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Ash (Mary Gentle)
I forgot that I read Ash in December and January!
Ash: A Secret History (2000)(Mary Gentle) is alt history fantasy. It uses the word "fuck" a lot. The thumping doorstopper of a novel claims to be based on medieval texts covering the life of a mercenary captain, Ash, with a number of interstitial email hardcopies of conversations between the "translator" and a publisher's agent. The emails are less unimportant than they initially appear.
I made my first stab at Ash pre-LJ... late high school? Early college? In the US, It was published in four paperback volumes, and I happened to get my hands on the first. It was a period of indiscriminate reading. I struggled through the rape, gore, and sense that something was Not Right about the historical background until the end of the first volume, and despite my usual completionist streak, never got around to the rest of the series.
However, Ash is now available in one complete ebook, and was $3.99 when![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
cahn picked it up based on rachelmanija's reread and got me thinking about it again. Just as importantly, I was doing a lot of travel in December and January, and big fat ebooks pack exceptionally well for long flights.
Before getting into the interesting structural choices, I'd suggest that Fernando del Guiz needed to be shived, not screwed, no matter how ~hot and knightly~ he is. But then, ~knightly hotness~ is not my type, and if Fernando had been dead by the end of the honeymoon river trip, this would have been an entirely different novel.
Speaking of the del Guiz family, Floria! Or Florian. I feel there's an essay to be written about Floria was a woman passing as a man so she can pursue her medical ambitions; and another essay about Florian as a trans man; and then there's the Duchess, who grounds reality, while also having a very elusive and somewhat "lines? Expectations? I am ignoring them" personal identity/reality. I am generally in favor of both messy personal identity issues, and also in favor of said issues getting shunted off to the side to Get Story Done.
If people comment and would like to discuss, I probably have more to say about the actual plot of the Wild Machines fronting a Carthaginian invasion of medieval Europe, Ash's struggles with her origin, Pierce and Anna's emails, the final battle's body count, the nature of reality in the Burgundian pre-fracture timeline, and how much Godfrey's infuriating pining would be even worse if Godfrey and Ash's genders were reversed, just for a start. And oh yes, the final twist of the Wild Machines maybe having a point could be a meaty discussion topic, too.
Ash: A Secret History (2000)(Mary Gentle) is alt history fantasy. It uses the word "fuck" a lot. The thumping doorstopper of a novel claims to be based on medieval texts covering the life of a mercenary captain, Ash, with a number of interstitial email hardcopies of conversations between the "translator" and a publisher's agent. The emails are less unimportant than they initially appear.
I made my first stab at Ash pre-LJ... late high school? Early college? In the US, It was published in four paperback volumes, and I happened to get my hands on the first. It was a period of indiscriminate reading. I struggled through the rape, gore, and sense that something was Not Right about the historical background until the end of the first volume, and despite my usual completionist streak, never got around to the rest of the series.
However, Ash is now available in one complete ebook, and was $3.99 when
cahn picked it up based on rachelmanija's reread and got me thinking about it again. Just as importantly, I was doing a lot of travel in December and January, and big fat ebooks pack exceptionally well for long flights. Before getting into the interesting structural choices, I'd suggest that Fernando del Guiz needed to be shived, not screwed, no matter how ~hot and knightly~ he is. But then, ~knightly hotness~ is not my type, and if Fernando had been dead by the end of the honeymoon river trip, this would have been an entirely different novel.
Speaking of the del Guiz family, Floria! Or Florian. I feel there's an essay to be written about Floria was a woman passing as a man so she can pursue her medical ambitions; and another essay about Florian as a trans man; and then there's the Duchess, who grounds reality, while also having a very elusive and somewhat "lines? Expectations? I am ignoring them" personal identity/reality. I am generally in favor of both messy personal identity issues, and also in favor of said issues getting shunted off to the side to Get Story Done.
If people comment and would like to discuss, I probably have more to say about the actual plot of the Wild Machines fronting a Carthaginian invasion of medieval Europe, Ash's struggles with her origin, Pierce and Anna's emails, the final battle's body count, the nature of reality in the Burgundian pre-fracture timeline, and how much Godfrey's infuriating pining would be even worse if Godfrey and Ash's genders were reversed, just for a start. And oh yes, the final twist of the Wild Machines maybe having a point could be a meaty discussion topic, too.