of Palestine from 1920 through 2000, skipping over the best known events [the wars] as sufficiently covered elsewhere. The history leading up to the 1920s is covered more lightly, with little detail prior to 1900.

Khalidi writes relatively evenhandedly, though mostly from a Palestinian perspective. (As he points out, that’s somewhat difficult to do, given the lack of a “national archive” or anything similar.) His “just the facts” presentation, particularly for the British Mandate period, proves persuasive. There’s a lot of interesting detail about internal power struggles and illuminating comparisons to the other Arab states of the period.

While it’s not a weighty tome, repetition makes the book drag. The book sounds like a lecture transcribed– many things are repeated two or three times in a few pages, without a lot of variation in presentation. I strongly suspect it’s better written than academic papers on the subject, but it doesn’t rise to the level of charmingly told history.

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By Schism Rent Asunder

The second book in the series… and from what it opened up and what remains to be solved, this looks like a VLFN, with several books to come. It’s a good book, a worthy sequel to Off Armageddon Reef, though not as dynamic. This felt like a good “middle book”, but there’s nothing like the excitement of meeting the new characters and the battles on Armageddon Reef.

Chris’s review touches on other concerns that I agree with, like the limited time frame apparently precluding a gbabba rematch later, and a cliffhanger ending.

Despite that, the shortcomings are mostly of an “I want more” kind… which is an awfully good problem to have.

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American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic

I liked this book. It assumes that you know the context for the periods, but the introductory paragraphs do a good job of getting hazy memories up to speed.

The book provides a decent balance of highlighting the genuinely impressive moments during the revolutionary and early Republic era and mentioning the difficulties that were forseen but unsolved. It’s a good balance that reminds us that they were radicals (in 1775) who struggled with the difficult task of getting people to think of the United States as one whole. Politics and exaggeration rear their ugly head early, and “who holds the revolutionary spirit” is an ugly precursor of “who is a real American”. Overall, it’s a good look at the famous figures from history as people– basically good but flawed.