Jvstin has commented on (10) products.

Daw Book Collectors #1031: The Golden Key by Melanie Rawn

Jvstin, October 11, 2008

The Golden Key is a fantasy novel set in a Iberian flavored fantasy world, written by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson and Kate Elliott.

The Golden Key's universe and magic revolves around the use of art as a tool for communication, political power, and it turns out, arcane power as well. The novel is episodic, starting with the rise to power and the discovery of real power by a brilliant artist, Sario Grijalva of Tira Verte. The Grijalvas, after a tragedy years ago, have fallen from grace, power and are pitied, if not feared, by the population at large. Despite their talents with art, being a Grijalva is not an easy or particularly desirable life.

Sario, however, has ambition. This ambition leads him to the lair of a Tza'ab (stand in for Berbers or North Africans) living in the heart of the city. His secret power, combined with Sario's knowledge, leads Sario to discoveries to allow him to live in a serial fashion in other people's bodies...and to also imprison Saavendra, the cousin that he loves, in a portrait...

The novel then leapfrogs over the next centuries, as Sario's machinations in his various lives lead to a rise to power for the Grijalvas, even as political and other developments slowly change Tira Virte in ways that even Sario cannot predict and control.

Thus, in a 900 page novel, we really get a complete fantasy series, with a variety of characters strung out along the history of Tira Virte, with Sario and the portrait of Saavendra as the hooks that keep the story together. Add in the intriguing magic system (which any player in Amber would think of ideas for Trumps thereby), great characterization, and vivid writing, and mix well.

This could have been envisioned as an interminable fantasy series, but as one volume, the writing is crisp and rarely if ever flags. The three writers collaborate and write together seamlesly. The novel was a finalist for the World Fantasy Award, and after reading it, I have to wonder, just what novel managed to beat it for that prize.

I recommend it to epic fantasy fans unreservedly.

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From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (Oxford History of the United States) by George C. Herring

Jvstin, August 23, 2008

Over the last couple of decades, Oxford University Press has been putting together a history of the United States from a variety of authors, slicing up the history of the Republic in numerous, detailed volumes.

An exception to that pattern, George Herrings FROM COLONY TO SUPERPOWER takes on the entire history of the United States. However, it takes on just one piece of that history, albeit a large one: foreign policy. Herring's volume looks at the U.S.'s relations with other powers from the Revolution straight through to the George W. Bush administration.

His thesis is that America has great ideals in the abstract which it has not always successfully brought in practice to its application of its foreign policy.

Herring brings a comprehensive, considered and balanced approach to the material. While he does have opinions, and certain subjects are clearly more favored than others, Herring takes pains to minimize his point of view.

When Herring does present a strong point of view, however, he infallibly provides in a footnote a source or volume that provides a different point of view. For example, Herring takes issue with the machinations that brought Panama independence from Colombia and gave the US the freedom to create the Panama Canal. And yet, even as he does this, he provides a competing source that exonerates Roosevelt.

Even those Presidents whom Herring seems to disagree politically with are critically evaluated for their contributions, positive and negative, to the narrative of US Foreign Policy. And those Presidents and figures that Herring admires are called out when they failed to live up to their ideals.

This careful balancing of viewpoints and pains to remain non partisan means that, given the breadth of the subject, the book is long. And if the reader is inclined to read more on one particular piece of American Foreign Policy history, there is a bibliographic essay (as opposed to a straight,dry, bibliography) where Herring discusses numerous other volumes for further reading.

The book took me several weeks to savor and digest, however these weeks were worth it. I learned an enormous amount about US Foreign Policy, as if I had taken a college course on the subject. If you have the time and inclination to learn about US Foreign Policy, Herring has created the definitive volume on the subject.

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Kushiel's Justice (Kushiel's Legacy) by Jacqueline Carey

Jvstin, August 17, 2008

Kushiel's Justice is the second in the Imriel Trilogy of Jacqueline Carey, and thus the fifth book overall set in her sumptuous alternate history set around Terre D'Ange, the land of angels.

Not for those new to this series or the author, Kushiel's Justice continues to highlight Carey's strongest suit, world-building, as we continue to follow the story of Imriel. The son of the disgraced Melisande Shahrazai matures in this novel, and his refusal to follow the precept of Blessed Elua (with respect to his secret lover) has far reaching, and tragic consequences.

