2023 Reading: Victoria Goddard (Numerous)
Nov. 4th, 2023 09:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aseMy experience of the works of Victoria Goddard, so far:
Naturally I looked at Goddard's bibliography and tried to read in publication order, and also naturally I still read out of publication order. Stargazy Pie (2016) was published after The Tower at the Edge of the World (2014) and Til Human Voices Wake Us (also 2014).
The early works definitely show a writer finding her craft. Til Human Voices Wake Us is extremely first novel, with bonus "I just finished my doctoral thesis on Dante and Boethius" vibes. Stargazy Pie has some pacing and unreliable narrator issues that inclined me to read future novel summaries before continuing. The sequel, Bee Sting Cake, is much more even and has a much better grasp on the characters, and the Greenwing and Dart series further improves from there. Watch out for the mid-series genre switch from regency vibes with fantasy / adult fairy tale structure, to adult fairy tale structure which incidentally has some regency bits hung on for show. It plays well to Goddard's excellent use of the numinous, and smooths out some of the "why didn't anyone notice X during university" issues (because if it had been noticed, this would be a very different story), but I think it also flattens out some of the Austen / Heyer Small English Town character work to accommodate the shift.
Related to that Goddard comes close to the edge of my "handwaving as worldbuilding" tolerance. There is rather a lot of "don't think about the timelines, they make Narnia time look organized and intuitive."
On the plus side, the novels are compulsively readable, especially as Goddard finds her craft sweet spots. A+ flowing prose, A+ potato chip novels.
Goddard cites Bujold as a formative influence, particularly the Five Gods novels, which shows a lot in The Hands of the Emperor, which is long on Loyal Bureaucrat vibes that would do Cazaril proud, and is a little vague on governmental policy wonkery. The influence also shows in the Greenwing and Dart novels. It only took five novels and a long thoughtful walk, but yes, of course I appreciate Jemis completely despairing of any chance to live up to his father, the great military hero.
I also may have muttered something about "emo Herald-Mages" somewhere in Jemis angsting about his father, his inability to fix his personal problems, his impacts on local and kingdom-level politics... I regret I didn't save that for The Hands of the Emperor, which also has characters who need to be hit on the head with the "get out of your head" stick.
After finishing the main sequence novels, I read the related short stories, which overall I found slight and mostly redundant. I'm also going to be petty and suggest that, for me, "The Saint of the Bookstore" is excessively twee and could have doubled down on some half-sibling character development, instead of introducing some random Cute No-Longer-Dying-Thanks-to-Unicorn Walk-On Kid.
On that cheerful note, I made a run at (almost) all things related to the Red Company and Zunidth.
The novels of the Avramapul sisters - The Bride of the Blue Wind and The Warrior of the Third Veil - are solid fantasy and stand on their own, apart from the rest of the Nine Worlds novels. If you like positive sister relationships, women saving each other, and are okay with the occasional Terrible Husband Is Terrible, these are worth reading.
The Hands of the Emperor probably merits its own tvtropes entry... oh look at that, it already exists. If you wanted a novel with hardcore platonic loyalty, for three hundred and twenty-five thousand words, do I have the novel for you! The platonic part is enforced by an unfortunate history of people who touch the Emperor incidentally going the way of people who touch a high-voltage electrical current while ungrounded: burned and very dead. The current Emperor, for Reasons of Magical Catastrophe Backstory, has been downgraded from "meet his eyes and be blinded by magic overload" to "make eye contact and maybe get a migraine, should the plot require it".
The novel is from the PoV of bureaucrat extraordinaire Cliopher "Kip" Mdang, who is The Best Secretary Ever, which somehow also translates to The Best Negotiator And Leader of World Government Ever, and yet somehow - somehow! - his family still doesn't love him the way he wants to be loved by his (very large) family. This provides recurring angst for Kip, who somehow can eradicate poverty, introduce anti-corruption and democratic reforms, abolish censorship, and yet his mother still thinks he is just a minor secretary until he's appointed basically the (interim) leader of the world government.
