Recent Reading
May. 11th, 2023 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseMissing Reading Wednesday, but here's some reading.
Some Desperate Glory (Emily Tesh) (2023): Why look, I took notes as I read.
0.) Content warning: I am pretty sure this is not here for me. On the one hand, I am Dubious, because would I have shied away from the fiction I enjoyed if it warned me Here Be Triggering Content? On the other hand, I am pretty sure I'm not the target audience for this sort of thing.
1.) Gaea
I don't know why I am suspicious of this Jole guy. Is it the trappings of Aryan cultism in Valkyr's thoughts? Is it because I'm still annoyed about how flabby I found Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen?
...definitely the Bujold!Jole vibes pinging my Suspicion meter. I have Beef with that novel.
...OH MY WOW. Valkyr received wisdom: four dreadnoughts sacrificed themselves to make Gaea station. Implications of Admiral Marston's distress call: Jole and his people hijacked the DNs, killed the crew, stole Marston's daughter Ursa, and scraped up enough cellular material to make Magnus and Valkyr.
Cleo's not wrong about Valkyr running instead of taking her assignment in the teeth. Sucks to be on the wrong side of the patriarchy, Kyr. Enjoy your upcoming cult deprogramming, which is going to involve you having new thoughts like "maybe I am on the wrong side of history" and "Uncle Jole lied to me" and "I perpetuated systemic oppression through specific instances of violence and abuse of others." This is going to be unpleasant for you and good times for readers, I suspect.
2) Chrysothemis
Magnus: I... I'm queer.
Valkyr: But you're not a traitor.
Magnus: Vallie, queer is bad on Gaea, it's basically being a traitor, I am trying to tell you something import-
Valkyr: - are with the cause or not? Stop getting worked up about sex stuff, I really don't care.
There's other stuff going on with Ursula and Ally & etc, but these are my notes, I can write for maximum self-amusement if I want.
3) Wisdom
Aka... that thing Valkyr can't find when she trips over it.
Avi: I kill allllmost everything. That's my win state.
Me: there has to be a reset coming.
Author, via the Wisdom: yeah, about that. multiverse time travel initiated
4) Magnus Terra
Have a multiverse. Have choices. Destroy all your enemies, or almost all of them, by hijacking the Wisdom. That didn't work out. Let's try a time slip and a universe where Earth isn't destroyed. The masters of the Wisdom change, so maybe some lives get better. Maybe a different set of lives are crushed under the boot-heels of fascism, hegemony, and utilitarianism, fueled by multiverse technology. And look, Jole's fitted himself with some fancy wi-fi adapters for better multiverse tech interfacing.
No? That's not working for you either?
Well. There's always sitting on your hands and dying.
Or...
5) Vitrix
Third time is the charm?
Third time is the iteration where Vallie realizes she has been The Worst in two timelines, at least.
So pros: multiverse. Multiverse! Fun shadowspace technology MacGuffin vibes. Valkyr being terrible in multiple timelines. Fun hints the Majoda Zi did stuff with their shadowspace technology that destroyed them. Okay, that's entirely my own reading on why there's five Princes of the Wisdom and zero (0) living homeworld, but roll with it. Tesh's lovely prose, which makes for excellent audiobooks and a pleasurable reading experience.
Cons: at one point, characters are arguing about mayhem and revenge, and someone points out that at the bottom of the Cult vs Fascism vs the Majoda Zi, the Earth is still destroyed, so maybe cult of destruction is bad, but, uh, people mad about planetary destruction also have a point. I think there's more to dig at there, and overlooking that weakened the novel. The narrative doesn't really explain how the Wisdom's suicide / self-destruction is an answer to that point. That lack of follow-through takes that from a tight plot to a convenient out to get to Timeline Three.
Mixed: It was fun being one step ahead of Kyr's emotional arc. And it was impressive that Avi, who hates Gaea, got access to the Wisdom node on Chrysothemis and immediately proved he was as terrible as Gaea Station's worst.
I'm not sure I buy the multiverse use as-is. This isn't Fringe, there's no Walter Bishop binding two universes and forcing a binary choice through his short-sighted and poorly-intentioned choices. Why couldn't the Wisdom suicide right before Doomsday? Why couldn't it withdraw from its "eyes" a hundred years ago? Look, you make an omniscient all-powerful MacGuffin, I'm going to poke at it until I figure out the rules the author is using, other than "seemed like a good idea at the time."
Tesh's writing has a type: "nice man falls for man who actively makes things worse." Magnus and Avi are absolutely in the same flavor as Tobias and Fabian, or even Tobias and Henry.
Vibe checks: "humans are the space orcs" tumblr/reddit collective shirtposting; I keep taking out Mass Effect because "one person could've saved the Earth and didn't" isn't the ME point, and putting it back in for the cold open in low Earth orbit, and then taking it out because "humans nearly get themselves destroyed during first contact / early FTL exploration" is not exclusively an ME problem; "you had one job" meme, yes, thank you Avicenna. Self-made Prince Undying John "memes and genocide are my self-expression" Gaius and Avi are never allowed to hang out. Enough multiverse and blonde child soldier vibes to hit my Fringe buttons.
B+ novel. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't vote it as The Best Novel of 2023. I also would make all my friends read it, so we can talk about it until we are talked out.
Together We Will Go (J. Michael Straczynski) (2021): Bought this immediately on release. Started reading on vacation last year, put it down for a while, picked it up again in April, blazed through it in a couple of days. Just had to be in the right place, I guess.
This felt very JMS, in a good way: ensemble, human condition, a deeply emotional scene about how much someone loves their cat. If I were the crying type, I would have cried.
The final discussion was a little pat, but I also appreciated the format showing different people coming together, and their different experiences. And the different pains, physical or emotional, that lead to their wish to live one good road trip and end it on their terms.