Carey's worldbuilding and Imriel's adventures bring him a marriage, a trip to Alba (England), and the loss of his wife takes him to a completely new land in the series: Vralia (in our world, Russia). The details of her alternate world continue to be teased out, and kept me as a reader continuing to read.Carey has quickly catapulted herself to the level of the best writers of alternate history in this regard.

I am not convinced that Imriel is quite as good a protagonist as Phedre was; I have a sneaking suspicion that in the reversal of the usual problem, Carey writes female characters in far better detail and motivation than her male characters. Indeed, I found the daughters of the Queen, Alais and Sidonie, somewhat more convincing than Imriel himself as a character. Still, Imriel does grow throughout the book and I look forward to seeing if this character growth is sustained in the third and final novel of the series.

Anyone who has followed Carey's novels to this point will not be disappointed in Kushiel's Justice.

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Implied Spaces by Walter Jon Williams

Jvstin, July 19, 2008

It's not often that you read a novel which creates a subgenre, sui generis. Implied Spaces, by Walter Jon Williams, manages that feat with the inauguration of the "Sword and Singularity" subgenre of SF.

For those who don't know what a Singularity is, in brief, its the idea that when trans-human intelligences (be it computer, cyborg or what have you) come into existence, life and history as we know it will be utterly transformed, and life after it will be as alien to us as our modern technological existence is alien to our ancestors in the Paleolithic era.

In Implied Spaces, Walter Jon Williams creates a "sword and singularity" novel. What this means is, pace S.M. Stirling, is that fantasy ideas, tropes and even settings are convincingly melded with the high technology of a post-Singularity environment. We start off the novel in a fantasy world environment that, if it were just a random tidbit found on the internet, would at first look like a well written but ordinary fantasy novel. Aristide has a talking cat, sure, but in a world of trolls and monsters, that's not unusual.

When his sword comes out, and starts acting like Morgaine Chaya's Changeling, complete with a wormhole, the reader starts getting an inkling that there is much more to the universe than meets the eye. We soon get ever grander vistas and situations as, with Aristide as our guide, we meet A.I.'s, post-human characters, wormhole technology, mass drivers using wormholes as weapons, and technology capable of affecting the most fundamental elements of reality.

As Keanu Reeves famously once said: "Whoa!"

The book is philosophical, comic, action packed, thoughtful and stunningly well written. I've been a fan of Williams work for a long while, and he hits all cylinders here. This novel is precisely for people who can read good fat fantasy, and yet strongly appreciate the High-tech SF of, say, Charlie Stross.

Highly Recommended.

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Legacies (Corean Chronicles) by L E Jr Modesitt

Jvstin, July 13, 2008

Stop me if you have heard this story before.

Moderately capable young man from humble beginnings in an agrarian society slowly grows into strange and unusual abilities. Circumstances force him away from his pastoral home, forcing him to grow up. His benevolent land is under threat from lands both greedy and outright evil, and our hero is instrumental in dealing with these large threats to his small society.

Yeah, it sounds like, for those who have read it, a lot like Modesitt's Recluce novels. The magic system here is different, and this is a post-apocalypse world, where there are few people who can wield "Talent" for good or evil, and the technology is higher, but its very similar to Recluce. The writing is better than the early novels in that series, but the basic ur-text of the story is the same.

That said, we get some strange creatures, decently interesting politics, and hints of what this world lost when its fell. The battle scenes are all right, there is a fair amount in this novel devoted to battle tactics, since the hero is first conscripted, and then turned into a janissary.

Relationships...well, Modesitt still doesn't write romance. I guess he is better living a happy marriage and relationship than actually writing one. So Alucius, our hero, has a girl promising to wait for him, but the relationship's development really doesn't happen with any complexity.

Still, if you have read him before, and are tempted to read him again, you know what you are reading for, virtue wise. Complex worlds, competent heroes who might have doubt--but don't spend half the book doing nothing or moping about it. They get on, they progress, they are catalysts and protagonists.

If you wanted to try his fantasy for the first time, this is probably a good example of a book to do it, so you can get a feel for his writing style, his proclivities and peculiarities (Modesitt loves to write about food, for example...).

I am of the opinion that his SF is much better than his fantasy, even if, especially given our economic times, he writes much more fantasy. So while I am not especially interested in continuing to read this series, it didn't offend me and I don't regret the time I took to do so. I mostly read it on my trip to and from The Black Road, and to kill time in an airport and an airplane, it served its purpose very well. I don't especially recommend it.

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