Another major thread is Kip struggling with advancing his subversive progressive agenda against publicly owning the culture he grew up in, and his advanced home cultural knowledge, in the context of an Imperial culture that looks at his home culture as primitive and backwards. I am not sure a nice Canadian academic-turned-writer like Goddard is the best person to tackle this concept, but as someone who does not struggle with culture clash and code-switching in daily life, I'm also maybe not the best judge of whether the story hits a resonant point or goes full White People And Their Misunderstandings. Certainly would be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this.
There's several chronologically overlapping Zunidth and Zunidth-adjacent works around The Hands of the Emperor: so far, the novels The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul and The Return of Fitzroy Angursell; the shorter works "Petty Treasons", "Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander", and "Those Who Hold The Fire". "Terec and the Wild" and "Aurelius (To Be Called) Magnus" are set pre-Hands but can be read post-Hands quite effectively. "The Game of Courts" is recently out and is on the to-read list.
The next big doorstop is At the Feet of the Sun, which clocks in at 380,000 words of Kip shenanigans. My goodness that man can pine. At that length, he also can be a Good Servant of the People, Have An Adventure (or two), and did I mention the pining? Kip has The Feelings baaaaaaaaaad for His Radiancy. He (and the reader) get some Feelings Resolution, and also a lot of very indulgent sub-series crossovers. Kip and his boss might need a few more rounds of being hit with the "get out of your head" stick before resolving their remaining issues, but Goddard has indicated a third novel is on the drawing board.
A notable number of people in this fandom do not stan Pali Avramapul And The Emotions Struggle Bus. I stan it strongly enough to have Thoughts, so there will be future commentary on The Pali Problem.
There's a fan-run discord linked from the FAQ page on Goddard's website. Some cut scenes and other bits are available via the Discord, which as of this writing is about 1,000 people strong, with a smaller core of active members.
- various people discuss The Hands of the Emperor in ways that make me go "meh, maybe eventually."
- years later, K., a good guide for overlapping tastes, loses her mind over same. Invocation of beloved tropes is involved.
- several months ago, norabombay said, "if someone had mentioned the whole 'can't touch the Emperor' thing is because people tend to die when they do it, because of the magic system, and not Because Emo, I would've read this years ago. Go get a copy."
Naturally I looked at Goddard's bibliography and tried to read in publication order, and also naturally I still read out of publication order. Stargazy Pie (2016) was published after The Tower at the Edge of the World (2014) and Til Human Voices Wake Us (also 2014).
The early works definitely show a writer finding her craft. Til Human Voices Wake Us is extremely first novel, with bonus "I just finished my doctoral thesis on Dante and Boethius" vibes. Stargazy Pie has some pacing and unreliable narrator issues that inclined me to read future novel summaries before continuing. The sequel, Bee Sting Cake, is much more even and has a much better grasp on the characters, and the Greenwing and Dart series further improves from there. Watch out for the mid-series genre switch from regency vibes with fantasy / adult fairy tale structure, to adult fairy tale structure which incidentally has some regency bits hung on for show. It plays well to Goddard's excellent use of the numinous, and smooths out some of the "why didn't anyone notice X during university" issues (because if it had been noticed, this would be a very different story), but I think it also flattens out some of the Austen / Heyer Small English Town character work to accommodate the shift.
Related to that Goddard comes close to the edge of my "handwaving as worldbuilding" tolerance. There is rather a lot of "don't think about the timelines, they make Narnia time look organized and intuitive."
On the plus side, the novels are compulsively readable, especially as Goddard finds her craft sweet spots. A+ flowing prose, A+ potato chip novels.
Goddard cites Bujold as a formative influence, particularly the Five Gods novels, which shows a lot in The Hands of the Emperor, which is long on Loyal Bureaucrat vibes that would do Cazaril proud, and is a little vague on governmental policy wonkery. The influence also shows in the Greenwing and Dart novels. It only took five novels and a long thoughtful walk, but yes, of course I appreciate Jemis completely despairing of any chance to live up to his father, the great military hero.