Some Desperate Glory (Emily Tesh) (2023): Why look, I took notes as I read.
0.) Content warning: I am pretty sure this is not here for me. On the one hand, I am Dubious, because would I have shied away from the fiction I enjoyed if it warned me Here Be Triggering Content? On the other hand, I am pretty sure I'm not the target audience for this sort of thing.
1.) Gaea
I don't know why I am suspicious of this Jole guy. Is it the trappings of Aryan cultism in Valkyr's thoughts? Is it because I'm still annoyed about how flabby I found Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen?
...definitely the Bujold!Jole vibes pinging my Suspicion meter. I have Beef with that novel.
...OH MY WOW. Valkyr received wisdom: four dreadnoughts sacrificed themselves to make Gaea station. Implications of Admiral Marston's distress call: Jole and his people hijacked the DNs, killed the crew, stole Marston's daughter Ursa, and scraped up enough cellular material to make Magnus and Valkyr.
Cleo's not wrong about Valkyr running instead of taking her assignment in the teeth. Sucks to be on the wrong side of the patriarchy, Kyr. Enjoy your upcoming cult deprogramming, which is going to involve you having new thoughts like "maybe I am on the wrong side of history" and "Uncle Jole lied to me" and "I perpetuated systemic oppression through specific instances of violence and abuse of others." This is going to be unpleasant for you and good times for readers, I suspect.
2) Chrysothemis
Magnus: I... I'm queer.
Valkyr: But you're not a traitor.
Magnus: Vallie, queer is bad on Gaea, it's basically being a traitor, I am trying to tell you something import-
Valkyr: - are with the cause or not? Stop getting worked up about sex stuff, I really don't care.
There's other stuff going on with Ursula and Ally & etc, but these are my notes, I can write for maximum self-amusement if I want.
3) Wisdom
Aka... that thing Valkyr can't find when she trips over it.
Avi: I kill allllmost everything. That's my win state.
Me: there has to be a reset coming.
Author, via the Wisdom: yeah, about that. multiverse time travel initiated
4) Magnus Terra
Have a multiverse. Have choices. Destroy all your enemies, or almost all of them, by hijacking the Wisdom. That didn't work out. Let's try a time slip and a universe where Earth isn't destroyed. The masters of the Wisdom change, so maybe some lives get better. Maybe a different set of lives are crushed under the boot-heels of fascism, hegemony, and utilitarianism, fueled by multiverse technology. And look, Jole's fitted himself with some fancy wi-fi adapters for better multiverse tech interfacing.
No? That's not working for you either?
Well. There's always sitting on your hands and dying.
Or...
5) Vitrix
Third time is the charm?
Third time is the iteration where Vallie realizes she has been The Worst in two timelines, at least.
So pros: multiverse. Multiverse! Fun shadowspace technology MacGuffin vibes. Valkyr being terrible in multiple timelines. Fun hints the Majoda Zi did stuff with their shadowspace technology that destroyed them. Okay, that's entirely my own reading on why there's five Princes of the Wisdom and zero (0) living homeworld, but roll with it. Tesh's lovely prose, which makes for excellent audiobooks and a pleasurable reading experience.
Cons: at one point, characters are arguing about mayhem and revenge, and someone points out that at the bottom of the Cult vs Fascism vs the Majoda Zi, the Earth is still destroyed, so maybe cult of destruction is bad, but, uh, people mad about planetary destruction also have a point. I think there's more to dig at there, and overlooking that weakened the novel. The narrative doesn't really explain how the Wisdom's suicide / self-destruction is an answer to that point. That lack of follow-through takes that from a tight plot to a convenient out to get to Timeline Three.
Mixed: It was fun being one step ahead of Kyr's emotional arc. And it was impressive that Avi, who hates Gaea, got access to the Wisdom node on Chrysothemis and immediately proved he was as terrible as Gaea Station's worst.
I'm not sure I buy the multiverse use as-is. This isn't Fringe, there's no Walter Bishop binding two universes and forcing a binary choice through his short-sighted and poorly-intentioned choices. Why couldn't the Wisdom suicide right before Doomsday? Why couldn't it withdraw from its "eyes" a hundred years ago? Look, you make an omniscient all-powerful MacGuffin, I'm going to poke at it until I figure out the rules the author is using, other than "seemed like a good idea at the time."
Tesh's writing has a type: "nice man falls for man who actively makes things worse." Magnus and Avi are absolutely in the same flavor as Tobias and Fabian, or even Tobias and Henry.
Vibe checks: "humans are the space orcs" tumblr/reddit collective shirtposting; I keep taking out Mass Effect because "one person could've saved the Earth and didn't" isn't the ME point, and putting it back in for the cold open in low Earth orbit, and then taking it out because "humans nearly get themselves destroyed during first contact / early FTL exploration" is not exclusively an ME problem; "you had one job" meme, yes, thank you Avicenna. Self-made Prince Undying John "memes and genocide are my self-expression" Gaius and Avi are never allowed to hang out. Enough multiverse and blonde child soldier vibes to hit my Fringe buttons.
B+ novel. I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't vote it as The Best Novel of 2023. I also would make all my friends read it, so we can talk about it until we are talked out.
Together We Will Go (J. Michael Straczynski) (2021): Bought this immediately on release. Started reading on vacation last year, put it down for a while, picked it up again in April, blazed through it in a couple of days. Just had to be in the right place, I guess.
This felt very JMS, in a good way: ensemble, human condition, a deeply emotional scene about how much someone loves their cat. If I were the crying type, I would have cried.
The final discussion was a little pat, but I also appreciated the format showing different people coming together, and their different experiences. And the different pains, physical or emotional, that lead to their wish to live one good road trip and end it on their terms.