I also may have muttered something about "emo Herald-Mages" somewhere in Jemis angsting about his father, his inability to fix his personal problems, his impacts on local and kingdom-level politics... I regret I didn't save that for The Hands of the Emperor, which also has characters who need to be hit on the head with the "get out of your head" stick.
After finishing the main sequence novels, I read the related short stories, which overall I found slight and mostly redundant. I'm also going to be petty and suggest that, for me, "The Saint of the Bookstore" is excessively twee and could have doubled down on some half-sibling character development, instead of introducing some random Cute No-Longer-Dying-Thanks-to-Unicorn Walk-On Kid.
On that cheerful note, I made a run at (almost) all things related to the Red Company and Zunidth.
The novels of the Avramapul sisters - The Bride of the Blue Wind and The Warrior of the Third Veil - are solid fantasy and stand on their own, apart from the rest of the Nine Worlds novels. If you like positive sister relationships, women saving each other, and are okay with the occasional Terrible Husband Is Terrible, these are worth reading.
The Hands of the Emperor probably merits its own tvtropes entry... oh look at that, it already exists. If you wanted a novel with hardcore platonic loyalty, for three hundred and twenty-five thousand words, do I have the novel for you! The platonic part is enforced by an unfortunate history of people who touch the Emperor incidentally going the way of people who touch a high-voltage electrical current while ungrounded: burned and very dead. The current Emperor, for Reasons of Magical Catastrophe Backstory, has been downgraded from "meet his eyes and be blinded by magic overload" to "make eye contact and maybe get a migraine, should the plot require it".
The novel is from the PoV of bureaucrat extraordinaire Cliopher "Kip" Mdang, who is The Best Secretary Ever, which somehow also translates to The Best Negotiator And Leader of World Government Ever, and yet somehow - somehow! - his family still doesn't love him the way he wants to be loved by his (very large) family. This provides recurring angst for Kip, who somehow can eradicate poverty, introduce anti-corruption and democratic reforms, abolish censorship, and yet his mother still thinks he is just a minor secretary until he's appointed basically the (interim) leader of the world government.
Another major thread is Kip struggling with advancing his subversive progressive agenda against publicly owning the culture he grew up in, and his advanced home cultural knowledge, in the context of an Imperial culture that looks at his home culture as primitive and backwards. I am not sure a nice Canadian academic-turned-writer like Goddard is the best person to tackle this concept, but as someone who does not struggle with culture clash and code-switching in daily life, I'm also maybe not the best judge of whether the story hits a resonant point or goes full White People And Their Misunderstandings. Certainly would be interested to hear other people's thoughts on this.
There's several chronologically overlapping Zunidth and Zunidth-adjacent works around The Hands of the Emperor: so far, the novels The Redoubtable Pali Avramapul and The Return of Fitzroy Angursell; the shorter works "Petty Treasons", "Portrait of a Wide Seas Islander", and "Those Who Hold The Fire". "Terec and the Wild" and "Aurelius (To Be Called) Magnus" are set pre-Hands but can be read post-Hands quite effectively. "The Game of Courts" is recently out and is on the to-read list.
The next big doorstop is At the Feet of the Sun, which clocks in at 380,000 words of Kip shenanigans. My goodness that man can pine. At that length, he also can be a Good Servant of the People, Have An Adventure (or two), and did I mention the pining? Kip has The Feelings baaaaaaaaaad for His Radiancy. He (and the reader) get some Feelings Resolution, and also a lot of very indulgent sub-series crossovers. Kip and his boss might need a few more rounds of being hit with the "get out of your head" stick before resolving their remaining issues, but Goddard has indicated a third novel is on the drawing board.
A notable number of people in this fandom do not stan Pali Avramapul And The Emotions Struggle Bus. I stan it strongly enough to have Thoughts, so there will be future commentary on The Pali Problem.
There's a fan-run discord linked from the FAQ page on Goddard's website. Some cut scenes and other bits are available via the Discord, which as of this writing is about 1,000 people strong, with a smaller core of active members.